Replying to Avatar Lyn Alden

Russell Napier is one of my favorite macro analysts that I've learned a lot from over the years. Had the chance to meet him at a dinner the other day and discuss macro with him.

Him and I often have similar macro views and a focus on the topic of fiscal dominance and the financial repression that follows. But an area of historic difference is that he has viewed Bitcoin as unlikely to win. He has viewed it as something that governments will ultimately not allow to function once the gloves come off and financial repression gets real from the major powers.

So I discussed that with him, since while I acknowledge that threat as being real, I think Bitcoin is a solid foundation to push back with. But in addition, I also highlighted Nostr, and decentralized comms and social media in general.

Back in the 1930s-1940s when the US banned gold ownership and implemented yield curve control (hard core financial repression), information moved slowly. A lot of information was one-directional. It was hard for people to coordinate with each other at large scales.

But social media changes the game entirely. People can meme about it in real time. Government and central bank social media accounts can get ratio'd. Maybe one day they'll try to put a stop to that on centralized social media platforms, but that's why the decentralized protocols are so important. The tools are simply much better today, making that type of smooth and coordinated financial repression harder to do since all of their reasons can be dissected and dunked on in real time.

What precisely is it about improved coordination that negates the financial repression tools which Napier claims will destroy Bitcoin?

I believe we need to make it sufficiently difficult for the government to control large swathes of the UTXO set to avoid what happened to gold, but I don’t quite see how better/faster communication tools help very much there.

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>for the government to control large swathes of the UTXO set

What does that mean?

Control large BTC holdings, control much mining power, hash rate?

ETFs/Coinbase and Microstrategy at the present time.

I see how our enhanced abilities to coordinate these days help much in the scenario where a government decides to go after these large blocks of UTXOs controlled by a handful of entities.

*don’t see

Why would a single government seizing large holdings, eg. Strategy, have significant effect on the network?

If they sell, past larger sell events, the German impoundment, MtGox reparations, affected exchange rates pretty temporarily.

I don’t necessarily disagree. Lyn didn’t say exactly what Napier thinks govt would do so I’m guessing what I think is the most common claim: they co-opt a few entities that control a large (and growing) portion of the UTXO set and either outright seize it, or do something else like a forced fork onto “gov chain”.

Maybe that’s not the angle. But if it is, how does the likes of Nostr combat it effectively?

And if it’s not the govt angle, what would it be?

Whoever owns which coin amounts, the network seems to perform the same.

Controlling hash rate and having social influence, the block size wars and main copyright trial also passed harmlessly.

What if someone can attack basic internet connectivity, can Nostr and BECH32 more securely supplant TCP IP?