Give up on decentralization.

Give up on "trustless" currency.

We have to build trustworthy systems to do real commerce.

If you want to ship oil or grains or manufactured goods around the world you need trustworthy security & dispute resolution.

If you have trustworthy security & dispute resolution we can also ship precious metal around the world.

If you can ship precious metal around the world in a trustworthy way, then you can transact in electronic claims on precious metal.

If you can transact in trustworthy electronic claims on precious metal, there is no need for irredeemable cryptocurrency.

Bitcoin is an elegant solution to the wrong problem.

It is technologically sophisticated but economically illiterate.

Like Karl Marx, Bitcoiners (typically) assume that the difficulty of producing a good imparts that good with value. Marx was focused on human labor while Bitcoiners are focused on machine labor (energy). But this is simply not a coherent theory of value. If all goods can be reduced to a single scale of value, then why does exchange occur at all? Exchanges become more for less (exploitative) or equal for equal (pointless) rather than A for B (mutually beneficial).

The labor theory of value was rightly discarded for subjective theory of value. For exchange to make sense in the first place, the parties must disagree on the relative valuation of the goods or services exchanged. I prefer a snack of cookies to carrots, you prefer carrots to cookies, and so we trade. If we agreed on the relative valuation, the individual who had the more-valuable-to-him good would not give it up for a less-valuable-to-him alternative.

So the value of a good is the highest use to which the individual can put it, which varies from person to person. For Bitcoin, this is only the ability to trade it on to the next fellow. So long as there is an infinite chain of fellows, this works well enough.

But, the acceptability of Bitcoin right now depends on fiat, which depends on gold. If I want my business to accept Bitcoin I can take it and exchange it rapidly for fiat (including collateralized stable coins). So I don't have to care whether my supplier takes Bitcoin. But if fiat collapses & my supplier does not take Bitcoin, I need to find a new supplier or stop accepting Bitcoin. And my supplier is in the same boat, and his supplier, and so on. Unless you have a local economy which is self-sufficient and where everyone takes Bitcoin without exchanging it for fiat, Bitcoin acceptance will likely diminish dramatically during a fiat collapse. Only the "true believers" will take it.

The rest of us will turn to physical barter and rebuild a monetary system (likely) based on precious metals. We could then have markets which exchange Bitcoin for precious metals (or claims on metals). But again, what would be the point of Bitcoin in a world where we have trustworthy electronic claims on precious metals?

So the question is - how do you ever get to hyperbitcoinizatjon? How do you ever get to general acceptance of Bitcoin without some other underlying money or currency which people regard as the real deal? How do you make everyone a "true believer"?

Bitcoin's value has nothing to do with the labor theory. Both the value of the token itself & the amount invested in mining infrastructure are a fuction of the overall demand for Bitcoin. The fact that it is expensive to mine is only a reflection of market demand & some assurance against any rapid changes in supply.

Trustworthy trade comes first from having a monetary system that can't be cheated. Gold tokens can never be that. The more trustworthy some gold token becomes the more it gets used & the more it is used the more incentive there is to cheat & the easier it is to hide the fraud. Gold tokens literally have horrible incentives that runaway into all the wrong directions. Bitcoin's security in many ways gets stronger the more people participate. Proper scaling solutions do come with some tradeoffs, but not the foundational supply restriction issues that gold has.

Bitcoin also makes 2 party escrow contracts possible. This means that I can initiate a payment in such a way that you can be sure that the money exists & is now locked between us, but you cannot collect until I get my goods or services as promised. A simple contract like that is the real foundation of a trustworthy decentralized global trade network. Insurance contracts of all kinds with real monetary weight can be built on Bitcoin. Risk can be balanced in a way never before possible even among unknown trading partners. You cannot ship a gold payment (at great cost) & be sure that you will get your goods shipped back. Similarly you cannot spend or accept gold tokens & be sure that they can ever be redeemed. Even if you have an army at your disposal there is no way to be sure of such things.

Bitcoin is a liquid & free floating currency. It is currently the 22nd most valuable economy/currency in the world. A collapse in any nation's currency just means that paper is too easy to come by so larger amounts are needed to exchange for valuable things. There have been multiple currency collapses in other countries & the value of Bitcoin in those places simply goes to all time highs. In fact there is usually a premium on Bitcoin in those areas because it is suddenly so greatly needed & much more sought after. Gold is never going to be a practical way to do day to day commerce. It really hasn't been for many hundreds of years, & gold IOUs were what got us into this mess in the first place.

Reply to this note

Please Login to reply.

Discussion

USD also goes to all time highs in those places

It also goes to all time lows VS #Bitcoin

Yes, but Bitcoin trades for a significantly higher price in USD in those countries.