|
|
|
|
|
|
by Priem19
1915 days ago
|
|
|
“Fractional reserve banking.
Since bitcoin hasn't lived up to its original vision, it caused a periodical shift in narrative and splintering of its early core developers and adherents. Currently its 21 million coins cap is the last remaining “perk”* assuming the code won't be altered. This artificial scarcity might make for an attractive appreciating asset, like postage stamps—because “one man's trash is another man's treasure”—but it does not stop fractional reserve banking. Just as governments went off the gold standard, they can get off the envisioned bitcoin standard. And just as banks lend out money that doesn't exist, exchanges can lend out bitcoin that don't exist, which already happens (24). As predicted by one of its earliest pioneers: “I see Bitcoin as ultimately becoming a reserve currency for banks, playing much the same role as gold did in the early days of banking. Banks could issue digital cash with greater anonymity and lighter weight, more efficient transactions.” —Hal Finney (25) While his prescience is eerily accurate and impressive, it lacks imagination. The irony is that this envisioned system breeds the same environment that led to the 2008 financial crisis, which instigated the development of bitcoin.
My point here is not that fractional reserve banking is fundamentally bad. I don't think it is. My point is that if fractional reserve banking is good then bitcoin is redundant. Whereas if fractional reserve banking is bad then bitcoin is redundant as well because it does not prevent it. Once more, prosperity boils down to good policy and governance.” —https://www.cynicusrex.com/file/cryptocultscience.html |
|
|
If another invention comes along that incentivizes the reduction of fraud through a distributed ledger AND has value, well, I’ll jump on that train too.
Edit: you know, I spent the time to read your citations, but I’m not sure why you devote this much time to comments on the internet. Once you have a track record of making strategic, correct, positive choices for your family; over the course of decades... I don’t listen to commentary. I make choices with money, not words on the internet. Words on HN have zero time value