Subnostr

Replying to

orangedog

I’ve heard Balaji mentioned here, including that title you mentioned

but from his Twitter posts always felt like a shitcoiner ngl

No *cryptocurrency* is necessary, none of it

It’s an extreme view but it’s true

POW is the only workable consensus mechanism

And competing currencies aren’t necessary

Money wants to be one

Gold won for a reason

Does Balaji understand this? Sincere question as I know his rep is legendary

captain ☦️ 2y ago

To be clear, we had a bimetallic standard, silver was then replaced by paper gold, and the state then seized the remaining stock of privately held gold. It's hard to say that gold won, except from the perspective of the state.

https://github.com/libbitcoin/libbitcoin-system/wiki/Reservation-Principle

I mostly agree with you. Solving the Byzantine Generals problem is even more momentous than I think many of us realize. PoS does not even compare. That said, I do believe that there can be more than one implementation of Bitcoin with atomic swaps between them. This is a similar notion to the bimetallic standard.

https://github.com/libbitcoin/libbitcoin-system/wiki/Substitution-Principle

Money does have a tendency to converge on a single network, but this effect is much weaker than it is for communication networks.

https://github.com/libbitcoin/libbitcoin-system/wiki/Network-Effect-Fallacy

The convergence tendency is counterbalanced by the utility threshold.

https://github.com/libbitcoin/libbitcoin-system/wiki/Utility-Threshold-Property

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Discussion

orangedog 2y ago

Agree 💯 with all you said here

Was generalizing when I said gold won - should have said ‘gold won the game until central banks were invented’

When society learned how to make paper IOUs out of it, and ppl trusted that, was beginning of end for gold

Gold is basically fiat now because of this financialization

IOW the inception of central banks destroyed the beauty and elegance of metal coinage

Appreciate all the information you’ve posted here I’ll dig into it!

captain ☦️ 2y ago

Once paper money has run its course, I expect there to be a return to metal coinage alongside digital currency. I don't really see an inherent elegance to coinage though because of the problem of standardization. You have to trust the mint to some extent or melt down a random sampling of coins to assay them. Counterfeiting could be an issue with private mints.

orangedog 2y ago

Yes much to ponder on this

GN fellow pleb, pura vida, catch you manana!