Comment on SEC says it will deregulate cryptocurrencies with 'Project Crypto'

• Lumisal@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  Yeah, because the last time humans tried decentralized money it also caused a ton of problems.

  Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency isn’t inventing anything new, it’s just doing the same old localized bank notes system again, but with computers™

  Even if crypto had any actual physical value, and solved the stability problems, lack of inflation, etc, it would still end up having control issues, because those already wealthy in a lot of it could manipulate the value easily by simply exchanging it or dumping it.

  So basically you’d just end up with the problems of current currencies + all the problems crypto has, which were the same problems localized notes had 200 or so years as well.

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  • rottingleaf@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    Yes, I’ve remembered my old idea of something like an automated digital barter connected to storage space and computation provided on demand for tokens (every provider an issuer), or something else confirmed by escrow or whatever, after learning that in China 200 years ago people used non-uniform money, that is, all kinds of coins, some literally ancient still in circulation, and somehow that worked.

    That wouldn’t be as convenient as uniform money as a universal equivalent, but wouldn’t have that particular kind of problem, which value manipulation via such globally meaningful action. Simply because there’d be no single variable to manipulate.

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    • Lumisal@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

      after learning that in China 200 years ago people used non-uniform money, that is, all kinds of coins, some literally ancient still in circulation, and somehow that worked

      I’m talking about valuation pegged paper money, not hard value currency. This old strawman is getting old too.

      The coins worked because they were still tangible material with assigned value (ie metals value by weight or marking).

      The local bank paper money was different, and pegged to hard value materials (gold standard).

      Cryptocurrency works like the second because, like the paper money, crypto doesn’t have inherent tangible value (technically even less than paper since it’s completely intangible).

      It doesn’t work like the fucking Chinese coins (which, btw, still relied on a very centralized government existing anyway) because you can’t hold or do anything with 0s and 1s, nor can you physically keep it around.

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      • rottingleaf@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

        because, like the paper money, crypto doesn’t have inherent tangible value

        That’s wrong, “owning a number” is tangible value. That’s also why there are no (working) offline cryptocurrencies, double spending is a problem.

        If by “works like the second” you mean that it doesn’t have physical form, then yeah, that’s in the name.

        which, btw, still relied on a very centralized government existing anyway

        A few of them, different ones, each making their own coins. So no.

        because you can’t hold or do anything with 0s and 1s, nor can you physically keep it around.

        Yeah, that’s a problem, but “fucking Chinese coins” in their value also were worth more than the metals they were made from. Sometimes those metals were not very meaningful for Europeans.

        And using a mix of non-uniform coins for transactions was a thing for much of history in Europe too.

        In any case, in absolutes of course nothing is like any other thing. If your argument fits under that, then don’t bother, it’s boring and useless.

        In relatives - you can have a “half-offline” cryptocurrency, where you don’t need all the network (or good enough majority of it) to be accessible, just one partition (or even just portion) of it, to make a transaction. In theory. This can even seem like a “partitioned blockchain”, LOL. A tree of blockchains.

        There are so many cryptocurrencies so honestly I don’t know if such has been made, but it would be useful.

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