[_xnmw]

What blockchains solve is the whole pesky problem of following the law and paying taxes, and being a normal member of society. No wonder that much of the early crypto literature was all about anarchy. To this day, the only useful thing that crypto has enabled (on a very small scale) international asset transfer that bypasses mainstream financial systems. As Diehl[1] wrote, decentralized trustless systems are only useful to criminals -- every other social system on the planet has "trust" embedded in it, because that is more efficient, socially constructive, and powerful. Oh, and crypto isn't actually decentralized or trustless either, as you still need to trust the developers that wrote the code, and the people that run your exchanges, because otherwise you will get robbed by them, as it happens on a regular basis in the crypto world.

[1] https://www.stephendiehl.com/blog/nothing-burger.html

[ur-whale]

The problem with statist thinking like this is that it never ever takes into account what happens when the state fails.

This is a typical way of looking at the world from people who were lucky enough to grow up in a society that sort of works, unfortunately not the norm for a large fraction of the human race.

I suspect that - had you lived under German occupation in 39-45 - you would have a very different take on things.

[arcticbull]

If your state fails you have much, much bigger problems than your hard currency.

So much so, that your hard currency is kind of a rounding error in this situation.

If the state loses its monopoly on violence, well, someone can just beat you until you're dead or you give up your private keys. Either one should be fine.

I don't optimize my life for some hypothetical dystopian failed state situation in any other aspect of my life. I don't have a fallout shelter in my back yard. I don't have bricks of gold. I don't have Kalashnikovs. I don't have bullets. I don't keep a stash of canned peaches. I don't have gas masks or iodine pills. This isn't Metro Exodus. It's massively inefficient to plan for such a situation in any aspect of my life.

The risk-reward profile is just flat out nuts. I can't know ahead of time beyond these key resources what I'd actually need. And I know I can't count on the internet being up for me to trade spreadsheet cells for gasoline in the apocalypse - nor can I count on good actors to have 51% control of the network.

Why on earth would we force our currency to operate as though there was a German occupation at all times, and take on all the massive inefficiency that goes along with it? Especially when its climate implications are pushing us towards this dystopian future.

[piva00]

I've noticed quite big overlap between doom-preppers and cryptocurrencies true-believers. Even here in Sweden, the people I know who got very into crypto fall usually between: speculators trying to make a quick buck (coming from day-trading, etc.); doom-preppers that bought BTC, silver, gold, and other "stores of value" they believe will save them from a societal collapse; gullible people thinking that crypto is a safe way to make a lot of money quickly (so get-rich-quickly schemers).

I've met quite a lot of people invested in crypto around here (seems to be quite a big fad for a few years now) and only one had proper understanding of the technical aspects and believed in the technology itself to solve other problems that aren't just finance scams. One from a pool of 100+ people that I had conversations about crypto in the past 4 years.

Nowadays I simply avoid any chat around crypto in real-life, the signal-to-noise ratio is so damn low that it's impossible to have a good, intellectual conversation around it, it's a rotten subject.

[sofixa]

But very few people in the world today are under the risk of having to live in such a situation.

[jayd16]

>I suspect that - had you lived under German occupation in 39-45 - you would have a very different take on things.

What does this mean exactly? I don't think I would want to live through a Nazi regime that could inspect all transactions by scraping the block chain.

[ur-whale]

Please take a look at: zcash, monero, grin, beam, etc ...

[omnimus]

I dont know if by anarchy you mean anarchism but crypto has always been about libertarianism. Anarchism is generaly social and left leaning. At some ofcourse crypto libertarians wanted to coopt cool word and invented cryptoanarchism. But thats what they love to do (web3).

[jayd16]

Possibly means anarchy in the game theory sense. Rules are not enforced by a superior authority.