Bitcoin as a national currency?

[Somekindabitcoin]

Bitcoin being used as a national currency would be a very interesting experiment. I think it would be interesting to see how it would affect everyday life living in a nation that exclusively uses Bitcoin. In my opinion, it would be useful and very cool if it were possible to go to an everyday grocery store and pay for your groceries with Bitcoin, instead of cash.

The people who are in oppose of bitcoins would surely die without food if this is the situation in the coming years where you can buy your stuff by paying bitcoins. And if it becomes mandatory even they have to buy anything using bitcoins.Even if they don't like it.

No they won't lol. When a country in EU had it's own currency and changed to €, people just came into their banks and exchanges and changed their currency for €, everything that wasn't changed for a new currency was worth nothing. The same thing can be done with BTC.

[grahamdebarra]

Bitcoin being used as a national currency would be a very interesting experiment. I think it would be interesting to see how it would affect everyday life living in a nation that exclusively uses Bitcoin. In my opinion, it would be useful and very cool if it were possible to go to an everyday grocery store and pay for your groceries with Bitcoin, instead of cash.

The people who are in oppose of bitcoins would surely die without food if this is the situation in the coming years where you can buy your stuff by paying bitcoins. And if it becomes mandatory even they have to buy anything using bitcoins.Even if they don't like it.

No they won't lol. When a country in EU had it's own currency and changed to €, people just came into their banks and exchanges and changed their currency for €, everything that wasn't changed for a new currency was worth nothing. The same thing can be done with BTC.

A hybrid of bitcoin and cash is still the ideal.

[notlist3d]

Bitcoin being used as a national currency would be a very interesting experiment. I think it would be interesting to see how it would affect everyday life living in a nation that exclusively uses Bitcoin. In my opinion, it would be useful and very cool if it were possible to go to an everyday grocery store and pay for your groceries with Bitcoin, instead of cash.

The people who are in oppose of bitcoins would surely die without food if this is the situation in the coming years where you can buy your stuff by paying bitcoins. And if it becomes mandatory even they have to buy anything using bitcoins.Even if they don't like it.

No they won't lol. When a country in EU had it's own currency and changed to €, people just came into their banks and exchanges and changed their currency for €, everything that wasn't changed for a new currency was worth nothing. The same thing can be done with BTC.

A hybrid of bitcoin and cash is still the ideal.

It would take a country with a pretty weak national currency to use BTC as official currency.  Just is a lot of variation in value, which is hard as far as a government based money.

Bitcoin will need to stabilize on a price before it really could be looked at for a countries currency.

[Hopalong]

Absolutely no way something like that would work with Bitcoin in it's current form. Can you imagine a whole economy trying to adjust to Bitcoin's whims every few minutes? Plus interfacing with the rest of the world would be near impossible, like trying to force an HDMI connector into an AV socket  

Why do you think this? Can you please explain it to me, why won't it work good?
I can't really see any problem if I don't mind about banks that can't control it..

2. Satoshi owns more than 1,000,000 BTC, can you imagine what would happen if he decided to dump?

You assume Satoshi owns 1 million btc, which is hard to believe. He wasn't the only miner back then. It was insanely easy to get a ton of coins mined in a very short time.

The value back then was barely worth mentioning; $1 would buy you over 1000 bitcoins. Living with the fear of seeing these potentially "lost" coins being dumped at once is not the way to go.

Less than 100 people owns most of the bitcoins. The bitcoins in circulation is just scraps. Sathoshi is not the only one to hold way to many btc to make btc trustworthy as a real currency.

This is bitcoin's biggest flaw overall. It is for this reason why it could not be adopted as a national currency. It is not equal.

This is incredibly ridiculous. Since when fiats are equal?



Wealth distribution in dollar alone is insanely unequal, but guess what, it's a scam, and BTC isn't, because BTC has a fixed supply, and people that bought early on took a huge risk by buying something worthless, so they deserve the wealth, unlike the masters of the dollar that keep printing fake money out of thin air.
Currencies will never be equal unless you want communism, and with BTC we get a fair system. Unequal distribution isn't unfair in BTC.

One of the groups you mentioned did print their own money, and it was not the fiat guys...

[Somekindabitcoin]

Bitcoin being used as a national currency would be a very interesting experiment. I think it would be interesting to see how it would affect everyday life living in a nation that exclusively uses Bitcoin. In my opinion, it would be useful and very cool if it were possible to go to an everyday grocery store and pay for your groceries with Bitcoin, instead of cash.

The people who are in oppose of bitcoins would surely die without food if this is the situation in the coming years where you can buy your stuff by paying bitcoins. And if it becomes mandatory even they have to buy anything using bitcoins.Even if they don't like it.

No they won't lol. When a country in EU had it's own currency and changed to €, people just came into their banks and exchanges and changed their currency for €, everything that wasn't changed for a new currency was worth nothing. The same thing can be done with BTC.

A hybrid of bitcoin and cash is still the ideal.

It would take a country with a pretty weak national currency to use BTC as official currency.  Just is a lot of variation in value, which is hard as far as a government based money.

Bitcoin will need to stabilize on a price before it really could be looked at for a countries currency.

Yes, this. And I really think that adoption of Bitcoin can help Greece a lot. It can solve some problems with economics, but there are also cons of this. I think that Bitcoin as it is now, wouldn't be good as a national currency, but maybe in the next 20 years? No one knows..

[prodigy8]

Let's imagine the Greece situation and if they would have bitcoin as nation currency, may the banks bankrupt ?

It would certainly mitigate the risk and loss of people's assets which would be spread across two platforms (euro and bitcoin in this case; or Hong Kong dollars and bitcoin like in a previous example).

People have lost many things man, and the stuff they handle have much value than the money they have in banks hold
I would consider a bitcoin land lol, an island which works only with bitcoin.
And everyone to wear something that is bitcoin related

[sylvially]

 This is going to sound crazy! I think bitcoin won't become real currency since the government can't adjust the money supply and lead to price floating！！But no doubt, bitcoin will become more and more popular in the near future. virtual currency will be the world!! And as an aside, i'm glad to recommend you all  a new e currency---Epay-money from epay global payment. It's free for you to pay and get paid when using the epay global payment.

[ObscureBean]

Absolutely no way something like that would work with Bitcoin in it's current form. Can you imagine a whole economy trying to adjust to Bitcoin's whims every few minutes? Plus interfacing with the rest of the world would be near impossible, like trying to force an HDMI connector into an AV socket  

Why do you think this? Can you please explain it to me, why won't it work good?
I can't really see any problem if I don't mind about banks that can't control it..

1. Bitcoin is way too volatile. For individuals and small companies it is manageable but for a whole country economy to revolve around Bitcoin would be pure insanity.
2. Satoshi owns more than 1,000,000 BTC, can you imagine what would happen if he decided to dump?
3. The Bitcoin network is lawless and relies on trust to function. Anyone owning 51% or more of the mining hashrate would have considerable amount of control over the network. Such a country would have to keep its fingers crossed that it survives the day.
4. Anonymity would also be a problem. Transparency is essential for government, people and the rest of the world to work seamlessly together.

1. Bitcoin's volatility will decrease with a biggermarketcap.
2. Satoshi will never dump. At this point is reasonable to asume he lost those coins. He would have dumped already.
3. Laws can be applied, which why regulations are going on. 51% attack is not a problem, it's highly overblown:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncPyMUfNyVM
4. Cash is more anonymous than Bitcoin.

You seem to have missed 'Bitcoin in its current form' in my initial comment. Even so, the points you make are not entirely correct.
1. Volatility has got nothing to do with market capitalization. Coin distribution, number of users and demand are some factors that directly affect price. If the order books from the various exchanges are not able to seamlessly absorb a dump of say 1,000,000 BTC (hint hint   ) you gonna see a massive crash.
2. This claim/statement has no substance. You'd be insane to build your country's economy around this assumption.
3. Other than a slightly arrogant Antonopoulos, that the threat exists is enough. That he doesn't see any way for such an attack to work does not mean that there isn't any.
4. Agreed, hard cash is more anonymous than Bitcoin. But you're ignoring the second part of point 4 where I clearly explain why anonymity would be a problem. Buying stuff anonymously in a shop with hard cash is one thing, Microsoft sealing a deal with a few bags of Dollar bills is another. Banks link money to real identifiable people in a way that is not possible with Bitcoin in it's current form.

[Kprawn]

There is no reason why it cannot be a national currency, but we are hoping it would become a global currency.  It should compete with the $US / Euro / Pound

The only problem I see, is a high volatility if it goes global, as we can see with the other currencies where more than one country accepted a single currency. If one or two of the countries struggle, the rest struggle

too. The PIGS during the economic crysis is a good example, of what can happen, if a single currency is adopted on a global scale.

[foxbitcoin]

Is is realistic to expect Argentina, Venezuela, or similar to move in this direction? Also could we see a sovereign officially adopt bitcoin when they're considering reissuing a new currency, after failure?

[amiryaqot]

at the moment no government is ready adopt bitcoin as their national currency because it needs raise more public awareness about innovation, in the begging bitcoin is little complicated to understand and use so it will be much hard for majority of the country to use it like normal fiat currency for their daily usage but in coming year bitcoin would be global currency.

[g1974ak]

What do you think? Is it possible for Bitcoin to get accepted as a national currency for any real country? It would be definitely amazing, but I'm sad that governments are scared of Bitcoin, because they can't track it like the banks they own. I heard about "mini-country" ( country in a country ) called Liberland with a cryptocurrency as their main payment method. Please reply here what you think and if you would be happy or not if your national currency is BTC.

It is not possible that one country adopt bitcoin as its currency. With bitcoin it is not possible to do monetary policies and without that politics it is very hard to govern. Let's say that in a moment the country is in crisis. Needed money to increase the power of buying. So the government take debit through the treasury bonds with interest to the whom are money and that money are invested in various areas to increase the consume in the economy. With bitcoin this is impossible because while in the first case the money needed are produced by the central bank in the second case the quantity of bitcoin in circulation cannot be more than can be produced regularly by the process of mining. So no money and the crisis cannot be solved. This is a simplified case that show that the bitcoin cannot be national country. But the monetary policies are more complex and bitcoin cannot fulfill those.

[odolvlobo]

It is not possible that one country adopt bitcoin as its currency. With bitcoin it is not possible to do monetary policies and without that politics it is very hard to govern. ...

It is possible. There are many countries that do not have their own currency.

[aso118]

It is not possible that one country adopt bitcoin as its currency. With bitcoin it is not possible to do monetary policies and without that politics it is very hard to govern. ...

It is possible. There are many countries that do not have their own currency.

True. Currency substitution usually takes place when a small country's monetary policy fails. If they adopt a strong currency like the dollar, it gives foreign investors confidence to enter the country.

[Falconer]

It is not possible that one country adopt bitcoin as its currency. With bitcoin it is not possible to do monetary policies and without that politics it is very hard to govern. ...

It is possible. There are many countries that do not have their own currency.

No country will adopt bitcoin as its country, since its government cant control it and cant get something useful for them. The government is just a group of politician, not bitcoin enthusiast.

[Amph]

It is not possible that one country adopt bitcoin as its currency. With bitcoin it is not possible to do monetary policies and without that politics it is very hard to govern. ...

It is possible. There are many countries that do not have their own currency.

No country will adopt bitcoin as its country, since its government cant control it and cant get something useful for them. The government is just a group of politician, not bitcoin enthusiast.

but what if , it is adopted from the citizens of that country, and they say basically fuck you government? surely their GOV can not stop them if they decide to move in this way

it's not like we are living in dictatorial regime

[Daniel91]

It is not possible that one country adopt bitcoin as its currency. With bitcoin it is not possible to do monetary policies and without that politics it is very hard to govern. ...

It is possible. There are many countries that do not have their own currency.

No country will adopt bitcoin as its country, since its government cant control it and cant get something useful for them. The government is just a group of politician, not bitcoin enthusiast.

I agree with this.
No government wants something they can't control.
How the state will conduct its own fiscal and budget policy if they can affect the value of their own currencies?
This is simply impossible and unlikely scenario in the real politics.
Bitcoin has been and will remain the currency of individuals, not the currency of government or state.

[odolvlobo]

It is not possible that one country adopt bitcoin as its currency. With bitcoin it is not possible to do monetary policies and without that politics it is very hard to govern. ...

It is possible. There are many countries that do not have their own currency.

No country will adopt bitcoin as its country, since its government cant control it and cant get something useful for them. The government is just a group of politician, not bitcoin enthusiast.

I agree with this.
No government wants something they can't control.
How the state will conduct its own fiscal and budget policy if they can affect the value of their own currencies?
This is simply impossible and unlikely scenario in the real politics.
Bitcoin has been and will remain the currency of individuals, not the currency of government or state.

There are many countries that have already adopted currencies that they cannot control. There will be more, and eventually when Bitcoin becomes widely used and more stable, a country may prefer to adopt it over another country's currency because they can't get screwed by that country's monetary policy.

[Hopalong]

It is not possible that one country adopt bitcoin as its currency. With bitcoin it is not possible to do monetary policies and without that politics it is very hard to govern. ...

It is possible. There are many countries that do not have their own currency.

No country will adopt bitcoin as its country, since its government cant control it and cant get something useful for them. The government is just a group of politician, not bitcoin enthusiast.

but what if , it it is adopted from the citizens of that country, and they say basically fuck you government? surely their GOV can not stop them if they decide to move in this way

it's not like we are living in dictatorial regime

If you live in a somewhat civilized country you had to be an idiot to do that. A population of idiots fucking their own country in to oblivion. Great idea...

[Falconer]

but what if , it is adopted from the citizens of that country, and they say basically fuck you government? surely their GOV can not stop them if they decide to move in this way

it's not like we are living in dictatorial regime

This is not as easy as you think, with fluctuation of bitcoin price, it will affect price of goods or any stuff in that country, which it mean those price will change every day. Today you can get a BigMac for 0.02BTC, but who knows its price maybe get higher like 0.025BTC tomorrow. You should think about it.

There are many countries that have already adopted currencies that they cannot control. There will be more, and eventually when Bitcoin becomes widely used and more stable, a country may prefer to adopt it over another country's currency because they can't get screwed by that country's monetary policy.

I think the governments dont adopt bitcoin, just legalized it, thats a different thing imo. Legalizing mean government just let its people using and trading with it.