Thursday, November 02, 2017
New Economy
Libertarian sites are getting more and more excited by bitcoin and blockchain transactions. I get the idea of dispersed, low-cost transaction costs. At least, I think I do. But as a practical matter, it looks like a fad. Is that just because I'm an old guy who prefers cash anyway? We did not even get credit cards until we had to travel to Europe in 1997.
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6 comments:
Lubos Motl points out that a fatal flaw with using it as currency is its instability. How can a factory plan how much to budget for materials if the currency can fluctuate so wildly?
When I was maybe... 9, I remember thinking that money was imaginary unless you could touch it. (I preferred coins over paper then also. Back then, the coins actually were precious metals, so not completely crazy.) Since then, I've become a bit more sophisticated in my thinking... but my inner 9 year old is yelling that bitcoin and blockchain transactions are imaginary.
It's very likely I'm just not smart enough to understand them.
The idea that money -- any money, even gold -- can exist apart from, or even in opposition to, laws and governments is absurd.
It seems like a classic "if we were deciding how to structure things with no priors" good idea. But that's not the world we live in.
And not to derail, but that's the same thing as "health care reform" of any sort- you're starting from an entire infrastructure (physical, legislative, and cultural) of what our health care system is, and that limits how far we can change things.
I hadn't heard about the fees
Deal-breaker. Good to know.
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