Hacker News Reader

Comment by narrator | Hacker News Reader

When someone sends bitcoins and is provided with a product or service they cannot ask for more of that product or service unless they have provided a product or service that some other member of the bitcoin community deems worthy of their bitcoins. This is not the case with fiat money where governments can print money and demand you take it in exchange for products and services.

In high inflation economies like Argentina for example where foreign currency is strictly controlled, people are starting to save in bitcoin to preserve their wealth. I've heard that one can get a very good exchange rate for bitcoins in Argentina.

View on HN

If the government is forcing you to hand over your possessions (or provide services) it does not matter what currencies they can or cannot print. There is no limit to the strategies available to them...

Example 1

"We're buying your house (whether you like it or not), how many Bitcoins do you want for it?"

"10,000"

"Great. By the way, we just made a new law that says we can pay you in peanut shells as a substitute for Bitcoin, at the same rate."

Example 2

"We're buying your house (whether you like it or not), how many Bitcoins do you want for it?"

"10,000"

"Ok here's your 10,000 Bitcoins"

(10 minutes later...)

"By the way, under the PATRIOT act, we're ordering you to hand over all your encryption keys. Including the private key of your Bitcoin wallet. If you don't make a fuss, we'll be nice and let you keep 1%, and not throw you in jail."

Of course it matters, because decisions like these don't exist in a vacuum. The rest of the world has an effect on what decisions get made, (well, in the countries we're talking about anyway), so if if a government has to resort to much more drastic measures to take your money, these measures are less likely to happen.

This doesn't mean that something like this will never happen, but I don't think anyone's expecting a perfect solution.

I think the gist of it is that the things you're being "protected" against with Bitcoin are, effectively, drastic measures.

Of course, there are people who believe that the existence of legal-tender laws is equivalent to jackbooted thugs breaking down their doors and holding guns to their heads. But those people probably aren't worth paying much attention to.

I..what? Nobody can demand you take anything in exchange for products and services. The meaning of legal tender is that you have to take it for debt, but nothing forces you to be a debtor, or to do business with anyone at all. The only way the government can hurt you with money is to devalue it by printing too much.

And with bitcoins, nobody can print money. That is the advantage.

Well no, anybody can print money, but only at predetermined rate.

The value of Bitcoin is also rising much faster than its tiny "inflation" that comes from mining more Bitcoins right now, therefore, even though Bitcoin hasn't reached its maximum number, it still doesn't have inflation right now.

Mostly you're correct, but not entirely: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eminent_domain

Reply on news.ycombinator.com