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The Future of the Monetary System [pdf]

credit-suisse.com

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Re: The Future of the Monetary System [pdf]

#61

Post by cupcakecommons »

smallmancontrov wrote: post #38
cupcakecommons wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the vector you think a super power would use to kill it?

1. Just ban it. Kick it off the app stores, prevent financial services companies from dealing with it, and maybe make an example of a renegade bitcoin ATM company to stop nerds like us from getting ideas. 2. Attack the blockchain itself. It can stand bozo-scale hacks, but NSA scale? They control the internet backbone. They can just drop the packets. They have hardware backdoors all over the place and have been known…

I agree that bitcoin is definitely in trouble if there's a powerful totalitarian world government that can unilaterally hack anything, stop any internet service via backdoors and packet manipulation, potentially break double SHA-256 encryption and send invincible commandos into any location without any kind of repercussions.

Re: The Future of the Monetary System [pdf]

#62

Post by smallmancontrov »

crq-yml wrote: post #51
smallmancontrov wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. Just ban it. Kick it off the app stores, prevent financial services companies from dealing with it, and maybe make an example of a renegade bitcoin ATM company to stop nerds like us from getting ideas. 2. Attack the blockchain itself. It can stand bozo-scale hacks, but NSA scale? They control the internet backbone. They can just drop the packets. They have hardware backdoors all over the place and have been known…

What's actually happened in practice: A huge number of politicians became entangled in SBF's operation, and the direct attacks made to date could be construed as attempts to get in at lower prices or control local onramps. Government officials that seek crypto bans end up with conflicts of interest. This is a recurring theme across the various countries that have announced such things. They don't deploy the secret ta…

Remember how people thought WWI couldn't possibly happen because the powerful people were incentivized through their business dealings to keep the peace? It's all fun and games until it becomes an actual threat, and unfortunately we have a pretty good idea from history about how commodity money can turn into a threat.

Re: The Future of the Monetary System [pdf]

#63

Post by smallmancontrov »

cupcakecommons wrote: post #61
smallmancontrov wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. Just ban it. Kick it off the app stores, prevent financial services companies from dealing with it, and maybe make an example of a renegade bitcoin ATM company to stop nerds like us from getting ideas. 2. Attack the blockchain itself. It can stand bozo-scale hacks, but NSA scale? They control the internet backbone. They can just drop the packets. They have hardware backdoors all over the place and have been known…

I agree that bitcoin is definitely in trouble if there's a powerful totalitarian world government that can unilaterally hack anything, stop any internet service via backdoors and packet manipulation, potentially break double SHA-256 encryption and send invincible commandos into any location without any kind of repercussions.

The US has done most of the things you are laughing off, lol.

It's not common for a superpower to deploy its strength. Most of the time you would be right to laugh off the suggestion that it would. Most issues are pretty minor on this scale and internet tough guy rhetoric tends to overestimate the importance of every stupid thing. However, the BTC maximalist scenario is not minor on this scale. It's up there with oil. If it comes for the USD, there will be a fight.

I would bet on BTC today (and have). I would not bet on it to win this fight.

Re: The Future of the Monetary System [pdf]

#64

Post by sedev »

nimbius wrote: post #56
sedev wrote: post #32

From the Conclusions section: > The main question we tried to answer is whether a significant shift away from the US dollar as the dominant “hegemonic” currency is likely to occur in the foreseeable future, and in which direction the monetary system might develop. The key conclusion was that the fate of the US dollar as the currency hegemon depends on a number of factors, with the degree to which US policy makers wou…

Economic sanctions imposed by Switzerland on Russian individuals and businesses had the most significant impact on the demise of the bank. Credit Suisse held about $33 billion for Russian clients, 50% more than UBS. What does any of this have to do with "intellectual rigor?" sources are cited in the paper and the authors are among leading global economists. death by association is a cheap way to avoid the real intell…

You know what, fair, that was too harsh of me; I was probably speaking more out of irritation about the editorial issues. Thanks for the pushback.

Re: The Future of the Monetary System [pdf]

#65

Post by someplaceguy »

zer00eyz wrote: post #59
someplaceguy wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> money is like a legal contract recording how much abstract value you have given to "society" and how much access you have to resources Finally, someone who understands money. As opposed to the typical "but my military!", as if no country with a strong military had ever had its currency fail... I would only emphasize the importance of the scarcity aspect of money, which seems to be a (purposely) forgotten lesson now…

>>> as if no country with a strong military had ever had its currency fail... Has there been a widely accepted currency (true currency) that hasn't had military might behind it? Has there been a dramatic military failure that hasn't been followed by currency decline? Military, state and currency are all interlinked on a pretty deep level.

> Has there been a widely accepted currency (true currency) that hasn't had military might behind it?

Yes, even today, for example, Costa Rica has no military yet they have their own currency. Its Central Bank manipulates its value by buying and selling the currency in the free market, which is what many countries do nowadays (although not always by the same mechanisms).

> Has there been a dramatic military failure that hasn't been followed by currency decline?

Yes, unless by "dramatic military failure" you mean having their economy destroyed, at which point of course the currency fails, but that's because economy destruction leads to currency failure regardless of any military defeats.

However, the better question is: has any country with a strong military ever had its currency fail without any military defeat?

And the answer is yes, plenty, which proves that having a strong military has nothing to do with having a stable currency.

Let's say your currency starts to fail (say, due to hyperinflation)... what is the government going to do with the military to prevent the collapse? Order them to intimidate the market?! That's a completely ridiculous proposition...

Re: The Future of the Monetary System [pdf]

#66

Post by idiotsecant »

throwawayqqq11 wrote: post #48
idiotsecant wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the fundamental and radical idea of cryptocurrency is that this is not true. Currency can have value even if it isn't derived from the point of a sword. I know crypto has a lot of scam baggage and that is unavoidable for a permissionless system, I think. Regardless, the idea that you can wrest away the levers and dials of monetary policy away from world powers and put it in the hands of a permissionless syste…

> I think the fundamental and radical idea of cryptocurrency is that this is not true. Not to sound nitpicky but an idea cant dis-/proof anything. Trust is the only foundation of cryptocurrencies, and your argument is a good example of biased reasoning to coat it with such (i guess you still hodl). The volatility of cryptocurrencies will be their downfall aka. loss of trust in the long term because people already hav…

There is quite a lot of crypto that holds a very consistent value in a trustless, permission-less way and that people (including myself) use as a stable store of value. I suppose you might not be aware of them but it doesn't mean they don't exist. I'm not sure that volatility in layer 1 is a bad thing. You don't buy, for example, Ethereum expecting that it will be worth that same number of us dollars today that it is tomorrow. You buy it to use as computing resource on the ethereum network. If you want something that is stable against the US dollar (which itself pretty wildly volotile lately, thanks to the many Cheeto fingerprints of central bank currency manipulation) you might onstead buy DAI which you can be confident will be worth the number of US dollars you paid for it tomorrow. The ecosystem is maturing and there are valid, elegantly engineered solutions in the crypto space. Don't let the scams and speculation make you ignorant to the real work talented people are doing.

Re: The Future of the Monetary System [pdf]

#67

Post by cupcakecommons »

smallmancontrov wrote: post #63
cupcakecommons wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that bitcoin is definitely in trouble if there's a powerful totalitarian world government that can unilaterally hack anything, stop any internet service via backdoors and packet manipulation, potentially break double SHA-256 encryption and send invincible commandos into any location without any kind of repercussions.

The US has done most of the things you are laughing off, lol. It's not common for a superpower to deploy its strength. Most of the time you would be right to laugh off the suggestion that it would. Most issues are pretty minor on this scale and internet tough guy rhetoric tends to overestimate the importance of every stupid thing. However, the BTC maximalist scenario is not minor on this scale. It's up there with oil…

What about my post suggests I'm laughing anything off? I'm agreeing with you.
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