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Comment by hd4 | Hacker News Reader

> 37. We have seen that crypto-technology is underpinned by a philosophy to evade Government controls. Cryptocurrencies have specifically been developed to bypass the regulated financial system. These should be reason enough to treat them with caution.

Well duh. Way to prove the point that we need to evade government control. Zero self-awareness. No examination into why people may not trust their government. Just do what we say. This from the same government that already demonetized* the currency used by the same people they want to be trusted by.

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I mean - from a sensible discussion perspective, DO we need to evade all government control? I hate paying my taxes as much as I'm sure you do and yeah, it absolutely stings when I see them wasting £500k on a "ban E2E encryption campaign" (or all the other idiotic shit that goes on), but ultimately I kind of like having my bins emptied, my roads smooth, a fire department, a National Health Service, my bank account protected etc etc.

People may not trust the government (and I say this from the UK, so I appreciate I'm still relatively lucky all things considered), but in terms of evading Government controls, I can't believe we won't see governments thinking about this if more people are choosing to find ways around obscuring their income and contributions to the things that keep society from completely falling apart.

FWIW - not arguing against cryptocurrency, just positing idea that the whole my-finances-are-secret bank-yourself crypto utopia might not be all that.

Remember Bitcoin appeared in the context of the 2008 financial crisis, when the US government effectively authorized the bailout of massively-overleveraged banks and put the burden on the taxpayer in the form of a diluted currency. When you look at things from that perspective, crypto becomes the only way out (or one of the only practical ways out) for people who don't like having to carry the burden of moronic bankers and of the ones who have the control over money creation. I would also like to live in a world where none of this is necessary, but we don't.

"for people who don't like having to carry the burden of moronic bankers"

I don't understand whats the gameplan here.

So I don't like carrying the burdain of military adventures in the middle east, and the guy over there doesn't want him money to be wasted on space while we have problems down here/oversized military/given to poor people.

Suppose now we are all 100% successfull at thos tax evasion (which we won't be), whats next? Government collapse and anarchy? Like what's the gameplan?

Making the government accountable for what they spend money on seems like a good direction to go in. The government programs you mention are only possible because of easy access to the money printer, Bitcoin solves this.

As for what's next, collapse/anarchy etc, who can really say? As always it's up to the people. Bitcoin places sensible limits on government spending power (and therefore on government power more generally). Governments now have to compete and act sensibly with the tax money they're "responsible" for in the same way any of us are responsible for how we spend our money.

> ... easy access to the money printer, Bitcoin solves this.

LOL.

Tether has entered the chat....

>The government programs you mention are only possible because of easy access to the money printer, Bitcoin solves this.

And replaces it with something _even_ worse.

> Making the government accountable for what they spend money on seems like a good direction to go in.

But you are not making them accountable, you are just making everyone poorer. They could still get away with collapsing the economy because of democratic deficit/partisanship/qualified immunity/shortcomings of the justice system/etc. These are the real causes.

> As for what's next, collapse/anarchy etc, who can really say?

If someone is advocating a change to the global financial system, I'd like a better answer than this. Communists sound like grand planners in comparison

I believe in the utility of a fiscally sound government, which is why I pay taxes and I'm not moving to a tax haven.

I do not believe in endlessly kicking the debt spiral can, towards repression of future generations.

Bitcoin enforces fiscal soundness by virtue of not being debase-able, and providing much-needed competition to national currencies.

> whats next? Government collapse and anarchy? Like what's the gameplan?

I like how the two options are pay insane taxes and inflation or anarchy.

Feel like I’m being held hostage.

Well thats why i am asking the crypto-anarchists, maybe they have a great plan but so far they are keeping it secret!

So you want crypto currencies in order to remove control over money supply from states and banks and replace it with a fixed or at least predetermined money supply? Everything else in the current system is fine or do you have additional reasons?

Yes, a fixed supply is definitely one of the reasons I'm in favor of crypto over fiat. There are many others. I'm not even necessarily arguing solely in favor of crypto but it does come across as the most practical solution to a lot of problems with governance nowadays.

>Everything else in the current system is fine

Do you really think anyone here believes that?

I want people to be precise about what they want so that there is actually something concrete one can discuss without hand-waving all the time. Fixed money supply, for example, does not require any crypto currency, just pass the necessary laws to fix the amount of money at the current level. And we can now think about the consequences of this, for example that it will encourage not spending money.

There are many others.

Which?

You say that like having fixed-supply money is a trivial factor, when it's actually the central problem with fiat currency and the reason we even need crypto. Giving governments the ability to pass laws to allow an arbitrary amount of fiat to be printed is the problem, because it effectively gives them the power to do what they like with no accountability to their electorate. Having a fixed-supply is not a matter of laws being passed, because in the real world, governments just do not want practical limits to their own spending power. The cycle of governments printing and diluting the currency until financial collapse is literally as old as recorded history.

> Which?

Precious metals, commodities (which is a large enough category in itself).

> just pass the necessary laws to fix the amount of money at the current level

Go ahead and pass the law. I'll wait.

It'll never happen. But let's say for the sake of argument it did. Another law could come along to change it again. Why trust laws and corrupt government officials? They are unnecessary soon-to-be antiquated relics of days when no better option existed.

Precisely. I think it was Warren Buffett who said "show me the incentives and I'll tell you the outcome" or something to that effect. Governments are incentivized to seize as much power as money creation allows them. The only thing that has held them back from constantly brrring the money printer is inflation, as it is obviously bad for winning votes. Interesting to see how the Fed will manage 7.5% inflation by raising rates 0.25% and even then there's a high chance they will U-turn almost immediately. I really wonder what Biden must be thinking about Powell right now.

So you are saying there are incentives for the governments to not print money? What, on the other hand, are the incentives to print money?

The incentives for the government to print money have already been mentioned more than once in this thread.

As if the scammers and con-artists operating in crypto are ANY better than the banks. Banks are not perfect, but they are highly regulated, and come with a ton of consumer protections. There's none of that in crypto, and people are getting scammed or having their crypto stolen ALL the time.

No one claimed there weren't scammers in crypto, this is a phoney argument. The existence of scammers using fiat currency doesn't stop you from supporting fiat currency. This is about as legit an argument as the usual "pedos/terrorists/drug-dealers/mafia use the internet/encrypted messaging therefore internet/encrypted messaging BAD".

Also, banks being regulated, don't make me laugh.

Freedom has a cost.

If people kept it simple and bought crypto like bitcoin or ethereum, they’d be fine. They get lured into get-rich-quick scams because of poor education and decision making skills.

If your concern is diluted currency, there are already tons of ways to hedge against that. Precious metals are traditional, but basically any non cash asset will work.

Crypto is not about tax evasion and privacy. Bitcoin is radically transparent. The beauty of bitcoin is that the monetary policy is immutable and you understand exactly how the future looks for it. With fiat currencies, you have to have religious-like trust in your government authorities that they will behave themselves with their power to create new currency out of thin air.

This from the same government that already devalued the currency used by the same people they want to be trusted by It was “demonetised”. To be fair and accurate context, a window of few months was provided to get the demonetise notes replaced with the equivalent amount of new notes.

It is not the numbers on the notes that matter, it is the loss of purchasing power.

In 1995, 1 USD = 32 INR.

In 2022, 1 USD = 75 INR.

Add to that the fact that USD is also losing value itself.

Saying “devalued”, OP referred to the Nov 2016 demonetisation of INR 500 and 1000 currency notes that happened in India.

Correct, thanks for pointing that out, I edited the original comment.

There are many things that happened in the global economy, banking, supply chains and multinational corporations.

How much of this change is the fault of Indian government?

Judging by the money supply increase, inflation should have been even higher. Looks like velocity is tanking.

https://tradingeconomics.com/india/money-supply-m3

I think they actually slightly miss the point. I didn't think the intention was to evade government controls, it was to provide a superior alternative. Some might say there's no difference, but I think it's an important distinction.

Same with "bypassing" the regulated financial system. It's an alternative, and the reason it's unregulated is because it's new and governments haven't pulled their finger out and fucking well regulated it - they were lazily hoping it would blow over, and now that it is big enough to be a threat they're blaming it for existing.

Exemplary politicking.

Exactly. Plus, when provided a system that requires no trust (BTC, for example) why would anybody prefer a system that requires massive trust and faith (fiat currencies)?

It also evades the many rules and protections that were put in for a good reason, which makes the crypto space rife with scams and other abuses.

This is exactly the reason I expect more countries to follow suit. Without regulation to prevent scams, the shovel of the Bitcoin rush is lawyers. Unfortunately, the global nature of cryptocurrency makes cross-border scams easy and hard to litigate, which means the only regulation that will work is an outright ban.

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