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US Digital Currency

blog.samaltman.com

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Re: US Digital Currency

#51

Post by drewrobb »

raesene9 wrote: post #23

As others have already commented, existing currencies are already "digital". On my most recent trip abroad (to Copenhagen) I took some physical currency, and didn't use it at all. Every transaction was digital and instantaneous (I use a Monzo Mastercard). I got a smartphone notification within 5 seconds of having approved the transaction. The original promise of "cryptocurrencies" appeared, to me, to be decentralizat…

Having transaction data hidden from governments isn't the essential feature of decentralization in the original promise of cryptocurrencies. The essential feature is preventing a single party from tampering with transactions or account balances. This is still true for bitcoin and many others.

Re: US Digital Currency

#52

Post by mindslight »

Why the hell is it a foregone conclusion that government-blessed money would need to surveillance built in ("USDC could require that certain [all] transaction can only happen with wallets with known owners")? I know that's clearly what the totalitarian pervs in power desire, but why would someone out in the free world just accept and advocate such a thing?!

USG could have started issuing simple Chaumian-blinded tokens ages ago, and even still could - keeping the monetary policy under its control. They could even adopt one of the many proposed systems that's rigged with identity-escrow, leaving average users free from their surveillance. It's not too late to compete but to do so they have to compete, not just keep pushing the same busted-ass paradigm of non-fungibility that spurred Bitcoin adoption in the first place.

Re: US Digital Currency

#53

Post by ex3ndr »

Does Sam knows about Russian "privatization" when everyone in the country got some "tokens" of various nationalized entities like factories or farms. What's in the end?. People didn't know what to do with this and traded them for bunch of vodka or some amount of cash. Eventually everything became owned by a small group of the people.

Exactly what happens with bitcoin thought.

Re: US Digital Currency

#54

Post by dragonwriter »

kolbe wrote: post #48
stale2002 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The "government" can't "arbitrarily inflate the currency"." The US government can literally do this. They can print as much money as they feel like. It would be 'dumb' for sure, but the US treasury is indeed allowed to do this. There was even talks of solving the national debt crisis by having Obama create a trillion dollar coin a couple years ago.

If the US Treasury did that, it would be illegal. The coin thing is a hack that would probably be challenged in court, because it's illegal for the Treasury to arbitrarily print money, except when it's silver. So, you're not wrong in that the treasury can physically do those things, but it's in the same way that you wouldn't be wrong if you claim North Korea can do the same by illegally counterfeiting endless dollars…

> The coin thing is a hack that would probably be challenged in court,

Probably on some basis, but it would also probably survive the kind of challenge you describe.

> because it's illegal for the Treasury to arbitrarily print money, except when it's silver.

Platinum, actually, not silver. [31 USC § 5112(k)] Which is why minting the coin as a platinum coin was an essential component of the idea.

Re: US Digital Currency

#55

Post by soperj »

skybrian wrote: post #46
paulmd wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Cryptocurrency is slower than card networks. It's more expensive than practically any other way of sending money. And as far as scale goes, it would need to become orders of magnitude more efficient to handle even a small percentage of consumer transactions. Cryptocurrency with a centralized authority is not subject to these issues. After all, if there is a trusted authority then what you really have is a database…

Yes, that's not really cryptocurrency anymore. It's a federal bank that has retail customers. Maybe not a bad idea, though. It might make some government payments (such as Social Security) more efficient?

>that's not really cryptocurrency anymore

Why not?

Re: US Digital Currency

#56

Post by WhiteOwlLion »

You have to decide if you want inflation or a fixed supply? Even with a fixed supply, transaction fees eat away at the available supply (aside from hodlers) which means the value could potentially rise from scarcity. That's not good for commerce if you need a currency that needs a stable value.

If there is a government backed currency, I think there should be no transaction fees.

A USDC could also mean tax jurisdictions could be paid immediately when there is a sale. If sales tax is 10%, the state might get 7%, county gets 2%, and city gets 1%... the distribution is immediate so you have daily cash flow.

Re: US Digital Currency

#57

Post by thisisit »

stale2002 wrote: post #13
tpfour wrote: post #6

What is this... jotting down some notes? I guess this will generate discussion because Sam wrote it, but it is probably one of the most boring and banal ideas in the space. And the exposition is very... shallow to say the least. "A tricky part of this would be how to balance letting the network have control over itself and letting the government have some special degree of input on ‘monetary policy’. It’s certainly o…

"The "government" can't "arbitrarily inflate the currency"." The US government can literally do this. They can print as much money as they feel like. It would be 'dumb' for sure, but the US treasury is indeed allowed to do this. There was even talks of solving the national debt crisis by having Obama create a trillion dollar coin a couple years ago.

There is a more complicated relationship going on than central government printing money:

https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/082515/who-decides-...

The myth that the central bank prints money became prevalent following the Great Recession, when many were concerned about the unconventional policies of the central bank, which included intervention in the commercial paper market, mortgages and outright purchases of debt to keep the system from collapsing. By the end of the recession, the Federal Reserve had expanded its balance sheet by nearly $4 trillion.

Re: US Digital Currency

#59

Post by nostrademons »

soperj wrote: post #55
skybrian wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, that's not really cryptocurrency anymore. It's a federal bank that has retail customers. Maybe not a bad idea, though. It might make some government payments (such as Social Security) more efficient?

>that's not really cryptocurrency anymore Why not?

The "crypto" in "cryptocurrency" refers to the use of encryption primitives and digital signatures to ensure the authenticity of one's balance without needing to trust a central authority.

If you're trusting a central authority anyway, then all this is unnecessary, and you can replace it all with an API over a database, as paulmd's post suggests. But then you've eliminated the whole reason why people use cryptocurrency, and what differentiates it from Visa.

Re: US Digital Currency

#60

Post by tpfour »

stale2002 wrote: post #13
tpfour wrote: post #6

What is this... jotting down some notes? I guess this will generate discussion because Sam wrote it, but it is probably one of the most boring and banal ideas in the space. And the exposition is very... shallow to say the least. "A tricky part of this would be how to balance letting the network have control over itself and letting the government have some special degree of input on ‘monetary policy’. It’s certainly o…

"The "government" can't "arbitrarily inflate the currency"." The US government can literally do this. They can print as much money as they feel like. It would be 'dumb' for sure, but the US treasury is indeed allowed to do this. There was even talks of solving the national debt crisis by having Obama create a trillion dollar coin a couple years ago.

Well there are rules they have to follow. Just like there would be rules to follow with the crypto coin... Not sure what's the difference.
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