Bitcoin Forum

I hear rumors that Russia is considering starting their own national cryptocurrency.  As well, many believe that if the US or any other major power ever "adopted" cryptocurrency they would just start their own blockchain. 
 
Foolishness. 
 
Do you know what that would be inviting?  Total economic and digital war.  If the entire value of the U.S. Dollar is on an open blockchain that anyone can mine and attack, you better believe that rogue/rival nations will do everything they can to try to damage our blockchain.  And wouldn't we be forced to levy the same attacks & threats vs. them? 
 
You know who doesn't have to worry about this nonsense?  A blockchain of value that represents the entire human race and not just one entity.  A true global currency.  Bitcoin, Monero, and other truly neutral and worldwide projects don't fly a flag.  They stand for all of us.  Just look at some of the full nodes running in these projects: there are nodes in China, the US, Russia, India, and many more. 
 
A cryptocurrency flying a national banner is about as useful as an internet flying a national banner (ahem, North Korea).  I can see how there might be secure blockchains for internal Department of Defense usage and Apple Inc usage (just like intranets) but no country is going to back their currency with a proprietary blockchain that paints a big fat target on their ass.  If they did, they would just centralize it... and that's not really a blockchain, is it?  That's just a shared, private database. 
 
So let's end this argument once and for all.  It's either the world wide ledgers or nothing; there won't be national flavors.
 

It's probably going to take a while to shift the mentality, as it's all we've ever known for centuries, but the sooner human beings move away from all this 'arbitrary lines on a map' silliness, the better the world will be for it.  Nation states feeding on and undermining each other to fuel their own petty national interests just leads to more conflict.  I'm hoping this little experiment of ours is a prominent first step (or possibly second step if we count the internet itself) in achieving that.

It a national currency were to go crypto, I would expect that only parts of it would be decentralized. Issuance of new currency would certainly be kept under the control of the country, or maybe it's central bank. However, there is no reason why transaction confirmation could not be decentralized. Transaction confirmation would be purely fee based since there would be no reward for mining new currency.

The advantage of doing so is that the national currency would be accessible to more people and hopefully there would be less of a need to rely on the USD as a world reserve currency for global transactions. This is important for countries who have not so friendly trade relations with the US.

   
 
Isn't that a funny truism? 
 
Even Dogecoin would be orders of magnitude better than the *best* implementation of any JP Morgan Coin or bitRuble.

 
  
For sure.  
  
I think we will always need some kind of peacekeeping force (even the human body, a trillion cells all trying to work together, has an immune system to fight cancers) but there's no reason why the United States should be locked in an ideological war with China or Russia.  It's fucking absurd.  I've had many Russian friends in my life.  Their culture is a little different as a result of having a more brutal 20th century than us, but they are still human beings.  We like the same shit: fashion, good food, friendship, love, money, new technology.  
  
Inevitably the more connected a country is (and secular) the more the people of that nation tend towards a global consensus on what we should believe: the internet has lifted many of us up from rural shite beliefs and taught us (as we have participated in the decision process) a healthy respect and admiration for others while also teaching us the power of cooperation vs. competition.  This is why the true evil of the modern day is isolationism and cutting your population off from the free flow of ideas, however threatening you might find them.

What would make you think that any of the normal people would get access to the mining part or even the blockchain ledger? They can just run the blockchain in the background to process the transactions and such and you would never get insight in it.

They wont risk exposing themselves to this kind of attacks.

A national cryptocurrency again needed a reference for it's value and for to be exchanged in another country. So, only specific to a particular country. They already have it in fiat format.
Imagine, each and every country create their own cryptocurrency, then they again need forex to get value for their own currency. It mean what they already have, but only in digital format and based on cryptography.
They never reach the purpose of bitcoin by creating own cryptocurrency. The only viable option: Accept bitcoin.

The problem with moving to a global economy and currency is that the standard of living for everyone will tend to gravitate towards the middle. For most of us, let's say those of us able to connect to this forum via the internet. The middle is a long way down!

 
 
Bruh, if you give the human race access to money we won't spontaneously live in mud huts. 
 
Guess what?  The entire human race will all move *up*.  That's the power of Metcalfe.  Shit is velocarific; with more participants in the global economy and information age the sum of human value will go up and we will all have a better life... leading to more innovation and better productivity... etc. 
 
You just know there's some genius little programmer down in Brazil cracking his knuckles like, "fuck Apple, I'm bout to start Orange"

There are places in this world that inherently cannot be "dragged up".

 
 
There are *people* (not places) in this world that have no desire to join the rest of humanity in the knowledge age, sure.  So fuck em - no need to antagonize them, but let them stew in the third world prison cell they will create by their own hand.  If you want to worship imaginary friends and abstain from utopia, go ahead.  The only exception is that any member born in such a place should be given a chance to escape those conditions if they choose.  Your right to abstain from the collective does not give you the right to enforce your beliefs on others (and this extends to your own children).  Hopefully as we provide better living conditions for everyone and better access to knowledge, humans will start to see the truth of the universe: they don't need to stew in stone age nonsense any longer - we have something better now. 
 
Apart from those neutrals, there will also unfortunately always exist a certain amount of "cancer" in this world - individual cells who feel the need to attack the rest of the body (terrorists, thieves, maniacs).  This is why there will always need to be some kind of government, because we can't have cancer going unchecked and damaging the rest of us. 
 
But these concepts are probably a little outside the scope of this topic.

How is giving the rest of the world access to money with a limited supply, that is already centrally held by a very, very, very small percentage of the populace, going to raise the world up?

A don't agree. It will be new beginning for the Russia. There is an experiment with to many unknown things but, according to me, with an positive end. Remain to see if it will be totally this the new currency of Russia or it will be used in addition with the ruble.

And why do you think that that 'national' cryptocurrency will be open to mine? I doubt it. They would probably post blockchain online without ability to change it - only for normal to view and mine coin in closed environment by their own servers, that would be a smart idea.

I would add something else. If this experiment will be with happy end it will be confirmation of the supremacy which have the digital currency compared to the tradition money. And for sure this experience will be followed by to many other countries.

But is not only Russia. Now I see that even Federal Reserve has one similar plan. See for more this: https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/ibm-federal-reserve-want-create-bitcoin-knock-off/ (https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/ibm-federal-reserve-want-create-bitcoin-knock-off/)

OP you are wrong about this possible national cryptocurrency being open (decentralized). Whoever tries to make their own cryptocurrency, banks, governments, states, they will make it completely closed and centralized.

By being centralized, attacks as you suggested will be limited and quite impossible. Also nothing easier than today's attacks on Pentagon for example.

 
 
As I stated, when they do so then they don't have a cryptocurrency: they have a shared spreadsheet.  It will be useless and valueless on the open market. 
 
It's like the difference between a company's intranet and the open internet. 

Some people would argue that today's dollars are pretty much useless as well, with all the printing and with more than $18 trillions of the American debt and also without anything backing it up (gold standard was dropped long time ago).

Yet again American dollars still have and hold their value. Something tells me that this centralized crypto money would behave in the same way.

It could behave in the same way its value could crash down just as hard as real money would through influence of national financial crisis affairs, imagine if Greece had its own national cryptocurrency during their debt crisis then people would withdraw their faith in it as well

American dollars still hold their value, because we force other countries to accept it... Look at what the US has done in the middle east for the last 50 or so years... We have slowly made it our business for oil, rather than making it their business. We have forced the Petro dollar as well as many other things... More and more people are starting to wake up to these issues, and government is trying their damnest to hide everything and keep the majority of the people focused on some sort of Media drama and other things...

I have a feeling the next 10-20 years are going to be an exciting/dangerous time in our lives... people are going to try and move away from the centralized private banks, and they are going to do everything to keep those people from doing that.  Centralized banks are indirectly in control of politicians, national armies, etc. etc. ... you think the Bernanke is going to let a bunch of dorks with computers over take the fiat system that enslaves people for their benefit that easily? Hell no.

Yes, exactly. And that's what I am arguing. If the US government has been successful in making their dollar still relevant while in whole honesty and by all economic principles dollar is actually a complete failure, I am sure they would be able to do the same for the possible centralized national cryptocurrency.

I don't think that it is a foolish move of a country to use their own cryptocurrency instead of bitcoin. Governments need to be able to control the supply of the cryptocurrency in order the economy to function, with bitcoin you can't control it's supply since it is decentralized.

Governments shouldn't have any say so with how much currency they will produce at all... if the fiat notes were still used under the gold standered, I would have no problem with using fiat because it represents a finite thing that represents value... Printing more notes without representation of anything of value behind it, other than the "trust" the American people have behind it, just creates inflation and interest increases which essentially makes all of us in the U.S. Slaves to the Feds dollar.

They are better by design but govenments have guys with guns to enforce what ever currency they want us to use.

 With Russia crypto rubel is not that it will replace his national currency.Talk is about Russia to has his own crypto,Russian search engine is interested in,thay already has his own virtual yandex money and some russians social network also is advocating that idea,I dont think it will happen,Russia wants to has his citzens under control,p2p money not so much welcomed

In a way, I will agree that national Crypto currencies, should not be done, but for a different reason. The whole world have shifted to a global market, where countries compete against each other for the best prices. A single global currency would make this a more fair contest.

The fiat currencies are being manipulated to give some nations a unfair advantage in these markets. If they created their own national currencies, and it's programmable money based on the fiat system, this manipulation will continue.

I agree. I mean if you are making something which is good (and cryptocurrency is a good thing in general), make it for the whole world not just for your country WTF... I hope those times when "Nation fight against nation" will be drowned in the past forever. An end must be put to things like this. So why start such an outdated hideosity now?

Yes, it would probably be foolish, but it happens that countries are run by fools. A national cryptocurrency would give them a sense of control, a feeling of power, politicians would love it.

Now, let me tell you a secret. The US dollar is a national cryptocurrency. There's only one miner behind it, and he's a cool guy (I think he's stoned). He doesn't even bother keeping track of transactions. That crypto is actually printed. The choice to print it was made at an early stage to gain wide acceptance among uneducated people, but it's gonna turn full crypto real soon. Just look at the current war against cash. All $ transactions will soon be electronic, with all users registered in national databases. Then the real proof that the $ is a crypto is that its value isn't backed by anything.

A government starting a national cryptocurrency is not actually a damn fool.  This government can then be able to regulate the supply of cryptocurrency and can impose rules and regulations on its use.

Read this article: https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/ibm-federal-reserve-want-create-bitcoin-knock-off/ (https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/ibm-federal-reserve-want-create-bitcoin-knock-off/)

According to the words written directly under the title (which talk itself):

"It was only a matter of time. The ultra-advanced, superior technology of the digital currency Bitcoin and it's Blockchain public ledger system are in danger of being co-opted. The tacit compliments of the financial establishment for the Bitcoin Blockchain, not Bitcoin the currency, over the past year are starting to be followed with action. IBM, in conjunction with your centralized banking elite, have discussed plans to perpetuate the future of national currencies, like the U.S. Dollar, through their own digital fiat-currency system."

Must be foolish the firstly the FED. But even IBM too which are taken in consideration such thing and talk about those.  ;)

Well recently there are many company/even a gov institution which look at blockhain technology, i think it's not really foolish. they can use blockchain technology which have bring the future of money is better.

Russian gov is already interested with cryptocurrency although in the past they ban to use on their country.

I don't think at this point, they will agree to the idea, adopt it or even make it possible. When you have an open ledger and that means every country is using the same ledger, there is no way anyone can meddle or change how they control currency. When you can't print, and that is where it fails which is what they would want to avoid at all cost.

Some under developed countries are not accepting this kind of currency I don't think there is something wrong with that we just  have to respect them.