[adventured]

A large cryptocurrency like Bitcoin is entirely capable of functioning like gold as a hedge against fiat inflation.

I'm not much of a crypto cultist (which is the latest trend here on HN, to tag anybody that defends crypto with that to shut down conversation), however it's extraordinarily obvious at this point how cryptocurrencies can help you evade inflation in eg USD or evade the debt damage to the US economy. Bitcoin for its part is global and not primarily dependent on the condition of the US economy, and it's likely to become increasingly global and even less dependent on the US over time.

> Don't you still need to pay for goods and services in the same debt-based economy

Of course. This is a case where crypto is even better than gold. It's particularly trivial to convert in and out of traditional fiat.

Surely you understand enough about cryptocurrencies at this point to know how easy that is. And it appears likely to keep getting easier, given the effort companies like Coinbase, Robinhood and Square are putting into it (check out what Square did in its latest quarter courtesy crypto).

> How does the flavor of money change whether someone needs to go into debt?

The parent said debt based economies. The US has an economy and government system that is increasingly drowning in debt (check out the corporate balance sheets in the US; nationally it's horrific; that situation has been spurred on by the Fed's forever low interest rates, which encourages corporations to take on ever greater sums of debt because it's artificially cheap, which will ultimately lead to zombies ala Japan). The Federal answer to that is to print ever increasing sums of fiat USD, because there are no foreign buyers left that can absorb tens of trillions in new US government debt. The Fed unavoidably becomes the primary buyer of the US Government's debt (this is where a nation begins eating itself; that began for the US over a decade ago now as a trickle, that trickle is picking up pace). Once upon a time not so long ago it was a huge deal that China held a trillion dollars of US government debt, now that sum is a joke, a mere portion of one spending program this week or next. That's how quickly the US is imploding fiscally.

How does Bitcoin help you with that if you're stuck in a debt based economy? Well it's very obvious. The Fed will keep printing aggressively to fund the US Government's finances. And the Fed will have to hold interest rates as low as possible forever now, because the US Government can't afford its debt any longer at normal interest rates (3% * $40 trillion = bye bye social security or medicare or the US military). That need by the US to inflate massively, to constantly debase the rapidly expanding monster pile of debt, can be hedged via gold, sometimes via high quality stocks, and possibly via crypto (pick the one/s you think will endure).

And as this all gets worse, the tax hikes have to keep getting worse, which will choke off growth, which accelerates the stagnation and makes everything that much worse. All in all, the average rate of growth in the US economy will keep sinking toward zero.

Given enough time, somewhere between 10 and 20 years depending on how wild the clowns in DC get with spending, they'll have to begin directly debasing the USD to accomplish their goals (they'll promptly educate the public on how it's economically beneficial to devalue their currency), it won't be enough to do it slowly. There's nothing novel about any of this, we already know exactly what the playbook looks like, see: Japan. The US will be able to maneuver a little better than Japan has courtesy of having the global reserve currency (although at the rate they're destroying things, that global reserve position will drop out even faster than it was otherwise going to).

The only way Bitcoin & Co aren't useful given where the US is obviously going at this point, is if the powers that be get so desperate about the context that they outlaw crypto or otherwise make it very impractical (artificially add enormous cost to owning it, via tax or regulation).

[DangitBobby]

You've used the word obvious several times, but strong political opinions and conjecture underlies every aspect of this response. Debt-based economy does not obviously refer to the fact that the dollar is printed by the fed. Your response also doesn't really address how it saves us from the debt based economy that we all have no choice but to participate in. There is no debate about whether sovereign currencies will continue to be maintained by governments. They will, and they will use their military might to protect the sovereignty. Your position here is akin to saying that if I park all my money in gold, I am no longer a victim of the debt based economy.

I don't know if the gradual, typically controlled and predictable inflation of fiat currencies is worse than constant value fluctuations due to speculators in cryptocurrencies, but that's obviously for each individual to determine for themselves.

I am also curious, is it impossible for new BTC (for example) to be minted? Is it possible to change that? My understanding is yes. If so, it sounds like someone could play the same role as the fed there if they really wanted to.

And what happens to the value in the event of a fork of BTC that attempts to make BTC actually useful as a currency instead of just as a commodity? Is this an additional vector of instability in the value of the "currency"?

[mariojv]

I think this take is a little alarmist.

Yes, the national debt is increasing, but from 2000 to 2020, the percent of federal debt owned by the Fed increased from ~11% to ~18%. [0] That is hardly uncontrolled money printing. Private investors are still buying the bulk of treasuries despite the low interest rates, because they're extremely safe investments. I do believe that inflation will pick up a bit, especially for assets vs. consumables, but I don't buy the idea that we'll see anything much worse than what was going on in the 70s or 80s.

As far as the size of the debt, we're close to where we were in terms of debt to GDP ratio after World War II, but the cost to the country in terms of GDP of maintaining the debt has held fairly stable throughout modern history. [1] Considering the historically unprecedented impact of COVID-19 and the cost of dealing with the crisis, a temporary bump in debt is totally unsurprising to me, especially with how cheap it is to borrow.

I don't have a strong opinion on whether crypto will hold value well over decades or not, but I find arguments that crypto's rise is inevitable because the collapse of the USD is inevitable to be particularly unfounded.

[0] https://fredblog.stlouisfed.org/2018/04/whos-buying-treasuri... - expand and compare Q4 2000 to Q4 2020. [1] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FYOIGDA188S

[imtringued]

>The parent said debt based economies. The US has an economy and government system that is increasingly drowning in debt (check out the corporate balance sheets in the US; nationally it's horrific;

Yes, that is what happens when your currency is the world reserve currency. Every nation exports their products to you but they never want to import anything from you. Therefore you run into a domestic unemployment problem and you must take on an increasing amount of debt just to keep your economy stable. That's the "exorbitant privilege" the privilege to be forced to take on debt.

It's called a privilege because smart leaders recognize that you can have your cake and eat it too but neither Obama nor Trump have taken advantage of that, all they did was let the disadvantages outweigh the benefits. Trump merely wanted to reduce the disadvantages by starting a trade war with China.

>that situation has been spurred on by the Fed's forever low interest rates,

Those low interest rates aren't spurred by government debt. They are spurred by low inflation, if possible the interest rates would be at -1% or deeper but things like treasury bonds, cash and in theory Bitcoin prevent interest rates below 0%.

>which encourages corporations to take on ever greater sums of debt because it's artificially cheap, which will ultimately lead to zombies ala Japan).

Yes, those corporations are supposed to grow their business and employ people, even if those companies are useless to society, because the beneficial effects of employment will completely outweigh the downsides of zombie companies. However, inflation never came and unemployment is taking forever to shrink. (precovid of course)

>The Federal answer to that is to print ever increasing sums of fiat USD, because there are no foreign buyers left that can absorb tens of trillions in new US government debt.

There are lots of foreign buyers for USD though which drags inflation way down.

>The Fed unavoidably becomes the primary buyer of the US Government's debt (this is where a nation begins eating itself; that began for the US over a decade ago now as a trickle, that trickle is picking up pace).

This argument makes sense when the debt is fueled by Trump style tax cuts because you are ruining your ability to pay the debt back in the future, I mean, how are you supposed to pay the debt back if not by raising taxes above previous levels?

If you spend it on one time stimulus the risk of the debt growing only exists until the economy has recovered. If you spend the money on infrastructure you can actually net a greater return in the future.

>Once upon a time not so long ago it was a huge deal that China held a trillion dollars of US government debt, now that sum is a joke, a mere portion of one spending program this week or next. That's how quickly the US is imploding fiscally.

It's a huge deal in the sense that it obligates the Fed to increase the money supply and the government to increase debt as mentioned in my first point. China buying US government debt IS the problem, in the sense that it forces the US government to go into more debt. If China is actively hurting the US economy, it is doing so by buying US debt which means it is not importing products from the US, which means China is not creating jobs in the USA. If China ever decides to unwind its US debt only good things will happen to the US economy.