110 sats \ 0 replies \ @Brunswick 18 Jul 2022 \ on: What do I need this bitcoin for? 🔦 bitcoin
Western fiat is a threat to the stability of the western world, and the safety of all the world. It may have served a purpose during war, but its continued use only impoverishes all but the few. The underlying problem of fiat is the unlimited credit expansion of governments. So long as the currency is accepted, it destroys wages, pushes savings into risk assets, creates value bubbles with misallocation, and allows eternal wars with taxation by inflation.
Bitcoin is the new declaration of independence. It is separation of money and state.
This writing from @hj is a very good summary of counterarguments against bitcoin, and we need more of this to understand the mountain face that has yet to be scaled, and to be prepared for any hardships we may be bringing upon ourselves by doing so.
There is a yet unaddressed problem with bitcoin I have identified. Assuming it does become the world currency, and it will, central bank fiat is in actuality not money. It is debt currency, and like stupidity, the depths of the ability of the world to create debt is nearly unlimited. For the world to move to hard and superior money is to swear off the ability to loan cheap money. If a currency is deflationary, and bitcoin will be indefinately due to its ability to store value, the interest rates will necessarily be high to incentivize lending. A loan will also suffer from a time-value problem for the payor as the principal will be harder and harder to pay as the loan ages. The equivalent interest rate for hard money could be 25 to 50 percent per year. A bank currency allows money on deposit to be lent many times over, and therefore the bank currency permits low interest rates (cheap currency). For the payor, a loan under an inflationary bank issued currency is very cheap. With modern interest rates of 3 percent and inflation well above 10 percent, you technically are being paid take out credit. So long as everyone services their debt, the long-term inflation of this bank currency is fixed at zero. The problem arises when governments take on debt on behalf of the people. This should never happen, at all, ever. But it does and always will because the temptation is too high and the character and intelligence of people with this power is too low. It's because of this moral hazard that a hard world currency is necessary. They have made cheap money unsustainable and undesirable.