The US Monetary system.

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Was not sure where to post this, as it wasn't inherently political, nor inherently a "leftist" liberal thing....

I found it interesting that YouTube full-on DELETED this account related to crypto currency. I have nothing invested in an bitcoin or any other "coin", or any company directly related to that whole money concept. I have no doubt that some people will be and have already been ripped off in crypto schemes. I have my doubts that the named account below was involved in scamming people, and I do tend to like Freedom of Speech.

At risk of falling down a conspiracy theory rabbit hole, I ask the question: Could it be that crypto scares the shit out of the established monetary system? maybe.

 

bp2008

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Could it be that crypto scares the shit out of the established monetary system? maybe.
Cryptocurrency also scares the shit out of me to be honest. It is a complex new thing that most people have only the most crude understanding of. The part that scares me most is that if someone steals your crypto account keys and transfers your money away, then it is gone. There's no Bitcoin bank or credit card company who you can call to say you didn't authorize that transaction and get your money back. Its like getting cash physically robbed from you, except now it can be done with malware from anywhere in the world.

So I think for cryptocurrency to replace traditional money, most people will need assurances that when their life savings gets stolen, some big organization is going to cover the loss and replace their money. That means using basically the same financial institutions we have today, minus the ability for people in power to just print new money when things get tough. Is that a better situation than we're in now? I have no idea.
 
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Cryptocurrency also scares the shit out of me to be honest. <anip> So I think for cryptocurrency to replace traditional money, most people will need assurances that when their life savings gets stolen, some big organization is going to cover the loss and replace their money. That means using basically the same financial institutions we have today, minus the ability for people in power to just print new money when things get tough. Is that a better situation than we're in now? I have no idea.
Agree-- that is why I have steered clear. I watched BTC climb over 60K, then drop down to 30 again. MARA-- a BTC mine company went to $83+ and is now sitting below $15. Not exactly confidence inducing-- right. My post really had a dual purpose in that Youtube arbitrarily decided to kill that account with 10,000 hours of content. I guess they also arbitrarily decided to reinstate it. Algorithm gone mad-- or over-zealous moderator?? It is too much power, regardless.

 

sebastiantombs

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The thing that bothers me about virtual money is that it can be too easily controlled by the "authors" of it. Like being forced/coerced by government. It's interesting to note that NFTs are dying a pretty ugly death as well, kind of like Metaverse is going through. Paying real money for virtual, non-existent, make believe things can't end well.
 

redpoint5

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The future is impossible to predict, but I'll give it a shot anyhow because it's fun...

Bitcoin and other early cryptos have no path towards becoming a currency due to their many serious flaws. Bitcoin in particular wastes way too much electricity to validate a transaction. I think it's something like $200 in electricity is spent per transaction, and that doesn't account for the billions invested into mining hardware. The price isn't stable, which is a fundamental requirement of a currency. We hit 9% inflation with the USD, and it totally disrupts everything... just imagine 50% fluctuation in a single day. Bitcoin takes ages to validate a transaction, like 10 minutes or something, and can only process a relative handful of transactions in batches. Our banking system verifies transactions in seconds and does millions per minute. Finally, any viable currency is going to be controlled by the government. Government requires collection of taxes to exist, and has an interest in controlling the "speed of money" to control the rate of inflation (monetary policy, The Fed).

That said, it would not surprise me if the future USD is a crypto, or distributed ledger currency. There is great security in distributed ledger because there isn't 1 bank to rob funds from, but thousands that would need to simultaneously be compromised before a theft could occur. Society is moving away from anonymous transactions, and I don't see that momentum changing. It's part of the new problem we are dealing with in regards to banks refusing certain customers. At some point we will probably need laws that protect the right of people to participate in the market. A distributed banking system might help to alleviate that issue though. Hard to say which direction this will go.
 

sebastiantombs

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To me, anything other than physical currency, untracked, is just another step toward a totalitarian State. Anything controlled electronically at the level of an individual is a violation of Privacy which makes it unconstitutional right out of the gate. It's bad enough that the level of mandatory reporting by existing banks has gotten so intrusive without even having legislation to support it is bad enough. Imagine if they could monitor every penny you earn/make or spend/give on a basically instantaneous basis. They don't like your tweet about the jab, your account is frozen, no food or gas for you today. Don't think it can happen? Bet you didn't think they'd track that $600 you withdrew the other day either.
 
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