Crypto is just another bubble. As you point out, Curtis, there are no real users, just speculators. It is no different than proverbial tulip bulbs. Like the dot com bubble, this one will create some lasting value probably in areas we can’t imagine at the moment.
I think what’s stopping crypto money as fiat is that there are so many paper US dollars all over the world, and bank branches in the USA, and little appetite for messing up a good gig by making these paper values worthless.
So we will remain on paper for a bit longer. BTC will never replace it, nor any “gold backed ruble” or anything like that, because the governments always want an expandable currency they can spend via the digital printing press.
You’re doing that thing where you only examine history in the last 100 years and ignore the last 2000. Curtis is always talking about this in terms of monarchy but the same applies to money. You’re also underestimating the power of commodity money. There’s a reason it was removed from circulation. ‘Outside’ commodity money has always had the power to end the paper money Ponzi scheme.
What is not a "bubble"? Isn't it all just psychology/ideology, which by definition never has to be seated in anything physically real at all? Are religions "bubbles"? Countries? What is a system of "real value", compared to a "bubble" - is it not just in the mind of the perceiver?
"Money is the bubble that doesn't have to pop." - makes perfect sense. Because it's all theoretical anyways, so just keep this theoretical system a float for 2 million more years, and let us venture out to the stars, backed by some "bubble". Bubbles will get us far.
This sounds like Communism 2.0 - if only they would do it right. Then it would actually work. Blockchain / crypto is just a slow data storage solution trying to solve a problem (trust) which doesn't exist. Trust is not the problem. Trust is the only solution. We have to trust the King after all, don't we?
Firstly, Terra is the blockchain, UST is the stable coin (and LUNA is the chain's token)
Secondly, Ethereum is not meant to be money, it's meant to host the new internet (wherein, among other things, money is being redefined to the point of being unrecognizable). In this new internet, companies are economies unto themselves — with their own currency. Just like no 1 company will win absolutely everything on the internet, no 1 currency will win. These are unrecognizable to normal currency.
As soon as a bear market hits, everyone is adjusting their sight to be 20/20 relative to immediate hindsight. Hubris
The obvious next question: how might the "empire of paper" be unseated in practice? (figure you might have an interesting angle there, akin to your other takes on regime change in practice)
Gresham's Law is already slowly happening in practice. When you have people already realizing that BTC is better money than USD, they want BTC more than they do USD. There doesn't _need_ to be a regime change from revolutionaries or central planners to overthrow a currency. Government is different because it is by nature compulsory, has a "monopoly on violence", and so forth.
How would you unseat Coke as the most popular soda? How would you unseat Aaron Rodgers as the (perceived) best quarterback in the NFL? How would you make some new trousers more widely worn than blue jeans? In all those cases, you make something new and better and then market it well (and then be patient). Same thing for replacing fiat money.
Curtis, kudos on your past and recent insights, but you ostensibly forgot about two-tiered currency regimes.
You’re probably correct that Tether will implode and this timing with likely coincide with the ANYONECANSPEND attack posited to destroy the “Power Rangers” Bitcoin that everyone currently mistakenly believes is the legitimate Bitcoin. Satoshi’s legacy protocol with 1 MB blocks will rise as Rothshild’s 1988 Economist magazine predicted. The average pleb won’t even be able to afford the transaction fees to transact in Bitcoin on chain given the constricted block space, and Lightning Networks will have died with the looming ANYONECANSPEND death of the impostor Bitcoin.
The rest of us are either going to be stuck on fully permissioned, 666-esque Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) or we will need binetallic standard analogous to gold and silver for the Internet economy. Yet all proof-of-stake and proof-of-work blockchains are doomed. Do you know why? I guess I know a few things you don’t know yet.
It’s not too late for you to become Satoshi Jr.; maybe you need to cultivate friendships with those who’ve been studying this for a while.
We need to restore the value of money by linking it to something of actual value.
Could it be something we very much need and is essential to life?
Water or oxygen is probably a bit overreach.
The answer is energy money.
The Petrodollar simply logically moves to being a store of actual value.
The literal petro dollar, 1 quart a quarter, 1 gallon a dollar, etc.
The KwH mark, or Euro if you must..
The Coal Yuan
The BTU Yen..
This isn't of course all that different from MEFO in a Germany past [industrial barter money], or the money of that unfortunate Chancellor who also had essentially industrial barter money, or the Bills of Trade system which still exists in some form.
Money or credit linked to actual value, as opposed to appeasing the deluded masses who are most unwisely allowed to gamble on the markets.
Etc.
This allows not only a return of value and something we actually very much need but allows inflation while bending the energy cost curve down. The energy cost curve rising was a major cause of wage stagnation for decades.
You're proposing to virtualize money...this would require a suspension of credulity and a level of trust never achieved in history and certainly not possible now.
"I am not Satoshi..."
Yeah dude that's what Satoshi would probably say.
Crypto is just another bubble. As you point out, Curtis, there are no real users, just speculators. It is no different than proverbial tulip bulbs. Like the dot com bubble, this one will create some lasting value probably in areas we can’t imagine at the moment.
I think what’s stopping crypto money as fiat is that there are so many paper US dollars all over the world, and bank branches in the USA, and little appetite for messing up a good gig by making these paper values worthless.
So we will remain on paper for a bit longer. BTC will never replace it, nor any “gold backed ruble” or anything like that, because the governments always want an expandable currency they can spend via the digital printing press.
You’re doing that thing where you only examine history in the last 100 years and ignore the last 2000. Curtis is always talking about this in terms of monarchy but the same applies to money. You’re also underestimating the power of commodity money. There’s a reason it was removed from circulation. ‘Outside’ commodity money has always had the power to end the paper money Ponzi scheme.
What is not a "bubble"? Isn't it all just psychology/ideology, which by definition never has to be seated in anything physically real at all? Are religions "bubbles"? Countries? What is a system of "real value", compared to a "bubble" - is it not just in the mind of the perceiver?
"Money is the bubble that doesn't have to pop." - makes perfect sense. Because it's all theoretical anyways, so just keep this theoretical system a float for 2 million more years, and let us venture out to the stars, backed by some "bubble". Bubbles will get us far.
This sounds like Communism 2.0 - if only they would do it right. Then it would actually work. Blockchain / crypto is just a slow data storage solution trying to solve a problem (trust) which doesn't exist. Trust is not the problem. Trust is the only solution. We have to trust the King after all, don't we?
The problem is ownership. The current internet doesn't allow for it.
There's a reason why the ownership of address space in Urbit is on the blockchain. That's the only reasonable place it could be
Yeah, alright mate, I'll decolateralise & sell all my shitcoins to buy BTC.
I get it now. I just got sucked in by fancy permissionless finance contracts & stayed for the promise of yield.
Now I feel like a dumbass. As I should.
Firstly, Terra is the blockchain, UST is the stable coin (and LUNA is the chain's token)
Secondly, Ethereum is not meant to be money, it's meant to host the new internet (wherein, among other things, money is being redefined to the point of being unrecognizable). In this new internet, companies are economies unto themselves — with their own currency. Just like no 1 company will win absolutely everything on the internet, no 1 currency will win. These are unrecognizable to normal currency.
As soon as a bear market hits, everyone is adjusting their sight to be 20/20 relative to immediate hindsight. Hubris
P.S. This is the Discord for GM readers: https://discord.gg/6Fn3KtWzwA
We'll move to Urbit sooner or later, where this new money is address space in a P2P network 🙃
The obvious next question: how might the "empire of paper" be unseated in practice? (figure you might have an interesting angle there, akin to your other takes on regime change in practice)
Gresham's Law is already slowly happening in practice. When you have people already realizing that BTC is better money than USD, they want BTC more than they do USD. There doesn't _need_ to be a regime change from revolutionaries or central planners to overthrow a currency. Government is different because it is by nature compulsory, has a "monopoly on violence", and so forth.
How would you unseat Coke as the most popular soda? How would you unseat Aaron Rodgers as the (perceived) best quarterback in the NFL? How would you make some new trousers more widely worn than blue jeans? In all those cases, you make something new and better and then market it well (and then be patient). Same thing for replacing fiat money.
Hum, now I feel kinda dumb.
Curtis, kudos on your past and recent insights, but you ostensibly forgot about two-tiered currency regimes.
You’re probably correct that Tether will implode and this timing with likely coincide with the ANYONECANSPEND attack posited to destroy the “Power Rangers” Bitcoin that everyone currently mistakenly believes is the legitimate Bitcoin. Satoshi’s legacy protocol with 1 MB blocks will rise as Rothshild’s 1988 Economist magazine predicted. The average pleb won’t even be able to afford the transaction fees to transact in Bitcoin on chain given the constricted block space, and Lightning Networks will have died with the looming ANYONECANSPEND death of the impostor Bitcoin.
The rest of us are either going to be stuck on fully permissioned, 666-esque Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) or we will need binetallic standard analogous to gold and silver for the Internet economy. Yet all proof-of-stake and proof-of-work blockchains are doomed. Do you know why? I guess I know a few things you don’t know yet.
It’s not too late for you to become Satoshi Jr.; maybe you need to cultivate friendships with those who’ve been studying this for a while.
We need to restore the value of money by linking it to something of actual value.
Could it be something we very much need and is essential to life?
Water or oxygen is probably a bit overreach.
The answer is energy money.
The Petrodollar simply logically moves to being a store of actual value.
The literal petro dollar, 1 quart a quarter, 1 gallon a dollar, etc.
The KwH mark, or Euro if you must..
The Coal Yuan
The BTU Yen..
This isn't of course all that different from MEFO in a Germany past [industrial barter money], or the money of that unfortunate Chancellor who also had essentially industrial barter money, or the Bills of Trade system which still exists in some form.
Money or credit linked to actual value, as opposed to appeasing the deluded masses who are most unwisely allowed to gamble on the markets.
Etc.
This allows not only a return of value and something we actually very much need but allows inflation while bending the energy cost curve down. The energy cost curve rising was a major cause of wage stagnation for decades.
You're proposing to virtualize money...this would require a suspension of credulity and a level of trust never achieved in history and certainly not possible now.