919 sats \ 1 reply \ @psztorc 29 Sep 2023 \ parent \ on: Stacker News Roundtable #1 - Building on Bitcoin, Bitcoin Culture, and More bitcoin
My steelman would be:
  • Every fiat currency is shooting itself in the head.
    • The USD has unsustainable fiscal crisis looming, and no institution is taking a leadership role in defusing this bomb. The precedent has long been set, that we deal with these deficits via printing money.
    • The EURO is badly designed currency, and the EU is badly designed. The whole thing runs on German guilt which, while admittedly a powerful force, is not enough to defeat the laws of compounding interest.
    • China is great, we all love the growth, but their demography and geopolitical isolation has them basically screwed. They constantly lie about all their numbers -- classic problem with communism / top-down economics. When I visit China people love love love the USDT, of all things. No one wants Chinese currencies. Billionaires just vanish sometimes over there, you know.
    • What, then? The Russian ruble? Brazil? No offense, but you've got to be kidding me.
  • There is no good rival Altcoin
    • Ethereum has many design "uncertainties" -- very open to change. Proof of stake. Paying fees for computations that fail (because of halting problem).
    • BCH had terrible strategy / execution, too many reasons to list, but disqualified the idea of hardforking in most people's heads.
    • 99% of other Alts pure scams. The last 1%, such as Namecoin, are all run by pure-of-heart Bitcoiners anyway.
  • The Schelling Fence is just to not change anything at all, under any circumstances.
And then just wait.
That's the steelman but I don't agree with it.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @Lumor 1 Oct 2023
EU ... The whole thing runs on German guilt
Well that's a different way of putting it than what I heard before. 😅
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