[2017-09-11]'Revolutionary': Finland Central Bank Paper Heaps Praise on Bitcoin

[nickbelski]

Researchers at Finland's central bank have dubbed bitcoin's economic system "revolutionary."

In a new staff paper released on September 5, economists at the Bank of Finland revealed the results of an investigation into the ins and outs of bitcoin's infrastructure, as well as their finding that the technology constitutes a "monopoly run by a protocol."

Overall, the three authors – Gur Huberman, Jacob Leshno and Ciamac Moallemi – contend that this characteristic offers a degree of protection against manipulation by bad actors by virtue of the protocol-layer dynamics.

The group write:

    "Bitcoin is a monopoly run by a protocol, not by a managing organization. Familiar monopolies are run by managing organizations with discretion to determine and then change prices, offerings and rules. Monopolies are often regulated to prevent or at least mitigate their abuse of power."

Other notable assertions featured in the paper include the argument that, because of this state of affairs, bitcoin itself "cannot be regulated."

"Bitcoin cannot be regulated. There is no need to regulate it because as a system it is committed to the protocol as is and the transaction fees it charges the users are determined by the users independently of the miners’ efforts," the authors state.

Though the document itself states that the views enclosed don't represent the official stance of the Bank of Finland, the publication is undoubtedly a notable one given the central bank's involvement with the tech to date.

Last year, it organized a seminar on blockchain that included regulators, local academics and companies in an effort to support local research – a move spurred further along by the government as well. The city of Kouvola in Finland, for example, received €2.4m to test blockchain-powered shipping.

The paper's authors closed by advocating for deeper research by other academics.

"[Bitcoin's] apparent functionality and usefulness should further encourage economists to study this marvelous structure," the three write.

https://www.coindesk.com/revolutionary-finland-central-bank-paper-heaps-praises-bitcoin/

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[Karartma1]

It took a while but eventually some important institutions are understanding the real beauty of the bitcoin project. I think an increasing number of institutions are on the same page as the Fin Central Bank: simply they can’t admit it. It’s hard for them to get how Bitcoin keeps functioning 24hrs a day, 7 days a week without major problems

[buwaytress]

Earlier last week, Geneva's local goverment thought blockchain would be the perfect way to solve their official document storage problems. Even if goverments may continue to view Bitcoin with suspicion, the underlying technology will be difficult to discredit. And once that hurdle is overcome, they can warm up to Bitcoin as a currency, like Switzerland and Finland now have.

P.S. Finland-based Localbitcoins should be the first to welcome this news!

[TravelMug]

At least some country who is very rich as already understand that bitcoin has really good benefits in the long run. And as I expected, they found bitcoin/blockchain technology as decentralized and unregulated and has many advantages. This is a good and welcoming news now, because lately those fake news and FUD are hugging the limelight. Its a breath of fresh air for all of us. Although the article says that it does not represent the official stance Bank of Finland, it still carry a lot of weight because those 3 authors carry reputation in their country. Let's wait and see how Bank of Finland will react to this and maybe we can see them accepting bitcoin with open arms in the future.