Philip, your article is just plain wrong about the “privacy” of transacting parties being a key feature of cryptocurrency.
The innovative feature of the blockchain technology is that it removes the need for any trust between the transacting parties, as well as any adjacent ones. Privacy per se, is not part of the equation.
You’ve got that wrong, because of your assumption that “money ultimately rests on trust in the issuer”. That is correct for fiat currencies only, not Bitcoin, which has no issuer.
If blockchain involves any element of trust at all, then it is trust in mathematics.
You are exactly right. In fact, Bitcoin, which everyone has heard of, is not private at all. Every transaction is traceable (in principle). It is a distributed ledger with no single chokepoint that a powerful player (like a government) can use to effect confiscation and/or forgery (aka “quantitative easing”).
Both the confiscation and forgery issues have been made stark by recent events. This is also the reason not all “cryptos” are equal. Government issued cryptos will be just as fiat as (or worse than) the existing currencies and should be shunned like the plague.
Money “anarchy” is exactly what the world needs to save it from tyranny. Distributed ledger currency achieves this. Bitcoin is the front runner in this space. It is already “legal tender” in El Salvador (but its eventual wide acceptance will make legal sanction superfluous, and legal banning of no effect).
The commercialisation of crypto currencies is driven by brokers who want to be paid to be an intermediary. If you use a broker you introduce an additional trust factor. You will have an account with them and you have to trust what they do on your behalf, in exactly the same way as you do your bank. It is as open to fraud as any other financial transaction. Yes it should be regulated, if only to avoid the state having to support individuals who have blown their life savings.
…regulation of intermediaries is fine. What’s important though, is that crypto is not more heavily regulated in that respect, in the interests of preserving the remnants of fiat currency credibility.
Philip, your article is just plain wrong about the “privacy” of transacting parties being a key feature of cryptocurrency.
The innovative feature of the blockchain technology is that it removes the need for any trust between the transacting parties, as well as any adjacent ones. Privacy per se, is not part of the equation.
You’ve got that wrong, because of your assumption that “money ultimately rests on trust in the issuer”. That is correct for fiat currencies only, not Bitcoin, which has no issuer.
If blockchain involves any element of trust at all, then it is trust in mathematics.
You are exactly right. In fact, Bitcoin, which everyone has heard of, is not private at all. Every transaction is traceable (in principle). It is a distributed ledger with no single chokepoint that a powerful player (like a government) can use to effect confiscation and/or forgery (aka “quantitative easing”).
Both the confiscation and forgery issues have been made stark by recent events. This is also the reason not all “cryptos” are equal. Government issued cryptos will be just as fiat as (or worse than) the existing currencies and should be shunned like the plague.
Money “anarchy” is exactly what the world needs to save it from tyranny. Distributed ledger currency achieves this. Bitcoin is the front runner in this space. It is already “legal tender” in El Salvador (but its eventual wide acceptance will make legal sanction superfluous, and legal banning of no effect).
Matthew’s youtube channel is so helpful in respect of this (good) article – example here – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJdpd5PC59A
The commercialisation of crypto currencies is driven by brokers who want to be paid to be an intermediary. If you use a broker you introduce an additional trust factor. You will have an account with them and you have to trust what they do on your behalf, in exactly the same way as you do your bank. It is as open to fraud as any other financial transaction. Yes it should be regulated, if only to avoid the state having to support individuals who have blown their life savings.
…regulation of intermediaries is fine. What’s important though, is that crypto is not more heavily regulated in that respect, in the interests of preserving the remnants of fiat currency credibility.