Could a government supplant Bitcoin?

[deisik]

Goldbugs never seem to learn economics. You must continue to debase the currency, else it can't ever work as a currency. It is simple mathematics.

The very thought is blasphemy for the most part of this forum

[1714571692]

1714571692

[1714571692]

1714571692

[1714571692]

1714571692

[Sindelar1938]

Highly improbable but they are going to try

Dinosaurs are not in the habit of standing by idly while birds replace them

[deisik]

Highly improbable but they are going to try

Dinosaurs are not in the habit of standing by idly while birds replace them

Birds didn't replace dinosaurs, they are dinosaurs which managed to live up to the present day

[AnonyMint]

Your idea has been tried. You are describing MintChip, Canada's virtual money. Ever heard of it? ... exactly.  

How Bitcoin transitions to a government coin is entirely different.

That is different. However any change in the protocol would mean a fork. At that point it would no longer be bitcoin. It would also not likely be adopted. Are you willing to burn up your home wiring to generate money for the federal reserve?
Also what would keep China from then creating the lion share of the coins and charging Americans a premium. If it is not open source and beyond manipulation, then it has zero appeal.

You haven't really thought this through.

It would not be the first thing I said without thinking. But I'm not sure here what I am missing. If anyone changes the protocol, it will not be bitcoin. What was outlined earlier is the government creating an alt-coin. Which would have no value to me.

I need to be honest and point out that all the posts that I've read in this thread (up to this point) other than mine are batshit stupid nonsense. Sorry guys, but the elite are just laughing at you because you are such dumb cows and so easy to fool. Now let me try to explain to you, and hopefully you will slow down and try to grasp this. If not, you will have proven that the elite are correct about you and your deserved future.

If as you all hope (with gold rush fever preventing you from clearer logic) that Bitcoin will be the only viable crypto-currency, i.e. the theory that network efforts will amass to the first coin and thus it will dominate, then if Bitcoin mining (and thus the currency) is designed (as I have explained upthread) to be taken over by cartels due to the lack of funding when cartels (e.g. Amazon.com) withhold transactions from smaller miners as coin rewards become minuscule by 2033 (<1% and <0.2% by 2040), then it follows that you can't successfully fork Bitcoin because the inertia of the masses will already be invested (all those network effects and inertia) in that Bitcoin which is then controlled by the cartels. You won't have another option and you won't be able to create one if you believe the network effects dominance theory. You can't have it both ways, either you don't believe in altcoins and you get this dystopian outcome, or you do believe in altcoins.

Inertia is impossible to overcome by asking the broad population not to use the system that is most convenient (i.e. the most network effects), just try to go now and talk to every person in the world and convince them to stop using dollars. Hahaha. No chance. Only paradigm shifts can move inertia, as Bitcoin is doing now to dollars. When that paradigm shift has played out and everyone is in Bitcoin, then you can't fork any more (if the network effects dominance theory is correct).

The cartels can change the protocol and as long as the system still processes transactions for the masses, then the masses will not be complaining except for those 350,000 purists that are in Bitcoin now, and that is such a small percent of the world population. We complain now about the dollar, but the masses do not listen to us.

I hope I don't have to explain inertia and network effects.

I don't believe in the "there can only be one crypto-currency" network effects dominance theory. Thus I don't think we will reach the dystopian future outlined above and the other dystopian outcome due to Bitcoin's egregiously incorrect supply distribution curve, but this depends on better altcoins competing with Bitcoin. If I am wrong, then we are doomed.

P.S. And Bitcoin is going to put most of us 350,000 in jail, so we will all be silenced by then, although that is not necessary to my point above.

Goldbugs never seem to learn economics. You must continue to debase the currency, else it can't ever work as a currency. It is simple mathematics.

The very thought is blasphemy for the most part of this forum

Goldbugs destroy themselves by trying to impoverish the rest of the world with their egregiously incorrect supply distribution curve. The actual curve of wealth distribution in society is 3% power-law and 97% gas diffusion (because knowledge and initiative is not randomly distributed in the top 3%, as I am demonstrating to you now given I am in the top 3%). If you don't match your supply curve to reality, then you end up with dystopian outcomes or war as society resists what can not be.

The elite know very well they can feed the "gold rush fever" every time and fool the cows to take their money and cause society to have a big problem. Then they come in and fix it with a fiat every time after the goldbugs have destroyed society.

[deisik]

I need to be honest and point out that all the posts in this thread other than mine are batshit stupid nonsense. Sorry guys, but the elite are just laughing at you because you are such dumb cows and so easy to fool. Now let me try to explain to you, and hopefully you will slow down and try to grasp this. If not, you will have proven that the elite are correct about you and your deserved future.

<skipped the rest>

I think you talk too much with too little modesty (though I personally agree that Bitcoin's future is rather uncertain on a world scale)

[Rival]

News from the year 2020:

This week a local Detroit man was arrested on suspicion of running an unlicensed bitcoin mining operation. Several ASICminer USB sticks and and a x486 computer were seized in the operation that took 40 agents 6 weeks to bring to an arrest. "We are all aware of the dangers of allowing unlicensed bitcoin creation, such bitcoins cannot be regulated and could be used for terrorism, child porn, drugs, or gambling." said Detroit's top cop. The mining operation allegedly used so-called "legacy" computers, which were produced before the FATAL act. FATAL required all computers to be fitted with monitoring chips to prevent cybercrime in 2016, and although most obsolete machines were turned in, some appear to have been withheld by criminals for uses such as mining.

The still unidentified man will likely face the death penalty, however his true fate will not be disclosed in the interest of national security.

In other news, Iceland has agreed to lend the struggling US economy 250 BTC to purchase much needed food supplies from Russia, in return for all of the mineral rights to the mostly abandoned state of Alaska.

[Inedible]

Your idea has been tried. You are describing MintChip, Canada's virtual money. Ever heard of it? ... exactly.  

How Bitcoin transitions to a government coin is entirely different.

That is different. However any change in the protocol would mean a fork. At that point it would no longer be bitcoin. It would also not likely be adopted. Are you willing to burn up your home wiring to generate money for the federal reserve?
Also what would keep China from then creating the lion share of the coins and charging Americans a premium. If it is not open source and beyond manipulation, then it has zero appeal.

You haven't really thought this through.

It would not be the first thing I said without thinking. But I'm not sure here what I am missing. If anyone changes the protocol, it will not be bitcoin. What was outlined earlier is the government creating an alt-coin. Which would have no value to me.

I need to be honest and point out that all the posts that I've read in this thread (up to this point) other than mine are batshit stupid nonsense. Sorry guys, but the elite are just laughing at you because you are such dumb cows and so easy to fool. Now let me try to explain to you, and hopefully you will slow down and try to grasp this. If not, you will have proven that the elite are correct about you and your deserved future.

If as you all hope (with gold rush fever preventing you from clearer logic) that Bitcoin will be the only viable crypto-currency, i.e. the theory that network efforts will amass to the first coin and thus it will dominate, then if Bitcoin mining (and thus the currency) is designed (as I have explained upthread) to be taken over by cartels due to the lack of funding when cartels (e.g. Amazon.com) withhold transactions from smaller miners as coin rewards become minuscule by 2033 (<1% and <0.2% by 2040), then it follows that you can't successfully fork Bitcoin because the inertia of the masses will already be invested (all those network effects and inertia) in that Bitcoin which is then controlled by the cartels. You won't have another option and you won't be able to create one if you believe the network effects dominance theory. You can't have it both ways, either you don't believe in altcoins and you get this dystopian outcome, or you do believe in altcoins.

Inertia is impossible to overcome by asking the broad population not to use the system that is most convenient (i.e. the most network effects), just try to go now and talk to every person in the world and convince them to stop using dollars. Hahaha. No chance. Only paradigm shifts can move inertia, as Bitcoin is doing now to dollars. When that paradigm shift has played out and everyone is in Bitcoin, then you can't fork any more (if the network effects dominance theory is correct).

The cartels can change the protocol and as long as the system still processes transactions for the masses, then the masses will not be complaining except for those 350,000 purists that are in Bitcoin now, and that is such a small percent of the world population. We complain now about the dollar, but the masses do not listen to us.

I hope I don't have to explain inertia and network effects.

I don't believe in the "there can only be one crypto-currency" network effects dominance theory. Thus I don't think we will reach the dystopian future outlined above and the other dystopian outcome due to Bitcoin's egregiously incorrect supply distribution curve, but this depends on better altcoins competing with Bitcoin. If I am wrong, then we are doomed.

P.S. And Bitcoin is going to put most of us 350,000 in jail, so we will all be silenced by then, although that is not necessary to my point above.

Goldbugs never seem to learn economics. You must continue to debase the currency, else it can't ever work as a currency. It is simple mathematics.

The very thought is blasphemy for the most part of this forum

Goldbugs destroy themselves by trying to impoverish the rest of the world with their egregiously incorrect supply distribution curve. The actual curve of wealth distribution in society is 3% power-law and 97% gas diffusion (because knowledge and initiative is not randomly distributed in the top 3%, as I am demonstrating to you now given I am in the top 3%). If you don't match your supply curve to reality, then you end up with dystopian outcomes or war as society resists what can not be.

The elite know very well they can feed the "gold rush fever" every time and fool the cows to take their money and cause society to have a big problem. Then they come in and fix it with a fiat every time after the goldbugs have destroyed society.

This is interesting - can you explain why the Gold Standard would impoverish the rest of the world? I'm interested because I do read that it doesn't work but I've never heard a compelling reason as to why this would be the case.

Please correct me as my understanding is this: There's not enough gold in the world. Can't pricing be flexible now that we have computers and the Internet? I suspect the solution will require technology of some sort.

[AnonyMint]

I need to be honest and point out that all the posts in this thread other than mine are batshit stupid nonsense. Sorry guys, but the elite are just laughing at you because you are such dumb cows and so easy to fool. Now let me try to explain to you, and hopefully you will slow down and try to grasp this. If not, you will have proven that the elite are correct about you and your deserved future.

<skipped the rest>

I think you talk too much with too little modesty (though I personally agree that Bitcoin's future is rather uncertain on a world scale)

When I talk modestly, you don't pay attention. When I talk forcefully, you don't read and then try match your beta-male ego to my alpha-male. So what do you expect us elite to do? We have no choice but to manipulate you because you are not rational.

[deisik]

When I talk modestly, you don't pay attention. When I talk forcefully, you don't read and then try match your beta-male ego to my alpha-male. So what do you expect us elite to do? We have no choice but to manipulate you because you are not rational.

How old are you?

[AnonyMint]

Goldbugs never seem to learn economics. You must continue to debase the currency, else it can't ever work as a currency. It is simple mathematics.

The very thought is blasphemy for the most part of this forum

Goldbugs destroy themselves by trying to impoverish the rest of the world with their egregiously incorrect supply distribution curve. The actual curve of wealth distribution in society is 3% power-law and 97% gas diffusion (because knowledge and initiative is not randomly distributed in the top 3%, as I am demonstrating to you now given I am in the top 3%). If you don't match your supply curve to reality, then you end up with dystopian outcomes or war as society resists what can not be.

The elite know very well they can feed the "gold rush fever" every time and fool the cows to take their money and cause society to have a big problem. Then they come in and fix it with a fiat every time after the goldbugs have destroyed society.

This is interesting - can you explain why the Gold Standard would impoverish the rest of the world? I'm interested because I do read that it doesn't work but I've never heard a compelling reason as to why this would be the case.

Please correct me as my understanding is this: There's not enough gold in the world. Can't pricing be flexible now that we have computers and the Internet? I suspect the solution will require technology of some sort.

I don't have time to write carefully... this will be sloppy...

Start at the following linked post and then read forward in the thread. You may also want to read backwards in the thread for more context. And follow some of the links in the posts for more explanation and data.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=195275.msg3350891#msg3350891

The basic point is that capital sitting in a hole FOREVER is theft from production and new knowledge creation. Savings and delayed gratification are important, but they are not so important that capital should grow in value FOREVER for doing nothing but sit in a hole.

Debt plays into this as this is how society forces the capital to move, even it can't get its hands on it. Because the optimum increases in knowledge and production won't occur if capital has all the power.

Yet debt also causes misallocation of capital, so there is ying and yang. Goldbugs want only the yang and want capital to be absolute.

Absolute capital means Dark Ages, feudalism, dying production, dying intellectualism, etc..

Getting goldbugs to understand this is nearly impossible because they can't load the dynamic game theory in their head. They can only see the static notion of their capital is absolute and theirs. They don't understand that No Money Exists Without the Majority.

It will be quite satisfying if even one reader understands and tells me he does.

Debt is not so bad when the base money can't be turned into a fiat, e.g. in the 1800s there were frequent liquidating corrections (thus self-adjusting without getting too far misallocative and out-of-balance) because no central bank could print physical gold to bailout the private banks which were printing gold receipts which depositors were then spending as money. The problem is these frequent bank runs caused frequent depressions and recessions in the USA in the 1800s and eventually JP Morgan was asked to bailout the nation and thus he got the control to create a central bank in 1913. Now with central banks, the world has gone for decades without a correction and thus the imbalances are grotesque and going to cause a massive global implosion when they are finally liquidated.

It is my hope that if we replaced Bitcoin with an altcoin that is more immune to cartels such as JP Morgan, then we could return to the frequent private banks corrections of the 1800s and live in a minanarchist free market again. But realize society hates this, because they want insurance which they believe is guarantee against catastrophic failure by sharing risk, but mathematically it is guaranteed SYSTEMIC failure later. See Taleb's Antifragility math.

If you really want to understand the generative essence of the math, you must really understand why "smaller things grow faster". Degrees-of-freedom is potential energy (proof is some where in the above linked thread). Monolithic capital that is static or only knows how to buy a bond or insurance, reduces degrees-of-freedom, i.e. everything can only move monolithically such as the insurance fund manager's investment decisions.

When I talk modestly, you don't pay attention. When I talk forcefully, you don't read and then try match your beta-male ego to my alpha-male. So what do you expect us elite to do? We have no choice but to manipulate you because you are not rational.

How old are you?

49

[deisik]

How old are you?

49

Do you understand that with all that elitist alpha-male attitude you actually look ridiculous?
Should we necessarily know about your inferiority complexes? 

[AnonyMint]

How old are you?

49

Do you understand that with all that elitist alpha-male attitude you actually look ridiculous?
Should we necessarily know about your inferiority complexes?  

Sigh. (He never got the point about the utility of comparing penis length)

He as a beta-male is still following his notion that the alpha-male is the one who the group kneels down to, so he is testing whether I have that political power. He doesn't understand the real alpha-male controls without being seen, because he is more rational and understands the game theory better than the beta-males do.

[deisik]

He as a beta-male is still following his notion that the alpha-male is the one who the group kneels down to, so he is testing whether I have that political power. He doesn't understand the real alpha-male controls without being seen, because he is more rational and understands the game theory better than the beta-males do.

So what are you doing here?

[AnonyMint]

How old are you?

49

Do you understand that with all that elitist alpha-male attitude you actually look ridiculous?
Should we necessarily know about your inferiority complexes?  

Sigh. (He never got the point about the utility of comparing penis length)

He as a beta-male is still following his notion that the alpha-male is the one who the group kneels down to, so he is testing whether I have that political power. He doesn't understand the real alpha-male controls without being seen, because he is more rational and understands the game theory better than the beta-males do.

I suggest he takes some lessons from the 50-something, minanarchist, 160 IQ creator of "open source" Eric S. Raymond as follows.

Ego is for little people

A natural contemplates game

Facing your inner alpha

[deisik]

If I spelled it out for you, then I couldn't accomplish my goal. Yet I already told you upthread what my goal is; you are not paying attention.

You told me?

[rpietila]

Goldbugs want only the yang and want capital to be absolute.

The most productive period per annum in the history of mankind was 1871-1913, the time of the gold standard. (Disagree?)

- Money supply was not only bullion, it was augmented with real bills. (Real bills can be implemented with bitcoin, if bitcoin is the quote currency.)
- Debt was kept in check by the natural mechanism as debt was not money, only bullion was (and real bills acted as money without strictly being that).

[deisik]

The most productive period per annum in the history of mankind was 1871-1913, the time of the gold standard. (Disagree?)

- Money supply was not only bullion, it was augmented with real bills. (Real bills can be implemented with bitcoin, if bitcoin is the quote currency.)
- Debt was kept in check by the natural mechanism as debt was not money, only bullion was (and real bills acted as money without strictly being that).

Actually, it all started in the early 19th centrury and primarily was due to technological advances (electricity, chemistry, railways, etc)

[deisik]

Also, the time period you mention was marked by a train of successive economic crises at the end of each economic cycle, which had finally led to the war in Europe (known as WWI) and Great Depression in the USA. After that the gold standard was de facto dismantled

[AnonyMint]

Wow deisik, you surprised me. Your two most recent posts were astute. Indeed the First and Second Industrial Revolutions. And now we are in the First Computer Revolution which is maturing towards the coming Second.

Goldbugs want only the yang and want capital to be absolute.

The most productive period per annum in the history of mankind was 1871-1913, the time of the gold standard. (Disagree?)

- Money supply was not only bullion, it was augmented with real bills. (Real bills can be implemented with bitcoin, if bitcoin is the quote currency.)
- Debt was kept in check by the natural mechanism as debt was not money, only bullion was (and real bills acted as money without strictly being that).

Exactly. No one could print the bullion for free, thus no one could bailout the private banks. Thus corrections were frequent and thus the system was much more optimized and annealed (less Antifragile if using Taleb's math). Then the central banks were created to deal with the crisis caused from World War I when Europe's socialism imploded, so then the base money became fiat. But the problem with Bitcoin is that it is MUST become cartelized due to the transaction withholding attack and the loss of coin rewards, so therefor the base money (if Bitcoin) will be fiat again as I explained upthread on this page.

Note the bullion was not the dominant (most accepted) money. The receipts were (no need to assay). There can't exist widespread expansion of debt with bullion as money. If capital is absolute, e.g. bullion is the ONLY money, then society declines into the abyss of a Dark Age.

So yes there must be a meaningful (5% per annum at least) expansion of the money supply, not just a (roughly) static number of BTC. It can happen from writing receipts for fractional reserve BTC and using those as money, or it can happen with an altcoin that has an expanding money supply. Or both. Either one or both could help mitigate the dystopian outcome for Bitcoin concerning relative impoverishment of the masses, but neither deals with the dystopia that Bitcoin is designed to become cartelized and thus morph into the government's coin.

I prefer the non-fractional reserve, expanding altcoin money supply option, because it is more honest and transparent on the public decentralized ledger. Whereas, private entities (opaquely or via government oversight) printing fractional reserve receipts (IOUs) is inherently unscrupulous.

P.S. 5% per annum coin rewards are not a threat to the coin's appreciation. Bitcoin is at roughly 11% now and the price is rising astronomically fast. With CPU-only mining, you would be getting more people into the coin to match the 97% gas diffusion distribution of wealth in society, thus a large market penetration and better future for the coin.

[rpietila]

Go work on the solution then!