A specter is haunting the modern world, the specter of crypto anarchy - Tim May
I'm starting this topic as a "part two" of another topic of mine -
Governs are coming for the traders!, being, in part, influenced by reading (the title of) this thread:
Why are the world’s governments not using cryptocurrencies?.
Governments don't want to use cryptocurrencies; at least not decentralized ones. Because they need to control everything - from personal information to data and money. You can not do anything without a government issued ID - you can not go to school, you can not drive a car, you can not get marry and so on. Governs needs all their citizen's data, including their financial information. For this reason governs try as much as possible to eradicate cash money and switch them with credit / debit cards. Cash money are hard to be tracked, while digital transactions are always stored by the banks, which act as government arms, providing the authorities all the data they ask about people.
Realizing all the hype about crypto, understanding that people are heading towards using digital currencies, governs started, with bigger or smaller steps, to think about offering such money to their citizens. But not decentralized cryptocurrencies, which are anonymous or pseudonymous -- they want to offer centralized cryptocurrencies, a kind of money which can be tracked, associated with real names and which has a value determined by the govern instead of the free market. Take for example Venezuela's Petro, Russia's CryptoRuble, Japan's J-coin, China and so on.
Of course,
state-issued digital currencies are totally opposed to cryptocurrencies and the differences between them are so many, that is difficult to count all of them:
-
cryptocurrencies are meant to liberate people from the slavery imposed by banks and governments, eliminating the middle man and facilitating peer to peer transfers;
digital currencies issued by governs are based on trusted third parties (banks), they
are designed to continue to enslave people, to give them the illusion of freedom, while in fact they are oppressed;
- cryptocurrencies are providing anonymity / pseudonymity and the
users are their true owners, as they hold their private keys; digital money invented by governs won't offer private keys to people, will be trackable and, most likely, won't be mineable (instead, it will be held by the banks);
- (most of)
cryptocurrencies have a fixed number of coins, in order to avoid inflation; digital money issued by governs won't have a fixed number, as the
governs are seeking inflation and not deflation, because inflation is an indirect tax supported by many people even without being aware of. It is harder to force people to accept a direct tax, compared with imposing them an indirect tax; in case the indirect tax is not even realized, governs' work is way easier;
-
cryptocurrencies' value is determined by the free market (or, at least, it should be; let's not think now about whales);
governs' money has a value established by the State.
And the list can go on.
As a matter of fact, the only thing in common for cryptocurrencies and the digital currencies issued by State is that both want to get rid of fiat money. But, obviously, for totally different reasons: cryptocurrencies want to change the actual system, which is corrupt to the roots, while the governs want to keep the system, but with a different financial instrument, which would give people the false perception of using cryptocurrencies.
This future was forseen a long time ago by the Cypherpunks, the Founding Fathers of crypto anarchy.
If you are among those who started to refuse governs' corrupt fiat money, don't let yourself tricked into using a digital currency issued by the State!Arise, you have nothing to lose but your barbed wire fences! (Tim May,
The Crypto Anarchist Manifesto, 1988)
[To be continued]
Translations (in chronological order):
