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by ende 4090 days ago
The points you raise here are where I think this topic gets potentially very interesting.

The idealism of common currencies emerged largely as the result of rapid globalization among hard currency regimes (case study: the eurozone). The obstacle of exchanging currencies in that context makes sense. I think this obstacle is / can be largely removed however in the context of digital currencies. I don't see the competing market of digital currencies as a king of the hill scenario seeking currency monopoly (as centralized national currencies current do), but rather as a continuous plurality more akin to one's stock portfolio. The key here is substitution of software processes for physical processes in transactions, and the inherit flexibility that such a transition results in. Now if you're thinking that trying to figure out how to manage a complex portfolio of competing currencies for every day financial transactions seems incredibly confusing, I'd agree with you! But simplifying that process is precisely the role that software enabled currencies can address.

In this respect, electing new currencies is analogous to electing new governments, consistent with a well-defined accessible process. The difference is that the election of (multiple) currency regimes is now decoupled from the election of representative intermediates. It's nice to think that our political institutions provide us democratic control over central banking, but who actually takes the nomination of the next Fed chairman into account when that consideration must share the collective attention span with so many other issues de jour?