The Casino-Chip Society

This is a fantastic post - I'm 100% going to start using the term "Casino-Chip Society" whenever I talk about "cashless" society.

There is another reason that cashless society is awful that was not talked about in this article, but I think is just as important - a digital dollar means that you have a dollar where it is impossible to commit crime. While that sounds like a good thing (who wants crime?), it very much stops being a good thing as soon as you bump up with laws that go against your morals. Designing systems with the assumption that we will always have democratic and free government is a horrendous idea, allowing the government to have a complete record and log of every single transaction you ever make, as well as having the ability to stop you using digital money, makes it so easy for fascists.

This is so good. I was in another thread suggesting that, even if you hate crypto, it's still valuable to understand and accept the "fiat is all made up" idea, even if it's often badly stated and argued.

I have a degree in economics, but I confess I really didn't understand the whole thing until much later in life, when I was able to look at it through the lens of e.g. video game design. Which is to say, there are real consequences and real effects of actions -- but the economy still isn't something like "nature" or "scientific" despite what many would have you believe. It's much more like a designed game who's rules can be tweaked, sometimes arbitrary, etc.

This article is bad, and contains several falsehoods, but the worst one is about fractional reserve banking:

> banks are able to issue out far more digital chips than they have in a state money ‘behind the counter’

> Imagine a person arriving a casino with no money but requesting chips nevertheless - this is pretty much what happens when someone approaches a bank and asks for a loan.

This is just completely wrong - banks only loan out money they have. If you go to a bank and get a loan the bank didn't just edit a database entry - they had that money. Banks loaning out money they don't have is extremely illegal.

The reason that banks ""create"" money is because when you loan money it ""duplicates"" it. You don't have to go through a bank to see this in action: Alice loans Bob $20 and then Bob goes and loans $20 to Charlie. The world now has $40 "more" in it, and remains that way until the loan is settled. Banks just do this process with your money and pay you interest for the privilege.

This is the reason that banks are sometimes required to keep some percentage of their money in reserve (and thus where the name fractional reserve banking comes from), because otherwise the same money could be loaned out forever and the maximum money supply would be infinite.

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EDIT: Because everybody seems to be ready to link the same Bank of England paper.

Yes, this is an simplified and slightly incorrect model of how it works in real life. In reality, this process is asynchronous: the government gives banks permission to loan out the money _now_ and figure out the backing cash later.

They don't have to keep track of who's money is loaned out to who as long as the balance sheet works out at the end of the day, and some percentage of assets are kept in liquid form (I believe it's something like 4%-5% in the US).

In the end, the point is the same: the government controls the creation of money, even if banks are the agents by which they do so.

The analogy the author has of a casino just going into debt by creating chips out of thin air is inaccurate and extremely misleading.

If everybody were to claim their chips, the casino would go bankrupt. If everybody were to simultaneously pay off their loans and withdraw their money from the banks, the banks would be fine (and have the interest payments they collected left over).

I think the article would have been better if it used standard money supply definitions M0, M1, M2, and M3 instead of the "Layer" terminology. That way the reader would be able to carry that knowledge to other conversations. But an advantage of his terminology is that it keeps the layers separate while the standard definitions are nested, so M1 includes M0, M2 includes M1, M3 includes M2. With his layered model he is able to highlight some of the power struggles more easily.

The vast majority of the money supply created by central banks is digitally created. I am entirely at a loss as to why this supposed introduction to how money works consistently implies money created by the state approximately equals cash, and that cash is particularly special. That's not how it works. And because that's not how it works, a cashless society is nothing like as radical change as the article implies. Cash is already of only limited importance.

So I'm paid in casino chips, pay my mortgage and credit cards with casino chips, pay my taxes with casino chips, and only ever use real money at the laundromat. Seems like the chips are more "real" and relevant at this point than the pieces of paper with no intrinsic value.

As of 2020, the Federal Reserve lowered reserve requirements to ZERO. And in Canada too. That means banks can now issue money without being required to back it by L1 money.

Those trillions “printed” and given out to people as PPP loans were originated by banks. But the loan forgiveness comes from where? Who pays the liabilities these banks have to each other?

Technically, the banks can simply cancel liabilities they have to each other. If Bank A issues a loan or credit card and it is redeemed for credits in Bank B, while Bank B does the same for bank A, then the banks can simply cancel out their debt to each other when they settle their balances periodically using the Automated Clearing House (ACH) system that is also run by the Federal Reserve.

So banks can issue a ton of money to spur economic activity, and then cancel the debts to each other and take it out of circulation.

I started https://intercoin.org to making an alternative way to the banking system, allowing cities and other communities to issue their own currency (eg Berkshares, Bristol Pounds etc.), give it out as a UBI and then tax it back to remove money from circulation (fiscal policy). The fiscal policy can then be used to mitigate negative externalities like pollution etc. So the monetary and fiscal policies are managed by the people. The businesses are getting money from people spending money on things they actually want, rather thank bank underwriters trying to guess whether there will be a lot of demand for the business’s services 5 years later.

Crypto has been captured by ponzi schemes and nonsense. But the real value is in communities. Real goods and services by people accepting the local currency is what backs the local currency. The other stuff (“redeemable for gold, etc.”) are just mostly fictions to get a critical mass of adoption in a community.

> banks (...) might end up sandwiched by competition from (...) Layer 3 stablecoin systems. This is why banks are currently (...) demanding that stablecoins be regulated in the same way that banks are.

...but earlier:

> Thinking of these different layers of money as enforceable ‘chips’ within a legal system helps to highlight that ‘thin air’ is thicker than we may think.

...surely the author themselves here is effectively admitting there are more reasons one might desire regulation and oversight in the crypto space than just stifling competition?

> In reality, a cashless society is a type of enclosure, in which the only form of money in society becomes digital bank chips (a bit like being stuck in a network of casinos where you can no longer exit)

Quote from an interview with the author: "The State endorse a currency as a mean to pay taxes, but what ultimately gives money its power is the network effect: there is no opt out": https://www.ouishare.net/article/on-the-illusion-of-money-an...

The part about CBDCs is interesting: "The banking sector has been attacking the cash system for decades, but confidence in their Layer 2 chips depends on the public being able to redeem them for state money... In reality, Layer 1 CBDC has existed for decades, but it’s traditionally called ‘reserves’ and is only accessible to banks who use it between themselves"

"banks control the Layer 2 system, but see a future in which they might end up sandwiched by competition from a hypothetical Layer 1 CBDC and Layer 3 stablecoin systems (which admittedly plug into them). This is why banks are currently lobbying against CBDC to water it down (e.g. demanding limits upon its use), while demanding that stablecoins be regulated in the same way that banks are"

"The CBDC debate is really about whether access to digital state money should be extended to all of us"

I also liked this JWZ blog post: (https://www.jwz.org/blog/2016/08/like-regular-money-but-more...)

HN link: https://kilobytely.com/sh6vk9ync1qf4tzod2rg5uj8xmb0ti7wlazod...

I shudder to think of a day where the only way to spend and receive money offline is through banking and financial systems (Layers 2-3), which (likely due to today's KYC laws) inevitably require outing your deadname in order to send and receive goods and services. This is already largely the case for online payments, in bank transfers (which in their current dysfunctional state, not only reveal your legal name to the recipient directly, but require you send your order ID and legal name in an email side channel because the chip-transfer message doesn't carry enough information to tell the recipient what the money is for), and PayPal (PayPal business accounts do not actually hide your account-holder name from the money recipient, as I found out by being doxxed after creating one). I've only found a narrow exception where Privacy.com credit cards allow the use of a pseudonym once you've doxxed yourself to Privacy.com, and the small fraction of people on Citi can use True Name Mastercards to pay (and again not receive money).

The funny thing is, what he calls “Layer 1 cash” is not the lowest layer. Most cash currencies were issued as tokens which could themselves be reimbursed for gold or silver by the issuing state or bank. The current level of cash (which he tries to defend) is already one level removed from what was originally valued. One could see where gold bugs and silverites get their thinking from.

But, one could argue, if most people really think there’s only one type of money, isn’t that by then by definition, true? I.e. if other people value a “layer 2 digital chip” as much as “layer 1 cash”, aren’t both worth the same to me, since I can get the same worth from them both? And, therefore, why should we care anything about any shift from layer 1 to layer 2, since the shift from layer 0 to layer 1 seems to not be a problem now?

This is a limited view, and is true solely if you look only at the two forms’ notional “value”. Hovever, the differences between the two lie instead in the technical limitations in how they can be used. If layer 1 cash cannot be used by, say, online retailers, or in certain shops, that form might have less value for me, if I want to buy something online or in those shops. On the other hand, if layer 2 digital chips cannot be used without the bank (and state) getting and keeping a permanent log of all my transactions, and also makes it impossible to send money to what either the government or the credit card companies deem to be unsuitable destinations, then I might value that form less.

It all depends on what you, yourself, value, or (by extension), what freedoms and/or conveniences you want society as a whole to have. He chooses to defend “the balance of power” between the two. We must all make our own choices here, and remember that all our actions will affect the balance.

Ok, now explain bad debt expense in this model? And the implication on taxes? How about the secondary market for debts and bankruptcy proceedings? And then capitalizing expenses?

This post just says the same thing everyone understands in the simple model with abstractions based on crypto that attempts to explain group behaviors. How someone goes about reading the incentives and behaviors with the simple model does not mean the model is wrong - multiple choice tests allow people to be right for different reasons.

Edit: and I forgot the softball, the FDIC insurance explains an insane amount about the inherent risks of the system. If you want to know the real “creation of money” if that number ever goes up, you’ll see some wild things.

I'm curious what people who've used AliPay in China think about this. From the little I've heard about it (on a podcast interview[1]) it seems like people refuse cash because AliPay is so strongly preferred. How does that fit into the whole "casino chip society" view?

[1]: https://corecursive.com/software-world-tour-with-son-luong-n...

The problem with this article is it doesn’t point out that most money is bank deposits already, so taking the cash element away wont make much of a difference to the amount of bank IOU style money.

The bigger issues will be people used to not paying tax by using cash (usually working class) will suddenly be a lot poorer which could be a shock. The government may need to mitigate. And the surveillance aspect of it, where the bank system knows every last cent spent by every last citizen.

Recently I opened an IRA account at Fidelity. I had my 401k with them for more than a decade. Soon after I opened it they locked my account demanding ID and papers proving my residential address. I'm not sure what else they may request, but fact is I can't use my hard earned funds at this moment.

I experienced similar locks at a bunch of other websites. It looks to be a norm nowadays to randomly lock accounts. Now if similar things start to happen to bank accounts and retirement funds it's easy to understand that it will ruin people's lifes.

Bottom line is - we shouldn't fully rely on electronic money. I will do everything to avoid living in a cashless society.

> Digital chips for borrowers: they issue Layer 2 chips to borrowers, in exchange for a loan agreement in which the customer promises to return a larger amount of Layer 1 money to them in future than what the chips promise to them now (in a sense, the bank ‘buys’ a higher-value long-term promise by issuing lower-value short-term promises, but exposes itself to risk in the process).

This is not true. I pay layer 2 chips to pay off my mortgage. I am not sending cash to the bank, they transfer layer 2 chips from my bank account every month.

Not only that, but the central bank never touches layer 1 money either. They also just transfer layer 2 money into banks.

>Remember that a chip is a liability to its issuer. Whoever ends up with those chips can come back to demand cash, so - in the case of a casino - it’s not in their interest to randomly issue huge numbers of chips to customers who don’t actually deposit anything.

At the casino where I used to work one Auditor would pore over slot machine reports tracking down single cent tickets.

People had stuffed their pockets with tickets when out for a night and then forgot about it.

But the auditor had to account for it in case they came back wanting the penny. My mind reeled from the tedium nature of that job.

This has generated surprisingly divisive interest for a blog about how money works. Maybe it was the reference to stablecoins.

Highly recommend watching https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHe0bXAIuk0 before reading this article if you're coming in without much context.

Regading CBDCs:

There was a Bitcoin hostile article published by European Central Bank today. I was wondering why ECB even bothers to write about Bitcoin. Turned out, the author is a fan of CBDCs and taking cash away so that ECB could enforce negative interest rates.

> For example, Dyson and Hodgson (2016) argue that “if digital cash is used to completely replace physical cash, this could allow interest rates to be pushed below the zero-lower bound.” Rogoff (2016) develops this argument in detail. By allowing to overcome the zero-lower bound (“ZLB”) and therefore freeing negative interest rate policies (“NIRP”) of its current constraints, a world with only digital central bank money would allow for – according to this view - strong monetary stimulus in a sharp recession and/or financial crisis. This could not only avoid recession, unemployment, and/or deflation but also the need to take recourse to non-standard monetary policy measures which have more negative side effects than NIRP. Opponents of NIRP will obviously dislike this argument in favor of CBDC, and will thus see CBDC potentially as an instrument to overcome previous limitations of “financial repression” and “expropriation” of the saver.

> In sum: it seems that the remuneration of CBDC is per se neither necessary to clear a market, nor to control inflation, in analogy with the case of banknotes, which also cause none of these issues8. However, still, the ability to remunerate CBDC, in contrast to banknotes, is a privilege that has a number of advantages. It allows shifting the interest rate on CBDC in principle in parallel to monetary policy rates, such as to avoid that the relative attractiveness of CBDC relative to market- and central bank policy rates depends on the absolute level of interest rates, as it is the case for banknotes. Indeed, the fact that the remuneration of banknotes stands at zero regardless of whether short-term risk-free rates are at 10% or at -0.5% (as currently in the euro area) may be perceived as an anomaly, which becomes increasingly problematic when the zero lower bound is being approached or passed. Moreover, a negative remuneration of CBDC also allows addressing the possible danger of a run into CBDC in case of a systemic banking crisis (as also noted by Kumhof and Noone). As shown in section 4, in the 2008 banking-, and 2011/12 euro area debt crises, a run into banknotes played only a rather minor role, relative to the run from perceived weak to perceived strong banks – despite the fact that the remuneration of banknotes remained at zero, and that the level of short term risk free rates quickly approached this level after the Lehman default, reducing the opportunity costs of holding banknotes. Nevertheless, since a run into CBDC would be easier, it would be recomforting to have as extra tool the ability to impose negative rates on CBDC.

This kind of money tinkering sits at the opposite of the political spectrum of Bitcoin, regardless if you like Bitcoin or European Central Bank.

https://deliverypdf.ssrn.com/delivery.php?ID=779068125074119...