Iceland to dump their currency for the Canadian dollar?

[Bimmerhead]

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/economy/currencies/canadian-envoy-to-iceland-sparks-loonie-controversy/article2356634/page1/


If they're willing to give up control over their currency, why not switch to bitcoin?  Do they really want the Canadian government setting their monetary policy?

Come on Icelanders, get lobbying your gov't to use BTC!

[Shuai]

Uhm, perhaps because the combined number of Bitcoin users in Iceland most likely doesn't exceed 7 people.

[foggyb]

Uhm, perhaps because the combined number of Bitcoin users in Iceland most likely doesn't exceed 7 people.

Before 1992, total user count of Euro currency was ZERO.

Number of users is not a reason not to adopt a new currency.

Yup, that's right, the internet is older than the Euro.

[hazek]

If you go and read the draft for their new constitution you'll notice there is a bunch of socialists statist crap in there which doesn't surprise me at all since it was drafted by 30 or something of their by the public selected citizenry. Why would we expect anything smarter of them when it comes to choosing a good money. Idiots should have gone with gold and maybe some bitcoins but they'll just have to pay for their mistakes down the road like all the other nations with a centrally run currency.

[Revalin]

Do they really want the Canadian government setting their monetary policy?

Do they really want the collective consensus of a handful of miners setting their monetary policy?

I'm all for Bitcoin growing into something big, but it has to do it one step at a time.  There's no way an entire country is going to convert to something as Beta as Bitcoin.

[lakeluke]

I agree with Revalin,

Gold standard for a small country is the way to go, towards a stable hard currency. They can easily reserve enough gold and other precious material to back their currency, and keep a stable 1-2% interest setting.

Another idea on backing a currency for a small nation is via a share mechanism, whereby Gold, Oil, other country specific assets are pooled and divided into currency shares. So 1 country unit will equal 1 share of a large fund backing the currency.

Bitcoins can be considered further down the road.

[kangasbros]

I'm all for Bitcoin growing into something big, but it has to do it one step at a time.  There's no way an entire country is going to convert to something as Beta as Bitcoin.

This. People are over-advocating bitcoin, it is still a very young technology. Maybe after 10 years it has proven itself to be stable enough to be seriously considered for anything.

Before that, it is a free market. Everyone is free to use bitcoin as a way to do business. Icelanders too. Hopefully at least some small group there will adopt it.

Advocating bitcoins without considering the risks and young age is harmful to the bitcoin project in general IMHO.

[Phinnaeus Gage]

If they're willing to give up control over their currency, why not switch to bitcoin?  Do they really want the Canadian government setting their monetary policy?

Come on Icelanders, get lobbying your gov't to use BTC!

who's gonna host their wallet? linode?

seriously. please stop all this ridiculous "zomg! nations need to adopt bitcoin" shit.

But if a new country is created, recognized by the other countries, and that country's sole currency is Bitcoin, then they'll be able to trade Bticoin for fiat with very little resistance.

[runeks]

Yeah. A country adopting an experimental, first-of-a-kind, three year old digital currency as its national currency just makes sense.

[proudhon]

Yeah. A country adopting an experimental, first-of-a-kind, three year old digital currency as its national currency just makes sense.

Anyone know of any instructables for creating new countries?

[Indemnified]

Yeah. A country adopting an experimental, first-of-a-kind, three year old digital currency as its national currency just makes sense.

Anyone know of any instructables for creating new countries?

http://www.wikinfo.org/index.php/Cesidian_Root

[cbeast]

Yeah. A country adopting an experimental, first-of-a-kind, three year old digital currency as its national currency just makes sense.

Hypothecated financial instruments grew in an awful goddamn hurry. Why can't Bitcoin based money?

[defenestra]

Yeah. A country adopting an experimental, first-of-a-kind, three year old digital currency as its national currency just makes sense.

No less sense than adopting a scheme (a fiat money) that has historically proven 100 percent ratio of failure.
Of course BTC could choke when handling transactions traffic at the scale of whole country. But that could be improved for sure; it's important to not dismiss such possibilities. Eventually a technology may grand many great things.

[defenestra]

Anyone know of any instructables for creating new countries?

Yeah - there three ways: by a civil war which is quick and necessarily bloody affair. Alternatively work on organizing, funding and lobbying for such separatist idea on a political background. With enough persistence and sufficient mindshare it may pay off. But it will not be quick nor easy.

There is an another way though; by rapid technological advances where the very current social fabric will become obsolete. Than things like states will have to be redefined.

[lakeluke]

Yeah. A country adopting an experimental, first-of-a-kind, three year old digital currency as its national currency just makes sense.

No less sense than adopting a scheme (a fiat money) that has historically proven 100 percent ratio of failure.
Of course BTC could choke when handling transactions traffic at the scale of whole country. But that could be improved for sure; it's important to not dismiss such possibilities. Eventually a technology may grand many great things.

Before Bitcoins usage is expanded multifold from current figures, two key issues need to be looked at (and i know they are under future consideration)

1. Transaction confirmations need to be done faster than the current 10 min's in the blockchain
2. The blockchain needs to be optimised somehow to reduce it's size; a possibility of having 2 "linked" blockchains , let's imagine them as mini-bc and big-bc, where the mini-bc will have a subset of info in the current main bc.

[evoorhees]

Before Bitcoins usage is expanded multifold from current figures, two key issues need to be looked at (and i know they are under future consideration)

1. Transaction confirmations need to be done faster than the current 10 min's in the blockchain
2. The blockchain needs to be optimised somehow to reduce it's size; a possibility of having 2 "linked" blockchains , let's imagine them as mini-bc and big-bc, where the mini-bc will have a subset of info in the current main bc.

Neither of those are required. The first is already solved by many of us, using green addresses and assuming very tiny amounts of risk. You do not need to wait for a confirmation to give your customer his hamburger - as soon as the transaction is seen, it's extremely unlikely that you'll get ripped off for $6.50. Much more likely that you'll die in a car accident driving home from work.

The second is probably a good evolution, but is not required. Not everyone needs to have the full blockchain to use the Bitcoin network. Many solutions to this already exist (ie - every ewallet, and thin clients).

What DOES need to occur before any "nation" would ever consider adopting something as experimental as Bitcoin is for the exchange rate to calm down considerably. The Bitcoin network has proven beautiful and resilient, but the market price will be chaotic for a long time while humanity tries to price this crazy thing. Until the price is very stable, it doesn't make sense to place what should be conservative money into Bitcoin (I'll also speculate that the price will not be relatively stable until Bitcoin is at least a few hundred dollars, if not a few thousand - the market will be too shallow until then).

Bitcoin does not require, nor does it lend itself well, to state sponsorship. What we need are individuals, wherever they are, to discover how Bitcoin works and realize why they should opt out of fiat incrementally.

[lakeluke]

Evoorhees,

Although direct wallet to wallet transactions are immediate, I doubt large retailers will be willing to risk non-confirmed trades, especially on a large scale.

My post did not advocate the use of Bitcoin by State clients; personally i believe the longer they stay away the better it will be for our innovative community.

Stablity of price: This is difficult; several things have to happen, and even then BTC might be stable but the Fiat's might not be-take Gold price as an example: If we assume Gold is the hardest and most worthy "currency" or asset in the world the price of it is not stable, with respect to Fiat; it's not because Gold changes price, but because Fiat paper fluctuates so much on a daily basis, and this is what it is measured against.

So in the future even if BTC reaches Gold status, its price w.r.t Fiat paper (as these will always exist in some form or another) will fluctuate.

Another example of a Large priced asset NOT stable is the price of Berkshire Hathaway shares; they trades in the $100k range per A share, but they easily changes several percent per day.

Once BTC trade volumes reach 10's  million units per day, people will not exactly need stability, but can start to sacrifice that for the convenience and for the inner peace it gives them to be using an "open" liberated currency. At such volumes, price will stabilise some what, however more important, there will be available large finance mechanisms to provide proper safe hedging against one's home fiat paper.

[runeks]

Yeah. A country adopting an experimental, first-of-a-kind, three year old digital currency as its national currency just makes sense.

[...]
Of course BTC could choke when handling transactions traffic at the scale of whole country. But that could be improved for sure; it's important to not dismiss such possibilities.

LOL.

"Yeah Icelandic people, I know you weren't able to use money this past week, but we can improve that for sure. Give it some time alright?"

Are you serious?

Eventually a technology may grand many great things.

Agreed. We're not talking about whether bitcoins can be used as a national currency "eventually", though. We're talking about now.

Yeah. A country adopting an experimental, first-of-a-kind, three year old digital currency as its national currency just makes sense.

Hypothecated financial instruments grew in an awful goddamn hurry. Why can't Bitcoin based money?

I'm not saying Bitcoin can't grow. I'm saying bitcoins aren't suitable as a national currency right now.