[tsimionescu]

The debt based system will not go away if we ever move the entire economy to bitcoin (laughable as that idea is). You'll have fractional bitcoin reserve banking with absolutely no difference compared to today.

In fact, the fact that bitcoin has no on-chain notion of credit is a major limitation that relegates it to being digital gold, not a digital dollar.

[beefield]

This. So much this. The disruption in finance was moving from things as money to debt as money. And somehow the people who think current crop of crypto could work as money are so delusional that they fail to understand they are trying to turn the clock backwards, not forward. The thought that bitcoin would somehow limit the amount of money (as currently defined, I am talking about M0, M1 etc) in circulation is simply nothing short of delusional. Bitcoin will not stop people wanting to borrow and loan money and it will not stop people using other entities debt as a mean to pay other people (money, that is.)

Defi, you say. Show me a defi project that lets people borrow more money than what they have in the first place. Show me a defi project where I actually take the credit risk for the borrowers when lending the money to them. (Show me those and I show you an emerging fractional reserve bank and uncontrolled money creation by the said bank...)

[ephbit]

Let's say we had a situation where everything was backed by bitcoin (as a reserve currency).

Governmental budgets are one of the most obvious ways in which political decisions manifest themselves and become relevant for everyday life.

Do I get this right? You think that governmental budgets would look absolutely no different in such a bitcoinized world compared to how they look in the current centralbank issued money world?

You don't think the fact that central banks mostly support governmental debt shapes these budgets in a non trivial way?

[jhoechtl]

> In fact, the fact that bitcoin has no on-chain notion of credit

Precisely that was the OPs point why it is a good alternative to the debt-based financial system we have.

[tsimionescu]

I first addressed GP's point by observing that, were the global economy to adopt bitcoin as a store of value, they would likely still continue to use fractional reserve banking and continue the debt based economy, jjust dde nominating debt in BTC instead of dollars or other currencies. They are unrelated, especially as long as the BTC block chain isn't even close to fast enough to be used as a medium of exchange for a small town, nevermind the global economy.

In this phrase I was just pointing out that, given fractional reserve banking is here to stay, with or without bitcoin, it would have been better if bitcoin had embraced it and actually made it possible to put the real transactions on chain, so that at least you could in principle have a BTC bank that is transparent about the kinds of reserves it actually holds, without being forced to hold a full reserve while competing with banks with fractional reserves.

[errantmind]

The dollar was once backed by gold, so not the best comparison.

Also, I don't see a way to make fractional Bitcoin reserve banking work in practice. You can't simply issue Bitcoin you don't have.

[tsimionescu]

It's very simple: you have a banking app that shows you an amount in bitcoin. If you want to send someone else money, you get their own bank account number, and ask your bank to wire that person 1 bitcoin. Your bank talks to their bank and tells them that they are now owed 1 bitcoin.

At no point does this bitcoin have to live in the BTC wallet of you, your bank, your friend's bank, or your friend. In fact, this BTC can be entirely fictional. As long as your bank has enough BTC in their actual wallet that they are at no serious risk of running out if a realistic proportion of their customers wanted to withdraw their BTC, as determined by the Fed or other national entity, then all is well.

This is anyway the only realistic possible use of BTC itself, as the blockchain is far, far too slow to use for day to day transactions even in a large village/small town. I can also promise you that this is exactly what day to day use of BTC in El Salvador will look like, more or less, if they do go through with it.

Edit to add: the dollar was once based on gold. We've moved on from that after realizing that doesn't work. Today's dollar is very much not tied to gold, and it is used in ways gold is not.

[lowkey]

El Salvador is using Lightning Network on top of Bitcoin for virtually free, instant payments without fractional reserves. Instead of using debt or fractional reserves, Lightning allows 100% reserve asset-backed exchanges.

> the dollar was once based on gold. We've moved on from that after realizing that doesn't work.

Citation needed.

My understanding is that governments moved off the gold standard because they couldn’t debase the gold-backed currency without getting caught. Moving off the gold standard was devastating for citizen’s savings and the constant debasement was used to pay for endless wars.

WWI was only made possible becauuse countries were debasing their currencies instead of raising taxes.

[tsimionescu]

The world moved on from the gold standard briefly at the start of WWI, but then returned. Then, during the Great Depression, the need to better control their currency and do large financial transactions for which they simply didn't have enough gold spurred most countries to move away definitively from it. This spurred recovery from the Great Depression and allowed huge investments in needed work.

All of a sudden, it became clear that well functioning economies could reliably promise money that would become available tomorrow, and use it to start getting there today. This is a major boon to any country, and having to save up resources until you can start huge infrastructure projects would be a return to terrible times.

Later edit: As for the claim that El Salvador would use the Lightning Network, I highly doubt that the citizens of El Salvador will each have a bitcoin wallet and lightning channel connected to it. Much more likely, some citizens will have some account with a bank (exchange) that will facilitate payments through the LN or whatever other mechanism they chose to use internally, that no one will really care about.

Of course, with bitcoin as volatile as it is, no one in their right mind would pick up a credit in BTC, so the greatest need for fractional reserve banking will be far away. Even so, if people start buying heavily into bitcoin, I wouldn't be surprised to see banks/exchanges start to offer BTC that they don't yet own.

[lowkey]

My understanding is that the only defect of a gold standard for countries was that they couldn't easily debase their currencies, which historically has been the easiest way to fund wars. Currency debasement hurts the citizens, particularly savers so the individuals never benefit from currency debasement.

For dishonest governments who wish to spend without limit but don't want to raise taxes, fiat currencies allow debasement which benefits dishonest politicians. It does not benefit the people - ever.

[errantmind]

This only works if people don't insist on custody of their bitcoin. Also, as was already mentioned, lightning network solves scaling problems while preserving users' custody

[beefield]

You do not need to issue any new bitcoin. What you need is a trustworthy entity that borrows your bitcoin and gives you an IOU slip, which you can then use as a means to pay other people. That slip, stating that whoever owns the slip is entitled to one bitcoin from the trustworthy entity, is from economical point of view as good as bitcoin. And if people want to increase the amount of those slips, there is nothing in bitcoin that stops it. Ergo, in bitcoin economy money supply is not restricted.

[errantmind]

As I mentioned elsewhere, this only works if people don't insist on custody of their bitcoin, and a lot of people (although not a majority) would.

Also, do you have some strong historical evidence fractional reserve banking is good economically over long periods (100+ years)?