Yeah, but a currency practically needs a military and an economy to back it.
Who is going to stop me from fucking with the bitcoin supply if I own the US economy?
Comment on From millions of dollars to under a grand: The dramatic fall of the NFT
Abyssian@lemmy.world 19 hours agoHaving a currency not backed by a government or different currency is actually something the world could benefit from. Iranian currency was backed by USD, the US caused a shortage of USD there, and their currency value dropped to under 3% of it’s former value. 90 Million people.
That said, I think most of us have only ever used crypto to buy drugs off the internet.
HK65@sopuli.xyz 14 hours ago
captainlezbian@lemmy.world 5 hours ago
Yeah, it also needs to derive its value from somewhere. Any stable nation’s fiat derives its value from the fact that the government is believed trustworthy in matters of printing money and that in order to deal with that government you have to use that currency. An Australian could do all their financial life in etherium assuming everyone takes and offers it, right up until tax time where they have to convert a lot of ETH values into AUD, then trade some ETH for AUD in order to pay taxes. And if they receive any money from their government you bet your ass they aren’t being given ETH. If they trust the Australian government even a little they’re probably not jumping through those hoops.
mattyroses@lemmy.today 12 hours ago
That’s the point of crypto - unless you can alter 51% of the blockchain, you can’t.
HK65@sopuli.xyz 3 hours ago
You misunderstand, if I own the GDP of a world power, what’s preventing me from buying a ton of Bitcoin and fucking with the supply that way?
Crypto nowadays looks like a pump and dump free for all.
mattyroses@lemmy.today 2 hours ago
How is buying the asset fucking with the supply?
If you mean hoarding it, that’s pretty much all Bitcoin is good for.
captainlezbian@lemmy.world 5 hours ago
To preface: I’m not a gold nut and I believe that it’s generally wiser for stable developed nations to use fiat currency to enable them to operate in a generally Keynesian approach with controlled inflation.
That said while I agree it’s unwise for nations unable to do that themselves to back their currency with a stable fiat currency from a different country, I don’t think crypto is the solution. Coinage is. And I’m talking old school coinage where the government isn’t backing it with metals, they’re making it out of them. Probably something like silver.
A backed currency is because a government can’t be trusted not to overinflate. If you want to bypass trust, the answer isn’t another currency in which all value is theoretical, it’s currency in which the value is in your hand and verifiable, with the government acting as the one setting units, assuring proper valuation, punishing devaluation, and publishing means for institutions and people to confirm valuation, such as physical properties, alloy percentages, and the easiest tests.