Next generation money

[avikz]

The total majority of Bitcoin holders think of their favorite toy as the next step in the evolution of money (less so for active users). I don't deny the technological innovation in respect to the blockchain and the decentralized nature of how new money is created through mining. With that said, I still don't think that Bitcoin did actually revolutionize the concept of money itself. Gold as money existed long before fiat, and it was "created" in a decentralized way too, so nothing particularly new here as well...

I have an idea what could be an entirely new form of money (actually, it is not my idea), but first I would like to hear from you, guys (and gals), what you think about the truly new money that is yet to be invented or implemented

I somewhat agree with your point that new money has not been invented. The concept of money has not changed in any way. It is just the way to earn money has changed.

World population never though that money would ever be mined. Blockchain technology made it possible. But we are comparing that bitcoin with a fiat currency always. The valuation of bitcoin is made through a fiat currency.

So bitcoin just showed us the way to earn more money and nothing else. But that is the best thing of bitcoin that it has the power to make your dream come true.

[deisik]

So bitcoin just showed us the way to earn more money and nothing else. But that is the best thing of bitcoin that it has the power to make your dream come true.

You meant to say to earn more fiat, if I interpreted your words correctly. But this way has been known since pyramids and is called appropriately...

That is, a financial pyramid scheme

[freshman777]

I tend to think it revolutionized the concept of money, but it is not the last and not the only, it's a pilot project. Much like the first plane or the first car were basic mechanisms. The concept will change over time but it was a breakthrough - censorship resistant permissionless transactions sent over the wire, decentralized creation of money - we gotta give it to Bitcoin. Was the first plane and the first car a revolution in transportation industry 100 years ago? We can say in retrospect they were; it was far from obvious at that time though. The concept is changing already: as you said before, Bitcoin is not decentralized creation of money at this point in time. Censorship resistant transactions keep buzzing along, but the decentralization aspect of money creation is gone with ASIC mining, censorship resistance is weakened. Can the honey badger of money regroup and get rid of centralized ASIC mining is the big question. It doesn't bear much significance for the concept if Bitcoin is phased out over time. The concept can't be stuffed back in the box, it's been planted in thousands of minds who will build new, more advanced techniques to keep the idea alive.

Methinks, decentralization aspect of money creation was the only real thing about Bitcoin. Though not entirely new (gold is also "created" in a decentralized manner) or perfect (as you say yourself), but that could be fixed either directly (through changes in the algo) or circumstantially, through feedback loops. Now that this aspect is almost gone, we just have corporations in the hide of mining pools doing exactly the same what governments (and banks) do...

Let's assume for a moment that governments are gone and Bitcoin has actually taken off as a world currency, what will it change fundamentally?

Gold is fine for local trades and savings. But you can't send gold over the wire unless you do it via centralized trusted vaults. This is another big thing that Bitcoin changed. You can't take gold over the border with no risk of seizure in this age. I already said I agree with you on few mining pools.
Bitcoin cannot function as a world currency, it's nonsense to assume. Fundamentally the world needs monetary sanity, this can't be achieved with fiat currencies. Fiat currencies are always reset when they are invariably expanded beyond limits. Money must be what people voluntarily choose to use as money in free market interactions, not the top-down enforced thing.

[deisik]

Bitcoin cannot function as a world currency, it's nonsense to assume. Fundamentally the world needs monetary sanity, this can't be achieved with fiat currencies. Fiat currencies are always reset when they are invariably expanded beyond limits. Money must be what people voluntarily choose to use as money in free market interactions, not the top-down enforced thing.

This is the point about which people always make the same mistake, namely, by confusing cause and effect, again and again. Fiat currencies become reset only when the state behind them fails (and not the other way round). Actually, monetary expansion beyond limits is a last-ditch attempt to postpone the inevitable fiasco of a failed state. Essentially the same happened with states that used hard currencies (gold and silver as money). They severely debased their specie by diminishing its precious metal content whenever they got spiraling down, thereby effectively multiplying the amount of money in circulation (i.e. what fiat currencies are abused with and accused of)...

See the history of Ancient Rome, its rise and its ultimate collapse as a textbook example of this process

[calkob]

Money is really anything that 2 people are willing to exchange, and you havnt told us what your idea is how can we comment on it.

[freshman777]

Bitcoin cannot function as a world currency, it's nonsense to assume. Fundamentally the world needs monetary sanity, this can't be achieved with fiat currencies. Fiat currencies are always reset when they are invariably expanded beyond limits. Money must be what people voluntarily choose to use as money in free market interactions, not the top-down enforced thing.

This is the point about which people always make the same mistake, namely, by confusing cause and effect, again and again. Fiat currencies become reset only when the state behind them fails (and not the other way round). Actually, monetary expansion beyond limits is a last-ditch attempt to postpone the inevitable fiasco of a failed state. Essentially the same happened with states that used hard currencies (gold and silver as money). They severely debased their specie by diminishing its precious metal content whenever they got spiraling down, thereby effectively multiplying the amount of money in circulation (i.e. what fiat currencies are abused with and accused of)...

See the history of Ancient Rome, its rise and ultimate collapse as a textbook example of this process

I don't understand the point you make. The population in ancient Rome was forced to accept debased coins from the Emperor. If they refused to accept it for grains and other produce, the penalty had to be strict. In that sense those debased gold and silver coins was not unlike modern overly printed paper currencies. This is not free market if there is no choice of money you can accept for your service or goods, and that's what is and has always been fundamentally flawed with money enforced at gunpoint. It bears repeating, for the world to return to monetary sanity, money must be what people voluntarily choose to use as money in free market interactions, can't stress this enough. Bitcoin has shown us that there is another way that we couldn't dream of. It's a revolution, even though Bitcoin may be replaced by better crypto.

[deisik]

Money is really anything that 2 people are willing to exchange, and you havnt told us what your idea is how can we comment on it.

Yeah, I was just looking for words to express that idea in a concise and precise manner since it's so fascinating that I can't yet fully understand it myself (and therefore explain it clearly), how it would work in detail. I think no one will argue that Bitcoin is an offspring of Internet, i.e. without the latter there wouldn't be the former. But Bitcoin is just a minor aberration in the history of money, surely not the next major step that would pass as a revolution in money-making. In this aspect, Bitcoin is interesting only as an example which shows how changes in society (in this case due to Internet) can give rise to feasible ideas that some fifty years ago couldn't even have been fantasized. This is the basic premise that I want to specifically emphasize, i.e. the next generation money should necessarily be a product of some pivotal changes in society (like fiat was a far-off product of Industrial Revolution)...

Now what could the most dramatic changes regarding human societies be in the next few decades (without indulging in pipe-dreams)?

[deisik]

Bitcoin cannot function as a world currency, it's nonsense to assume. Fundamentally the world needs monetary sanity, this can't be achieved with fiat currencies. Fiat currencies are always reset when they are invariably expanded beyond limits. Money must be what people voluntarily choose to use as money in free market interactions, not the top-down enforced thing.

This is the point about which people always make the same mistake, namely, by confusing cause and effect, again and again. Fiat currencies become reset only when the state behind them fails (and not the other way round). Actually, monetary expansion beyond limits is a last-ditch attempt to postpone the inevitable fiasco of a failed state. Essentially the same happened with states that used hard currencies (gold and silver as money). They severely debased their specie by diminishing its precious metal content whenever they got spiraling down, thereby effectively multiplying the amount of money in circulation (i.e. what fiat currencies are abused with and accused of)...

See the history of Ancient Rome, its rise and ultimate collapse as a textbook example of this process

I don't understand the point you make. The population in ancient Rome was forced to accept debased coins from the Emperor. If they refused to accept it for grains and other produce, the penalty had to be strict. In that sense those debased gold and silver coins was not unlike modern overly printed paper currencies. This is not free market if there is no choice of money you can accept for your service or goods, and that's what is and has always been fundamentally flawed with money enforced at gunpoint. It bears repeating, for the world to return to monetary sanity, money must be what people voluntarily choose to use as money in free market interactions, can't stress this enough. Bitcoin has shown us that there is another way that we couldn't dream of. It's a revolution, even though Bitcoin may be replaced by better crypto.

You miss my point entirely. It is not about forcing the population to accept the debased coins. It is about the fact that money debasement (or monetary expansion beyond limits in case of fiat) mirrors the state of the state (pardon the pun), and is the result of the failure of the state, not its cause. Rome began seriously debasing their money (silver denarius as a major Roman coin) starting from the first half of the 2nd century AD (when it contained 93% of silver) until the mid-3rd century when the coin had practically no silver left in it (around 5% of silver content)...

The Empire had already been on the decline by then and went spiraling down till its total collapse in the second half of the 5th century, when the whole Roman Empire had shrunk to just the city of Rome

[freshman777]

Yeah, you miss my point entirely. It is not about forcing the population to accept the debased coins. It is about the fact that money debasement mirrors the state of the state (pardon the pun), and it is the result of the failure of the state, not its cause. Rome began seriously debasing their money (silver denarius as a major Roman coin) starting from the first half of the 2nd century AD (when it contained 93% of silver) until the mid-3rd century when the coin had practically no silver left in it (around 5% of silver content)...

The Empire had already been on the decline by then and went spiraling down till it total collapse in the second half of the 5th century

I am somewhat familiar with the history of coin debasement in Rome and agree with you it is the result of the state's failure. Namely, inability to support large entitlement payments, which undermined fiscal health of the state and ended in coin debasement. This couldn't have happened without fiat. Gold and silver coins can be fiat if this is what the state forces you to accept. The state would have stopped making this many promises if it couldn't enforce what is legal tender, it'd have run out of money and collapsed in a matter of few years if it hadn't. Fiat is the fundamental flaw, monetary voluntarism is what the world needs. I think crypto has a chance to succeed, but the fight will be fierce and bloody, we've just entered the first innings.

[MoneypakTrader.com]

Well, I have to say that Bitcoin really is the next generation money because it was the first digital currency ever made that implemented the block chain technology. It was created so that no central authority could have control of your money (like banks do) This form of decentralization (and the block chain) is what makes Bitcoin innovative and it may prove to become used and accepted as a mainstream crypto currency worldwide. Governments from around the world will recognize Bitcoin as an acceptable form of payment.

Still there are some issues that need to be resolved, like taking out the centralization of the big miners and the block size but I think the Bitcoin community will find a way around this and make it even better than what it is right now. It may not be perfect, but it has proved to become a digital form of money that has brought back people the control of their own money. Just sharing my opinion.  

[deisik]

Yeah, you miss my point entirely. It is not about forcing the population to accept the debased coins. It is about the fact that money debasement mirrors the state of the state (pardon the pun), and it is the result of the failure of the state, not its cause. Rome began seriously debasing their money (silver denarius as a major Roman coin) starting from the first half of the 2nd century AD (when it contained 93% of silver) until the mid-3rd century when the coin had practically no silver left in it (around 5% of silver content)...

The Empire had already been on the decline by then and went spiraling down till it total collapse in the second half of the 5th century

I am somewhat familiar with the history of coin debasement in Rome and agree with you it is the result of the state's failure. Namely, inability to support large entitlement payments, which undermined fiscal health of the state and ended in coin debasement. This couldn't have happened without fiat. Gold and silver coins can be fiat if this is what the state forces you to accept. The state would have stopped making this many promises if it couldn't enforce what is legal tender, it'd have run out of money and collapsed in a matter of few years if it hadn't. Fiat is the fundamental flaw, monetary voluntarism is what the world needs. I think crypto has a chance to succeed, but the fight will be fierce and bloody, we've just entered the first innings.

Could you please expand more on what you mean by that. It seems that we have agreed that Bitcoin doesn't quite cut it, due to its de-facto centralized nature as of now. As I can guess, you mean that everyone should be free in what to call and use as money. Yes, you are obliged to pay taxes in legal tender, but other than that you are essentially free to trade in whatever you and your counter-party agree upon...

Though you would still have to somehow make others accept your chosen means of payment as such

[deisik]

Well, I have to say that Bitcoin really is the next generation money because it was the first digital currency ever made that implemented the block chain technology. It was created so that no central authority could have control of your money (like banks do) This form of decentralization (and the block chain) is what makes Bitcoin innovative and it may prove to become used and accepted as a mainstream crypto currencies worldwide. Governments from around the world will recognize Bitcoin as an acceptable form of payment.

Still there are some issues that need to be resolved, like taking out the centralization of the big miners and the block size but I think the Bitcoin community will find a way around this and make it even better than what it is right now. It may not be perfect, but it has proved to become a digital form of money that has brought back people the control of their own money. Just sharing my opinion. 

Big miners have already monopolized the issuance of the new money. Right now they do exactly the same what governments do, that is, print new money, though in a constrained manner. When they hit the cap, they will change their role to that of banking, that is, effecting payments and charging fees as they see appropriate (read profitable). And then we will have even more monopolistic monetary system than we now have...

Since at present you can deal in cash, thereby easily bypassing hated banks altogether

[mindrust]

Bitcoin is like mp3, torrent, napster, divx, 3d and so on...

All of those technologies above changed a lot in the world and bitcoin is doing exactly the same. It changes everyone's life in a good way. Mastercard also changed the world back in the day but thiss a whole new level.

What is napster and how did it change the lives (my life included) of people across the world?

Napster is the father of mp3 piracy which is the ancestor of bittorrent.

I don't need to tell you what mp3 is i think. You very well know, at those times, internet speed wasn't as fast as today. I remember I share mp3 cd's with my friends and with napster we became worldwide traders. Then, emule popped up. Then it is also gone and torrent come up.

Yeah Napster is dead now but it lives in another form. If your life haven't changed by any of those, you are either 15 years old or you were living in the moon.

[freshman777]

I am somewhat familiar with the history of coin debasement in Rome and agree with you it is the result of the state's failure. Namely, inability to support large entitlement payments, which undermined fiscal health of the state and ended in coin debasement. This couldn't have happened without fiat. Gold and silver coins can be fiat if this is what the state forces you to accept. The state would have stopped making this many promises if it couldn't enforce what is legal tender, it'd have run out of money and collapsed in a matter of few years if it hadn't. Fiat is the fundamental flaw, monetary voluntarism is what the world needs. I think crypto has a chance to succeed, but the fight will be fierce and bloody, we've just entered the first innings.

Could you please expand more on what you mean by that. It seems that we have agreed that Bitcoin doesn't quite cut it, due to its de-facto centralized nature as of now. As I can guess, you mean that everyone should be free in what to call and use as money. Yes, you are obliged to pay taxes in legal tender, but other than that you are essentially free to trade in whatever you and your counter-party agree upon...

Though you would still have to somehow make others accept your chosen means of payment as such

You hit the nail on the head. Economic entities should be able to freely choose what they use as money. If they are regulated to only accept government fiat, there is no voluntarism.
Bitcoin is one of choices in the monetary voluntarism, the de-facto centralized nature doesn't make it an unviable option for some people. I bet you have savings in Bitcoin. There is hoping that Bitcoin can be fixed if the centralized nature begins to hurt the principles it was founded on, so it's too early to give up on it just yet, but other (crypto) options should be actively researched.
If your chosen means of payment is competitive in the free market of payment options, it will be accepted. What can be wrong with this concept unless someone hates competition?

[tyz]

I voted for yes.

There is no doubt, Bitcoin is a new way of payment and storing value. However, I stated in previous Bitcoin itself is not a good currency because of its deflationary nature. It is more like gold. But the Bitcoin blockchain combined with colored coins could be really applicable currencies for mass adoption.

[deisik]

Bitcoin is like mp3, torrent, napster, divx, 3d and so on...

All of those technologies above changed a lot in the world and bitcoin is doing exactly the same. It changes everyone's life in a good way. Mastercard also changed the world back in the day but thiss a whole new level.

What is napster and how did it change the lives (my life included) of people across the world?

Napster is the father of mp3 piracy which is the ancestor of bittorrent.

I don't need to tell you what mp3 is i think. You very well know, at those times, internet speed wasn't as fast as today. I remember I share mp3 cd's with my friends and with napster we became worldwide traders. Then, emule popped up. Then it is also gone and torrent come up.

Yeah Napster is dead now but it lives in another form. If your life haven't changed by any of those, you are either 15 years old or you were living in the moon.

I know what is mp3, lol. And no, it didn't change my life in any substantial way, though I admit that just mp3 might have radically changed someone else's (if he is, for example, an aspiring singer and wants his songs to get wide recognition beyond those greedy record labels). But this is irrelevant, since my point is entirely different. I'm talking about the overall effect on the society as whole, not just on you or me taken individually. In this respect the influence of mp3's (or napster or anything of this kind) is minuscule at best. For example, smallpox alone killed more people than all wars taken together, and developing a vaccine against it had a groundbreaking effect on the entire world population...

I simply can't fathom how anyone could even try to compare the inconsequential with the overwhelming

[deisik]

I am somewhat familiar with the history of coin debasement in Rome and agree with you it is the result of the state's failure. Namely, inability to support large entitlement payments, which undermined fiscal health of the state and ended in coin debasement. This couldn't have happened without fiat. Gold and silver coins can be fiat if this is what the state forces you to accept. The state would have stopped making this many promises if it couldn't enforce what is legal tender, it'd have run out of money and collapsed in a matter of few years if it hadn't. Fiat is the fundamental flaw, monetary voluntarism is what the world needs. I think crypto has a chance to succeed, but the fight will be fierce and bloody, we've just entered the first innings.

Could you please expand more on what you mean by that. It seems that we have agreed that Bitcoin doesn't quite cut it, due to its de-facto centralized nature as of now. As I can guess, you mean that everyone should be free in what to call and use as money. Yes, you are obliged to pay taxes in legal tender, but other than that you are essentially free to trade in whatever you and your counter-party agree upon...

Though you would still have to somehow make others accept your chosen means of payment as such

You hit the nail on the head. Economic entities should be able to freely choose what they use as money. If they are regulated to only accept government fiat, there is no voluntarism

There are a few problems with this approach, though (maybe, even more than just a few, lol). First, the counterparties could just barter. Yes, barter is very inefficient but it allows to effectively solve the next problem inexorably arising under the system of monetary voluntarism. Which is a problem of consensus, i.e. the parties actually don't want to choose what to use as money, since they just want to be sure that what they use as money doesn't cease to be money with the next counterparty which might have different ideas about what is money and what is not. Government effectively solves this problem by dismissing monetary voluntarism altogether. So, if you ask me, I don't think that monetary voluntarism is a viable option. Money by definition should be universal (i.e. accepted by all counterparties in the economy as a means of payment) which excludes voluntarism. Otherwise, it couldn't be called money...

Strictly speaking, the notion is essentially oxymoronic

[BTCBinary]

Bitcoin has shown us that there is a totally different way of dealing with money. It is the perfect alternative to the dissolute way on how central Banks issue money. However, I think that Bitcoin was just the begining and we will still see another an even better coin than Bitcoin

[freshman777]

You hit the nail on the head. Economic entities should be able to freely choose what they use as money. If they are regulated to only accept government fiat, there is no voluntarism

There are a few problems with this approach, though (maybe, even more than just a few, lol). First, the counterparties could just barter. Yes, barter is very inefficient but it allows to effectively solve the next problem inexorably rising under the system of monetary voluntarism. Which is a problem of consensus, i.e. the parties actually don't want to choose what to use as money, since they just want to be sure that what they use as money doesn't cease to be money with the next counterparty which might have different views on what is money and what is not...

Government effectively solves this problem by dismissing monetary voluntarism altogether

Barter is inefficient as you said for anything but simple trades: you give me a dozen of eggs, I give you a bottle of milk. We can omit discussing barter.
<bold text>
This is precisely why it will take significant time for crypto to establish itself as solid trustworthy money, and why it's premature to dismiss gold and silver. Some already have the confidence to accept crypto as preferred currency. Mostly it's geeks, but Rome wasn't built in a day.

Government doesn't solve this entirely, it creates too much money and then resets the financial system. It is safe to assume that most people on the planet will experience a reset of fiat system at least once, with memories of this event lasting to the end of their life. A number of people will make conclusions to explore what options they have to escape being fooled again.

Money by definition should be universal (i.e. accepted by all counterparties in the economy as a means of payment) which excludes voluntarism. Otherwise, it couldn't be called money...

There is no definition that money should be universal. If two counterparties agree that something is money, then it's money. You can't directly pay a supplier in another country with your local fiat currency, you have to exchange it to what the supplier believes is money. As long as free trade and free exchange exists money doesn't have to be universal.

[Yakamoto]

You hit the nail on the head. Economic entities should be able to freely choose what they use as money. If they are regulated to only accept government fiat, there is no voluntarism

There are a few problems with this approach, though (maybe, even more than just a few, lol). First, the counterparties could just barter. Yes, barter is very inefficient but it allows to effectively solve the next problem inexorably rising under the system of monetary voluntarism. Which is a problem of consensus, i.e. the parties actually don't want to choose what to use as money, since they just want to be sure that what they use as money doesn't cease to be money with the next counterparty which might have different views on what is money and what is not...

Government effectively solves this problem by dismissing monetary voluntarism altogether

Barter is inefficient as you said for anything but simple trades: you give me a dozen of eggs, I give you a bottle of milk. We can omit discussing barter.
<bold text>
This is precisely why it will take significant time for crypto to establish itself as solid trustworthy money, and why it's premature to dismiss gold and silver. Some already have the confidence to accept crypto as preferred currency. Mostly it's geeks, but Rome wasn't built in a day.

Government doesn't solve this entirely, it creates too much money and then resets the financial system. It is safe to assume that most people on the planet will experience a reset of fiat system at least once, with memories of this event lasting to the end of their life. A number of people will make conclusions to explore what options they have to escape being fooled again.

Barter is definitely something that should be avoided, there are too many complications with how it would work, and if I want to sell you my cow you better have a metric fuckton of eggs. It just doesn't work because of the mostly required divisibility for smaller transactions.

It is a terrible idea to discard the notion of gold and silver holding value, as they are recognized by most individuals and entities as holding value. Being able to liken cryptos to gold or other precious metals and have them be recognized by the same people is probably the end-game of Bitcoin.

As for the Government-issued fiat, we all know how piss-poor the system is.