The Great View of History

[BobK71]

Did Western capitalism defeat both Communism and Fascism?  Yes.

Is the Western ruling class objectively superior to Communist and Fascist rule?  Yes.

Would the fight against Communism and Fascism have even been necessary if the West had lived up to its professed ideals?  No, because Communist forces rose in Russia by the Western-inspired bloodshed of World War I, and Fascist forces rose in Germany and Japan by the West's self-inflicted Great Depression.  But the sharp contradictions within socialism and Fascism sealed their fates as short-lived systems.

And we turn now to money and economics...

Will sound money replace fiat money?  I predict yes, though the next version of sound money won't be a declared gold or silver standard, but 'managed exchange rates' between state-issued money and a host of 'hard' monies, including cryptocurrency, which will amount to the same thing on the ground.

Is sound money objectively superior to fiat money?  Yes.

Will the fight against fiat money have even been necessary if the Western elites maintained a truly free market system?  No, fiat money arose because the Western elites had slowly painted themselves into a corner by financial inflation to benefit politicians and bankers.  Fiat money, or, more realistically, money backed by artificially cheap oil and artificially cheap goods from developing countries, was the short-term solution to keep the world system stable, and can only be a short-term solution.

The duality is interesting!

[Haunebu]

Why do so many people think that crypto will replace FIAT in the future even when its adoption rates are so low at the moment? This will never happen since FIAT will always be the primary money source despite its disadvantages which you mentioned.

Bitcoin was always meant to serve as an alternate payment method and nothing else in this case.

[Beerwizzard]

First of all goods from developing countries are not artificially cheap, they are just cheap and that happens because their labour is cheaper than ours. That's it.
The other thing is that fiat currency are better than gold or silver (if you are going to use it as a currency). Fiat currencies allows central banks to provide their monetary policy and stimulate a country's export and boost the economic growth of the country that would overcome the inflation. Meanwhile the economy doesn't work with deflation and if something like that happens you would get back to the middle ages pretty fast.

[Ailmand]

Why do so many people think that crypto will replace FIAT in the future even when its adoption rates are so low at the moment? This will never happen since FIAT will always be the primary money source despite its disadvantages which you mentioned.

Bitcoin was always meant to serve as an alternate payment method and nothing else in this case.

I agree, most people think that bitcoin can replace fiat, which we know had been the main medium of exchange used. Back from history, where people mainly use stick and stones as a medium exchange, and there comes barter, where people trade goods for goods(including spice which was as valuable as gold and silver) , and then here comes the banks where fiat or paper money was introduced. With this, logically it takes a great deal of time and a big change of the whole economic system to change from one medium of exchange to another. Even if technology takes over, I think fiat will still be used and bitcoin/cryptocurrency will sit along side with it as an alternative.

[Febo]

Did Western capitalism defeat both Communism and Fascism?  Yes.

Capitalism is not a political or society system as Fashism and Communism.   Democracy is a political system.   Capitalism is a economic system and opposite to capitalism is socialism. Where work is what is the ideal instead to idealize capital.

[okala]

I think the communist manifesto predates first world war because it was after the cold war that the world war two began and at that time the capitalist were already winning the war. Fascism have lost out and was fused into the communist manifesto to face capitalism in the cold war.

[MAKEDEV]

My opinion is there will be alway fight versus all gender opinion or convergeance better stay away from those fight and make your path between this

[Bitinity]

Why do so many people think that crypto will replace FIAT in the future even when its adoption rates are so low at the moment? This will never happen since FIAT will always be the primary money source despite its disadvantages which you mentioned.

Bitcoin was always meant to serve as an alternate payment method and nothing else in this case.

Because of their belief obviously, I cant blame them those who believe that crypto will replace fiat. Probably they believe it because they think that it is easier, it is modern, and many other reasons but they forget that bitcoin is volatile which is almost impossible to be used as a replacement of fiat. Most government wont use such volatile currency as their main currency. 

[cryptjh]

The inflations in fiat money make the holder losing value each day, so putting fiat on some kind of open ledger, that cut be a blockchain or another open account, would be a good idea, if that cut end the daily inflations from the central banks.
I don't think it would work if all countries gave up their own fiat currency and started to use bitcoins. But bitcoins can be an international way to store value and for cross border payment.

[Virtual miner]

Why do so many people think that crypto will replace FIAT in the future even when its adoption rates are so low at the moment? This will never happen since FIAT will always be the primary money source despite its disadvantages which you mentioned.

Bitcoin was always meant to serve as an alternate payment method and nothing else in this case.

Actually the issue with most of the people is that they don't understand the challenged which we could face during the adoption of bitcoin as a means of regular payment. Transaction time & cost are just a small issue. But coming to your point Fiat too can't be said as the solution to this menace. Continuing on fiat is just like increasing your debt more and more with time. In the history of mankind there has been no fiat currency that has survived. So perhaps fiat will come to an end and we will have to shift upon some other means of settlement.

Why do so many people think that crypto will replace FIAT in the future even when its adoption rates are so low at the moment? This will never happen since FIAT will always be the primary money source despite its disadvantages which you mentioned.

Bitcoin was always meant to serve as an alternate payment method and nothing else in this case.

Because of their belief obviously, I cant blame them those who believe that crypto will replace fiat. Probably they believe it because they think that it is easier, it is modern, and many other reasons but they forget that bitcoin is volatile which is almost impossible to be used as a replacement of fiat. Most government wont use such volatile currency as their main currency. 

Volatility is not an issue. Bitcoin is getting its volatility because people think it's an asset which would appreciate and they are exchanging their fiat for it. If governments would issue bitcoin in return of fiat by destroying the fiat then volatility will not be an issue. Major problem is the credit control.

[Fortify]

I think you are making a lot of random connections, skipping from talking about fascism and then jumping to a discussion of the gold standard. In an ideal world there would be nothing wrong with fiat currency, the problem comes in when individual countries try to manipulate their currency to get an advantage over other economies.

[Shenzou]

Bitcoin or any cryptocurrency will never be able to replace fiat, because if there is governments there will always be fiat and banks, and people should realize that, there are so many things in the world that coexist so why can't we agree on the fact that bitcoin and fiat can both exist and be relevant with one canceling the other, all of us want to be able to use our bitcoin freely at any time and at any place because we believe it is a good and secure transaction system, and others don't see it so they can stick to their fiat and we all live in peace.

[mu_enrico]

Would the fight against Communism and Fascism have even been necessary if the West had lived up to its professed ideals?

Yes

Will the fight against fiat money have even been necessary if the Western elites maintained a truly free market system?

No

Both are different. In the first statement, communism could destroy capitalism with force/intervention. Yes, we could wait for communism to crumble, but it will take forever (one civilization to crumble). In the second statement, we have a perfect example of how the intervention is terrible.

[samputin]

Sound money replacing fiat is not impossible. But that still depends on the government of a particular country. However, at this day and age, I think it would be better if we treat sound money not as competition of fiat but as an alternative. Alternative way of paying, buying, and other means of transaction. It may be superior than fiat but it doesn't make either of them less important than the other. They have their fair share of advantages and disadvantages. And we all have our own preferences. Let those who prefer to use crypto use crypto and those who want to use fiat use fiat.

[figmentofmyass]

Why do so many people think that crypto will replace FIAT in the future even when its adoption rates are so low at the moment?

the OP's point was much more nuanced than that. he said sound money will replace fiat money, and that crypto will be included among a basket of hard money asset classes backing state currencies. i've long believed the same thing about any post-fiat world---that central banks will build reserves not just in gold/silver but in other hard commodities, perhaps including bitcoin, to back their currencies and hedge the economy.

[tonyja2017]

 haha. that's an interesting comparison. In the future, you will see people live more in a hurry and they will need quick payment or money transfer services at low fees.
I believe that cryptocurrency will do that and those who believe in crypto and invest in it will soon become rich.

[sonerbo]

haha. that's an interesting comparison. In the future, you will see people live more in a hurry and they will need quick payment or money transfer services at low fees.
I believe that cryptocurrency will do that and those who believe in crypto and invest in it will soon become rich.

I totally agree with that. Banks are working on workdays. Future cant accept these. There must be something 7/24 working and its what we are in.

[LeGaulois]

You're mixing economy and politic a bit, even they can be tied together somewhat. The real problem is the money created by someone behind a computer (your banker), the money doesn't exist, it's a scriptural money and it's a real threat to the system. As long central banks keep to print money that's ok, but it creates debt and decreases national currencies value

[BobK71]

There are many replies, so I'll try to address them 'in bulk' here:

Most importantly, I do not believe crypto will replace fiat money in the usual sense.  For 300 years before World War I (1914,) central-bank-issued paper money circulated alongside gold and silver coins, where most money in circulation was paper, and central banks set up more or less fixed exchange rates between their paper money (their version of what we call fiat money) and gold/silver.  I'm predicting we'll go back to this world in practice, even if the publicly declared story will be somewhat different.

Whatever you call it, some system is needed to support faith in central bank money (called fiat today.)  It used to be a fixed exchange rate with gold or silver.  Now it's artificially cheap oil and consumer goods from countries which are dominated by US power.  The current game is unstable and bloody, and it is running out of time anyway, so a new system must be devised.  I believe Bitcoin will play the old role of gold.

And yes, oil and consumer goods have been artificially cheap, because countries like Saudi Arabia, Iran before 1979, and China since 1990 (not to mention W. Europe and Japan during the first postwar decades) have set their exchange rates artificially cheap against the dollar by buying up dollars with their own fiat currencies while having a big trade surplus against the US.  American elites (secretly) liked it, because it supported the value of the dollar and gave them power and wealth.  Other governments were either co-opted or even forced into playing along in what has become a gigantic global dollar bubble over the last 100 years.  (If you were the government of Japan, China, or a postwar European country, you wanted your exports to be as big as possible, and you didn't care if the whole arrangement was artificial, ie not driven by free markets, and would cause global financial problems in the long run.)

So, I would predict the mid- to long-term future of money to be like this: there will be a new official story which will seem quite different from the gold/silver standard of the past.  The story will be that a big appreciation of cryptocurrencies is a sign that savers have lost faith in central bank money, because of debt, money printing, asset bubble, or what have you.  Since this will start a deflationary bust and economic pain (and I also believe there will be at least one big such episode in the near future to prove the point,) policymakers must avoid and reverse the mistakes that lead to such a condition, plus possibly sell their reserves of gold/cryto to keep the 'exchange rates' stable and calm the markets.  This will, in effect, be no different from the gold and silver standards of the past centuries.

As part of getting to such a world, there will probably have to be quite a bit of inflation to dilute the real value of the world's current debt loads.  One way or another, only inflating away the debt can achieve eventual stability.

I have been mixing political and financial history, yes.  The reason is that, at the most fundamental level, these are closely related and linked.  I will try to give more details in future.

[ajaymukund]

We have seen the future and the past of the Internet. Those who appreciate and have great views are rich. Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, ...
we should also have a vision like those billionaires. crypto definitely has a great future and we need to exploit it from now on.