What can happen is that crypto could replace other forms of money. Governments will likely fight this tooth and nail however, because crypto is currently an anti-government technology.
If my bank goes under I’m protected by the FDIC. If Coinbase goes under they have the right to use my money to pay their creditors.
It might be not bad. For you.
Perhaps you are an American. Whenever your government prints more dollars, because the rest of the world holds dollar reserves, the value of those reserves go down. So everyone else in the world basically finances the US money printing.
So, if you are an American, the dollar is not bad. Its actually very, very good.
But for the rest of the world (96% of the world population), its pretty bad. It is used as means to transfer their wealth to US.
FTFY. It's not done out of philanthropy.
I can't help feeling that by the time that becomes relevant, those cryptocurrencies are quite likely to be worth very little anyway, as coinbase going under is (IMHO) quite likely to be correlated with a general cryptocurrency market crash.
Which will be correlated with a general market crash.
As we are going through one now, it seems to follow that cryptocurrencies should crash more as a lot of tech companies have actual value and make/offer things we want while cryptocurrencies do not.
Spread it around in multiple banks and it's more money then I'm ever likely to accumulate in my savings. Although if you have that much money in the bank arguably you're missing out on much better returns in the market if you're young and have time on your side.
And SIPC covers brokerage accounts up to $500k.
It's also worth noting there are certain unique risks to exchanges that aren't really applicable to most bank accounts.
[1]: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/13/business/tens-of-billions...
And to say nobody keeps bricks of gold at home, well just peruse reddit [0].
Yes, it is a protocol, but TCP/IP made many fortunes also. Even though it just moves bits around the globe.
Democratic governments represent the will of the people, and I don't think a technology can be pro-government or anti-government, it ultimately depends on what the people what. I think you are correct though for autocratic governments. Would you for example say that guns are clearly anti-government or pro-government?
How are people still this naive and indoctrinated. Me, earlier:
> You vote what you're told to vote by the media that the state and capital dominate entirely (Think about it: how would enough people even hear about an alternative idea or candidate that they don't deem in their interest?) If you're American you get to choose between two millionaires (or sometimes billionaires) with virtually identical economic politics chosen in advanced for you who can safely ignore you once they get elected. "Democracy."
Once we elect a small set of people to make decisions for us, a political class tends to emerge (those with resources and time to spend their days wooing people) and it is their will who is represented by government. The people simply select the least worst of those options.
Such as the will of the people for pot to remain technically illegal throughout the entire nation, or the will of the people for a president to be elected with a minority vote?
>Would you for example say that guns are clearly anti-government or pro-government?
Neither. Guns are a tool usable by a variety of actors for a variety of purposes. Banning guns (or restricting them in a way that isn't restricted to the government such as implementing a burdensome taxation scheme for automatic weapons or short barreled rifles/shotguns) in non-government hands is firmly pro-government, however. Banning guns for 'felons' who are only that way because they are enemies of the state (such as pot dealers or someone who 'vandalized' a government owned wall with a work of art a la California felony vandalism laws) is firmly pro-government.
Agree. Now replace guns with crypto and this is basically my position. There is obviously nuance for this kind of classification for any technology.
I do think governments will eventually turn against (at least anonymized like XMR) crypto, the same way they turned against bearer bonds/shares. Governments in the past 50 years have been extremely resistant to bearer-like certificates with extraordinarily high value density.
When we look at all the crypto coins, the combines value creation is >1.2 Trillion USD as per https://coinmarketcap.com/.
https://www.zdnet.com/article/ransomware-has-gone-down-becau...
Not really understanding this. If crypto is just moving wealth around, then how can "too many" people become crypto-rich?
>If too many people become crypto-rich and try to spend it on real-world assets, the assets will just inflate in price.
My point was that your logic is flawed. If crypto just moves wealth around vs creating it, as you also assert, then it won't materially change the number of wealthy people. Hence, it wouldn't be a mechanism for causing the inflation you predict.
What's the difference? My employer doesn't create money, they just move it from clients to me. We're both still getting money out of it.