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Comment by cflynnus | Hacker News Reader

Thinking CBDCs are “safe” is extremely naive. They’re a dystopian nightmare. They’re every dictators wet dream. This is why Bitcoin matters. Bitcoin = freedom.

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An economy run on Bitcoin is an absolute dystopia. You reluinquish monetary control to a deflationary coin, being in the whim of Bitcoin whales. People who advocate for it, either are whales or they are stupid.

Ask south europe how well it worked for them having no power over their monetary policy.

Continuing this charade of "the government and banks are competent at monetary control" is more stupid. Inflation is theft.

The USD and Euro are managed by central banks much better at monetary policy than random rich people trying to manipulate an asset market (like those for cryptocurrencies) because they have an untreated gambling addiction. The idea that US Dollars are less stable and reliable in terms of price trends over the long term than cryptocurrencies is just ridiculous. Small amounts of inflation is good for the economy. It incentivizes people to put their money stashes back into productive use, instead of just keeping it sealed in a box.

Bitcoin != cryptocurrencies. You might as well be comparing dollars and beanie babies. Define "much better" and for who because they're very clearly, very bad at monetary policy.

If Bitcoin had a history of stability your point would have more weight, but as it stands I don’t know how people can present it as a viable alternative with a straight face. Banks are having a crisis—-Bitcoin seems to have at least one every year.

If Bitcoin were the default currency, the value would not fluctuate, it would just slowly rise. Responsible savers would be rewarded. Irresponsible risk takers would generally be punished.

You mean the people who bought in early would benefit.

Undeniably, in the beginning, yes. Eventually it would be distributed more evenly as those people spend or die. We already have billionaires and the difference is that, with the current system, their money will not become distributed. They fail and then the government prints more to rescue them or they just print it and give it to them directly to "prime the economy". i.e. The Cantillion effect.

The people should control the money and that's only possible with Bitcoin.

> Undeniably, in the beginning, yes. Eventually it would be distributed more evenly as those people spend or die. We already have billionaires and the difference is that, with the current system, their money will not become distributed.

Why would a bitcoin billionaire's money be distributed more than a traditional billionaire's? At least a traditional billionaire will invest his fortune in assets like stocks and thus help fund some innovative companies to protect his fortune from inflation. The bitcoin billionaire can just hold his fortune in bitcoin forever since it's deflationary.

Every time I see a bitcoin backer talk about finance, the things said fly in the face of Econ 101 and basic common sense. I guess I "just don't get it".

Econ 101 seems to have a failing end game. Bitcoin gets distributed because, since you can't make more, you don't get anything for free. You spend it and it goes somewhere else. Maybe you get it back if you add value, but you don't get it back just because you're part of a ruling class that gets free money printed by the government and handed to you because "you will add value to the world". That last assertion is demonstrably untrue in many cases. They fail, we bail them out. Again.

Edit: Modern economics seems to require more mental gymnastics than a Bitcoin standard. We invent things no one really understands until the rug gets pulled one day and the scam become clear. Then we move on to the next scam. Financial instruments seem to be designed to fool the common man into believing we need these complications while what's really happening is that someone is simply stealing money until something breaks and we bail them out.

If we define "theft" this broadly then employment is theft, taxes are theft, interest on loans is theft, etc. Meanwhile deflation favours early adopters forever, and while you could chide me for "missing the boat" that doesn't really work, morally, for people not yet born.

> Meanwhile deflation favours early adopters forever, and while you could chide me for "missing the boat" that doesn't really work, morally, for people not yet born.

The deflationary model favors savers over consumers, giving benefit back to people who are willing be patient by forgoing immediate consumption.

You seem concerned that early adopters stand to gain disproportionately from mass adoption. Well, what outcome would you prefer and how would we get there?

This is myopic beyond reason. Inflation is now a thing so you care about it. The real problem lies in things that most western countries never had to deal with. What do you do when your country is not good at creating high-value products and services that you can sell to a premium to the rest of the world? What China did, you make cheap stuff. How do you make cheap stuff? You print more money and you devalue your currency. Inflation will make sure you make what you can in-house cheap enough. Now you can export it cheap as well.

This can't work with bitcoin. If your country can't export things in a premium you are F'ed. You can't print money to stimulate demand for local goods, your only option is to violently reduce the average quality of life enough that you will be wiling to work for less. Printing money creates inflation but it can also kick a positive spiral of demand/supply. While "austerity" has been shown to just make the problem worse by gutting demand in general

Couldn't you sub cash for Bitcoin here and have it make just as much sense? Also, isn't bitcoin highly traceable, especially for a sophisticated state actor?

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