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Comment by beefield | Hacker News Reader

It is a bit weird that cryptocurrency folks talk about "disrupting" financial system when they actually talk about rolling monetary policy back to about middle ages. Come up with a currency anyone can create and there you have a real disruption.

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More modern doesn't necessarily mean better. That's a fallacy.

For instance, it's possible that a currency based on long chains of debt is prone to massive blow-ups. That's modern day fiat currency. In contrast, cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin are not based on debt.

> Come up with a currency anyone can create and there you have a real disruption.

If I've understood you correctly, something like that does exist. See Ethereum and its ERC-20 tokens.

If I interpret beefield correctly, they're not talking about being able to create new currencies but rather a currency that anyone can mint.

Here's an interesting one, an attempt at decentralized UBI where each individual gets issued individual "coloured coins" and participants accept currency based on a web of trust: https://handbook.joincircles.net/about/whitepaper.html

I think this direction is very worth exploring. Today fiat currency is generated through creation of debt between banks. Most cryptocurrency is generated through validation of transactions (be it PoW or PoS). The idea of moving currency minting down to individuals in a way that can maintain a sustainable inflation is very attractive to me. The really hard part is squaring the triangle of no privileged centralized parties with censorship capabilities while neither being vulnerable to sybil attacks or locking out disenfranchised minorities from the economy.

Circles is the only serious attempt at that I've seen and I'd love to see more innovation and critical analysis in this venue.

You can create currencies that anyone can mint on Ethereum.

That's the trivial part, but without the conditions I laid out above they're neither useful nor interesting, at least to me. FWIW Circles is implemented on Ethereum, if you didn't click the link.

Interesting. How is the value of that currency maintained so that it actually would be an usable currency?

There is a GNU currency that is like that but I dont understand how it will ever work with the "honor system" lol I dont see whats stopping me from poisoning the well.

GNU Taler is electronic money, not a currency. Neutral, every one can make its own currency. Transaction is secure (trust in the e-money) because of GNUnet; it even addressed the Sybil attacks concerns.

Trust on the currency comes from real life trust. A bank for the Euro. A human for a novel human-made currency.

Then, Exchanges that trust 2 different currencies can buy/sell those currencies.

Exactly this.

I'm not an economist but this also seems like an indirect, peer to peer, way to establish 'credit' of an individual, rather than relying on centralized institutions with dubious security practices, like Equifax. Is this obvious or has someone already thought of this and I'm being dumb? I don't typically hear about this type of application of digital currencies in mainstream media but it sounds interesting in certain applications of peer-determined credit.

>Come up with a currency anyone can create and there you have a real disruption.

Indeed. One of the most bizarre arguments coming from the crypto-world is "there's a finite amount!". Why would you want your currency to be limited?

Scarcity creates an illusion of value "at rest". Currencies aren't very useful "at rest", though. (As entertaining as it is to imagine to go diving into a Bank Vault Scrooge McDuck-style, it isn't very practical in reality.) It's in how they flow that inter-personal value happens. I feel like one of these days we'll truly discover an economic calculus based on the second and third derivatives of "value", and maybe scarcity is holding us back. (I often use an electrical circuit analogy. Our conception of wealth is "instantaneous voltage", and while high potential voltage sometimes has its uses in some types of circuits, it's the wattage/amperage that does real work over time.)

Isn’t that the point of an ERC-20, and the reason that Ethereum is still relevant?

I would argue not the only reason Ethereum is still relevant but definitely one of the solid reasons why.

As far as I understand complementary currencies are not supposed to disrupt anything (as their purpose isn't to replace fiat), not a new idea and in no way linked to crypto currencies. Crypto comes into play to support a more modern and secure transactional system to an idea that's already existed for decades.

> currency anyone can create and there you have a real disruption.

Why? Anyone can make their own currency. Whether electronic or quite literally, on a printer. No one's going to take it.

Are you aware of the fact there are thousands of cryptocurrencies?

Your last sentence is possible since about 2015

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01M22NTCT/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_9eOm...

It's a bit of a hard read, but the author proves that Bitcoin is pushed by far right activists who have extreme views of how money should work.

I, and many others I know, aren't far right and support it. We just don't want the government to print money at will.

That is a far right viewpoint. Modern economics requires a government to actively maintain a steady value in its currency. Removing this control is, by definition, far right.

Bitcoin is also pushed by far-left extremists, anarchists, nihilists, centrists and adherents to loads of other schools of thought. From the BTC-maximilists I've come to known, some very active in the community, I'd say it's not representative of BTC proponents in general.

Though I don't think I'd like the top BTC whales of today to effectively run the global economy.

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