They have everything to gain and nothing to lose from such an asymmetric bet.
This being CAR (and this being bitcoin), it's more likely a story of using a high tech tool to hide proceeds of low-tech plundering of a poor African nation's abundant natural resources.
No government would want such a thing if given a choice. However, when a country's fiat currency becomes worthless, the choice is a different one.
> "Controlled by no one" is not a feature for governments (or mature financial systems), it's a bug.
As far as governments are concerned, that is absolutely correct. However, given the choice between a currency nobody controls and one controlled by another government, the former is clearly less onerous.
To eliminate the ability to print money or do any other kind of intervention is like cutting off your legs for no reason. It seems to me that they’re simply doing this a) as a stunt, and b) as a way to get around remittance fees. Except accepting bitcoin means you have a current with no stability, no recourse when anything goes wrong, and one that thru deflation will only make everything more expensive over time but favor the initially rich.
That's true. They then peg their currency to a stable fiat currency, or simply adopt one (usually unilaterally). They don't go for a "perpetual novelty" technology that has fundamental technical issues making it largely unsuitable for use as actual currency (as opposed to speculative store of value, or a money transfer mechanism).
>As far as governments are concerned, that is absolutely correct. However, given the choice between a currency nobody controls and one controlled by another government, the former is clearly less onerous.
Undoing most laws is likewise going to be "clearly less onerous" for a lot of folks. That in itself does not make it a good idea.
Maybe, but since it's an open ledger wouldn't it be more likely to bring transparency to the country's operations?
If you pay taxes in bitcoin to the country, then you can track where that goes overtime unless the country exchanges it to another currency or moves it through a whirlpool or similar. Both operations of which have a cost.
I could see a website being setup to collect tax payment transactions such that tracking the government's expenditure would actually become quite simple. Obviously, the citizens of CAR may not be up to the task, but it's completely possible technically.
I personally think governments are all based on the fallacy that a group of people can have rights that individuals can't. So, for me it's 100% feature.
A deflationary currency means you are better off keeping your money under a mattress than using it (either as an investment or an expense).
Which means that people wanting to acquire machinery to improve their farm output, someone wanting to setup a store, or someone else wanting to do something productive with their labor will find it harder to get the funding they need.
People still need to eat and will spend to eat. You can observe this even with people who wholly live their lives on BTC and will go out of their way to avoid any other currency. The Amnish farmer will continue to plow their fields.
I am not a crypto-maxi but I do believe there is a grain of truth to the supposition that inflationary economies produce vast waste as we spend ourselves away on empty desires that make us sick.
We are spellbound to a system that wrings from us all life day by day as we toil on bullshit to sustain bullshit.
I'm no ecofascist, but this seems very evident when you juxtapose economic arguments for the necessity of keeping population growth and consumption trends positive, with ecological arguments about the harm our rampant consumption and population growth does to the environment. The economic arguments for continued growth seem paperclip maximizey.
If you have a small economy, and you want to boost local production, you intentionally want to print more of the local currency, have higher inflation, and thus make your currency cheaper compared to foreign currency. This makes your exports cheaper for other countries to buy, thus boosting demand and exports, making the country wealthier.
Literally the biggest economic problem the US had with China is that China kept its currency devalued for so long, thus making Chinese products cheaper for export markets, specifically for China to overcome the effects of Japanese and Western imperialism and build a large, developed domestic market. And they succeeded.
What about market manipulations?
> They have everything to gain and nothing to lose from such an asymmetric bet.
Not sure how you pass the volatility under the rug to conclude that they have everything to gain and nothing to lose.
If China or the US really wanted to control Bitcoin, how long do you think it would really take them to do so just by investing in Bitcoin mining?
The US has literally spent trillions of dollars making and keeping the US dollar the reserve currency of the world. If Bitcoin ever rose to the level where it was a serious threat for US control, I have no doubt that they could easily crash Bitcoin as a viable currency.
Until the Fed are 51% strong, then it gets weak again.