How Bitcoin Can Bring Down The United States Of America

I usually respect Falkvinge but this is pure uncut bullshit.

First the status of US as a superpower is much better guaranteed from the couple of thousand nukes and a couple dozen of carriers etc ... even in the case of total economic collapse the military might alone will be enough to allow the US to have strong word in the world affairs.

The fact the US have no trouble selling its debt at negative real interest rates means not that US is borrowing too much but that it is not borrowing nearly enough concerning the people that want to be US creditors.

Us is also one of the main centers of IT research, development and production. Just forbidding Intel and AMD to sell chips to some country can harm it a lot.

Krugman calculated that the benefit of USD being a world reserve currency is roughly 300 billion USD per year - not a pocket change but hardly a game breaking amount.

>"The United States is kept alive as a nation by the fact that if anybody wants to purchase goods from another nation, like China, they first have to buy US Dollars from the USA, then exchange those USD for the goods they want in China. That, and the fact that this results in all countries buying tons of USD to put in their currency reserves."

First of all, this isn't true. You can use the Forex market to exchange your currency however you wish. It's true that a lot of people save USD because there's a lot of trust in the USA (held by the fact we have the highest gdp in the world), which boost its value, even if that currency was replaced with people saving bitcoins instead, the usd would still have a lot of value. The value of the United States currency is in the trust that the country will survive.

While I wish we didn't have the national debt, it's just a fact of life for most countries. We owe most of our debt to ourselves actually, and as a percentage of gdp, the US debt is about #35 out of all the countries in the world https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/... .

I'm not sure I could come up with a better parody title summing up how a certain segment of the tech community prefers fairly delusional writing about politics and economics to doing real research than:

"How Bitcoin Can Bring Down The United States Of America"

Look - some people don't want to bring down anything. They just want a more efficient, cheaper means of exchange and a more reliable store of wealth.

Besides that - when it comes to effects of such a currency on geo-politics... <cue spooky music>... NOBODY KNOWS... Really. No one has the absolute foggiest idea about what would happen if bitcoin main streamed. I wish people would stop thinking that they do.

I'm fed up with the arrogant techie-revolutionist interpretations of bitcoin...

I read the article and it's nothing less than sensationalist, right from the title. It did have bits and pieces of useful information, but overall a dud.

Its bullshit like this that gives bitcoin a bad name, now the spinsters will use this article to spin bitcoin in a negative light, well done :(

It's hard to see that Bitcoin itself could be the undoing, but there is potential now for disruption that hasn't existed prior. While I also feel the article is a ... umm a bit overboard. The root point is that it feels like it could be possible to shake the banking system a bit. That assumes that the banking system isn't manipulating Bitcoin for it's gain as well.

Wow.. Is not one person even willing to entertain the idea?

"Shut him up! I've got a lot invested in this ride, shut him up! Look at my furrows of worry, look at my big bank account, and my family. This has to be real." - Bill Hicks.

I work within the Bitcoin area but not on Bitcoin exclusively, and I have lived in many countries. I own zero Bitcoins. My take is that decentralized currencies and settlement systems (an important distinction, mind you; Bitcoin tries to be both) do have a strong potential to alter the status quo, particularly with vast numbers of European and US citizens in unemployment or various levels of relative poverty, and with the Chinese government's exceptional stance against capital flight. The combination of these elements is extremely potent and is not going away any time soon.

Monopolists (credit cards, USD, SWIFT, etc.) have had it too good for too long; all empires fall, nothing lasts forever.

We have alternatives now: they're affordable, they're increasingly approachable, and they're potentially more transparent (and therefore legally compatible and corruption resistant) than the legacy systems. We even have a foothold in politics.

Anyone who thinks change isn't coming is probably not versed in economics, a staunch conservative, or (sub)consciously expecting greater plays toward totalitarianism and technocracy from our surveillance states.

The coming change will be a massive one for humanity and its ultimate result will be a different relationship not only between individuals and their governments, but amongst the people of the world without regard for government.

We have seen the separation of church and state. Witness: the separation of finance and state.

Nationalism, Einstein's infantile disease; the measles of mankind may finally be put to rest, without the need to accept the hidously risky alternative of global governance.

Let us celebrate the creativity and differences in the world, not criticize those who seek to create opportunities for change in the best way possible: non-violently and from the ground up, through individual citizen participation.

Bitcoin will not bring down anyone. People will jump on Bitcoin when governments completely destroy value of their paper and confidence in themselves. If tomorrow you start seeing prices going up 10% daily and people getting rid of worthless paper notes, where would you go? First, you'll try to buy some physical goods: food, gold, car, houses etc. But then which money would you use in the remains of the economy? As everyone already has smartphones and if telecom industry does not collapse completely, it would be super easy to install Bitcoin wallets and go on buying and selling stuff in BTC.

Hopefully, if people jump on BTC earlier than later (and we have more useful services, apps and hardware keeping and transacting in BTC) the total collapse will never actually happen. We will just more or less smoothly transition the whole economy on BTC at the expense of all USD-holders (unfortunately). It will be painful, but at least industries will not stop working for months, but will continue going on. Only remaining cash will become worthless during the race to get rid of it.

However, if governments magically stop printing money, default and regain some confidence, then they may probably avoid total run from USD/EUR/etc. Maybe. But right now the speed of money printing and amount of debt is so huge, I don't see any way out of it other than complete USD replacement (more or less peacefully) or brutal tyrannical controls to keep people using gov paper until some bloody revolution happens when economy get completely paralyzed and people starve.

I used to follow Falkvinge on Twitter but nonsense like this is why I stopped.

It's one thing to be in favor of personal liberty (which I am) and in sensible economic practices.

It's another to say that this toy that has yet to move beyond a small percentage of even techie libertarians is going to bring down the biggest country in the history of the world.

It's just idiotic.