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Comment by johnwheeler | Hacker News Reader

"Probably Never" is wishful thinking. They will never. Full stop.

Why would the U.S. government tolerate universal currency when it has something far more advantageous? A currency it controls every other currency is pegged to (including Bitcoin).

More practically speaking, the government needs the ability to expand the money supply during financial crises. Bitcoin doesn't lend itself to any of those Keynesian tricks.

And, government is not "afraid" of Bitcoin. Letting the experiment continue is more about laissez-faire capitalism than an inability to regulate crypto.

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Totally. The resistance to switch to a universal currency would be astronomical just based on that it would overexpose the money supply to foreign manipulation. The South Korean government has already voiced concerns about this with respect to the wealth of their citizens and they aren't even using it as a national currency.

Government does not need this ability, it just wants it.

Its ability to respond to economic crises becomes very diminished if it does not have this ability.

Its ability to create/enhance economic crises also becomes very diminished.

What does this mean? How does a government "need" or "not need" things?

There are things a government needs, like revenue source and public servants, to exist or do its job.

Government does not need to have its own currency for exist or to do its job.

It's debatable that government having the ability to mess with monetary policy is a good thing. It may be working in US at the moment (and it will be hard to measure if it is helping or not), but there have been a lot of countries economically ruined because of that.

> Government does not need to have it's own currency for exist or to do it's job.

Please provide evidence for this. It seems like most successful governments disagree.

A lot of successful governments use the euro, a currency which they neither own nor control?

All the members of the Eurozone do have a say in the governance of the ECB and therefore its monetary policy... In a comparable way to the oversight the federal government has in the running of the Fed...

I think you underestimate the amount of control they have.

I do not underestimate the amount of control they have.

Their share in the bank was was determined in 1998 on the basis of the states' population and GDP, and adjusted since.

Please by all means do me a favor and educate me on the amount of control a country like Slovenia exerts on ECB monetary policy with its 0.3% capital allocation?

Slovenia can abandon the Euro at any time. This power sit's on top of any other they gain being part of the collective.

Countries use the Euro because it's useful for them to use the Euro, if it's stops being useful they drop it.

The euro is also in crisis.... Just look at Greece and Spain. The euro is an experiment and we still have time to see if it works.

My point is Government doesn't even need to "want it". It has it.

"Government does not need this ability,"

Extremely debatable, given the fact that every nation on planet earth basically uses monetary policy.

A rational policy whereby currency is exchanged for other assets at a rate using benchmarks is preferable to a strict currency.

A better economic policy might even allow almost anyone to exchange assets for currency. Then the market can decide how much is in circulation (though arguably that is already happening, just the levers are in the hands of a body, not a distributed group).

>every nation on planet earth basically uses monetary policy

Not really true, if you consider all the countries that use the currency of an other. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Currency_substitution)

I don't think it is debatable considering we have had successful governments without it.

Saying every country does it is not a good point, as it could be applied to slavery once upon a time.

But I agree that it's debatable if it is good. Being good and necessary are two different things though.

"Bitcoin doesn't lend itself to any of those Keynesian tricks."

A) Monetary policy is not 'Keynesian' - and it's a handy thing, which is why everyone does it, and nobody has a perfectly hard currency.

B) BTC is not a currency, it's perfect rigidity - ironically - is what attracted many speculators in the first place, killing it's usefulness as a currency.

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