Cryptocurrency, Why Are We Going There?
by Ves Sladin 12/13/2020

Actually the first question that should be asked is, should we go there? But, that decision has been made already, for better or worse.  With all the crypto hype and everyone rushing into it, I keep asking myself the question, why? Different people have different motivations.  But on the Bitcoin.org site it says:

• Fast
• Peer to Peer (P2P) transactions,
• worldwide payments, and
• low processing fees. 
• It also says that everyone can take part (decentralized?)

What it doesn't say is

• Rare
• Trustless
• Secure
• Anonymous
• High Tech

I'm going to talk more about these reasons, or desirable characteristics, but first a comparison; how do these claims, and some other properties compare with using cash, coin or current forms of electronic payment?

	Crypto (Bitcoin specifically)	CBDC (Central Bank Crypto)	Credit/Debit	Cash	Gold or Silver (Cash)
Fast Local	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Fast Worldwide	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No
P2P	Yes	Yes	No. There's middlemen.	Yes	Yes
Worldwide	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes.  It can be exchanged.	Yes
Low fees	Yes, sort of.  As long as we have to deal with exchanges there are some high fees to get it. And what's going to keep them low?	??	No fee to you, but yes to the merchant, which they have to make up on the price of the merchandise.	Yes	Yes
Decentralized	Yes	No	No, it's fiat money.	No	No.
Rare	Yes.  But I wonder how that will change with time.  This has to do with the rules imposed by the Network.	No.  Most likely it will not be.  It will just be like electronic fiat.	No, it's fiat money.	NO! We print it like crazy. There's no rules.	Yes
Trustless	Yes.  You can exchange with anyone on the system.  But there is the issue that if you have a problem with the purchase, no one will advocate for you.	Yes	Yes. And you have an advocate.	Mostly. Counterfeit is possible.	Mostly. Counterfeit is possible.
Secure	Yes.  Without your keys or wallet, no one can take your money or use it. No. There is no FDIC.	Yes	Yes.  It can be stolen and used, but you're not liable for charges you didn't make.	Yes. Depends how you secure it, but whatever you carry on you can be stolen.	Yes. Depends how you secure it, but whatever you carry on you can be stolen.
Anonymous	Yes. If you're not face to face, you know nothing about the person you're dealing with... unless you have to provide an address for shipping. Face to face it's like Cash. No. There is a record of your purchase and with some effort you can be found out.	NO!	No. They know who you are and there's a record somewhere of what you bought.	Mostly. It's only face to face, so you know the face.	Mostly. It's only face to face, so you know the face.
Low Tech	No  Cutting edge tech.  For day to day use requires internet, cell service and cell phone or hardware wallet, and apps.	No	No.  But from the user standpoint it's less.  From a system standpoint, it's still Internet and hardware.	Yes  From the user standpoint, but to make cash and bank it does use tech.	Yes From user standpoint, but there is the making of it.
Promotes Democracy	Yes. Gives people a choice and they can walk away if they want. People can start their own crypto or find one that suits them better.	No choice.	No. It's fiat	No. It's fiat.	No choice.
Stable or Growing Value	No. Though there are cryptos that are gold or fiat backed, which are more stable.  But even Bitcoin, though volatile, continues to go up over time.	No	Short Term	Short Term	Yes
Low Risk	No.  There are thousands of cryptos out there, and the mantra is still don't invest what you can't afford to loose.	?? Not sure this applies.  Since it will be totally controlled.  You can't take risk.  This could be negative point!	Yes	Yes	Yes
Score 0 for red 2 for neutral 4 for green	44	26	26	36	42

So, we can argue about how to score things, or how much weight to put on each item, but keeping it simple, we see that decentralized crypto and coins are close, but crypto wins. And a CBDC is tied for last along with Credit Cards.

I would put a lot of weight on promoting democracy, choice, and no central control.  Given that we are in a global economy now, be it good or not, a lot of people put weight on fast international payment, and taking out middlemen.

This also makes the argument that a gold backed crypto, which would be stable and low risk, would be superior.  Or if crypto becomes stable it will be low risk, and gold backing is not necessary. 

But let's discuss the characteristics one by one.

Fast Local / Fast Global

This looks at how quick and easy the transactions are in the local community vs. quick and easy globally.  It may matter more or less depending on what your habits are.  If it's local, it doesn't really matter what you use.  It's just as easy to pull cash, coin, or credit card out, as it is to bring up a QR code on your electronic wallet. Globally, clearly the electronic systems have the major advantage, and crypto wins, because it's just as easy as locally.  There is literally no difference who or where you are sending it.  This is a big plus for a lot of people, but I don't think it is for the majority. Even when you buy something overseas, you usually buy it though some web site, and you will be able to use your credit card or a pay service.  From the perspective of the receiver, crypto definitely is the fastest was to get your money.

I know we're way down this road of being a global economy, but really I'm not sure it's a good development.  A community, state, country, should be as independent as possible, self sufficient. When we have to go half way around the world to buy something, and as a result that item is no longer made locally, we become dependent on a foreign source which we don't have control over.  On top of it, we take money, which would be distributed in the community to create opportunity, and instead we support some foreign community.  Not that there's anything wrong with supporting foreign communities, but your own communities need to come first.  Because that's where you live, and if your community not economically sound, it's bad for you.  Effectively, we sell out our community prosperity for convenience (shop online, no need to go to the store) and low prices.  But there is a price to pay for what we are doing.

Peer to Peer (P2P)

This goes to privacy and security; are there any middlemen involved in the transaction? Are you dealing direct or is someone getting in your way? Cash or coin is about as Peer to Peer as you can get, hand to hand actually.  Which of course is why COVID is used as a reason to get rid of cash... to stop spreading germs (which is ridiculous, and not the real reason, but that's a whole other conversation which I'll get into later). 

I find this a tricky category, but clearly cash and coin have no middlemen.  Just you and the guy at the cash register.  Credit cards have the appearance of peer to peer, but they are not.  It's you, some processing company, the credit card company, a bank, another bank, and then the vendor.  Honestly, I don't even know how many people are involved.  But technology makes it look like it's P2P.  We could say that the only people involved are you and the vendor, the rest is all computers, which of course are dependent on people to make sure they work right.

Crypto also has the appearance of peer to peer.  It's cleaner than a credit card transaction, and although no other people should be involved, there are a LOT of computers in the background, more than with a credit card company. But there's still a bunch of computers and support people involved.

Here's the thing I see about Peer to Peer.  There's not much that can go wrong if you're handing cash to someone standing in front of you; you don't have enough in your wallet, one of you drops the money, you miscount, he gives you the wrong change, you can't hear him through his mask and behind the plexiglass shield!... That's about as bad as it gets.  On the other hand, if you're doing a crypto or credit card transaction, and something goes wrong with the system or it goes down, or your card is rejected, you are out of luck... come back later.  Who do you call at Bitcoin support?  At least credit card companies do have support numbers. Do crypto companies even keep a staff or even bots to help you in a pinch? Don't think so.  Sounds like a business opportunity there! Which will jack up the fees...

Of course if you're doing business long distance, than the appearance of Peer to Peer is as good as it gets.

Worldwide

Can it be used worldwide?  All forms of payment can be used world wide, but crypto and credit/debit cards can be used to SEND money worldwide, just like locally.  Cash and coin can be used world wide, and sent, but not sent very easily.

Interesting that if you start moving around, as opposed to staying put in a country, it's not quite that simple. From traveling the world, I was surprised how many one horse towns in third world countries do have wi-fi and cell service, though maybe not YOUR cell service. About all you can count on is text, unless you stay in heavily populated areas.  So, when it comes to traveling the world, cash and ATM's, where you can withdraw cash for low fees, are your friends.  Credit cards do pretty well, but right now, the only guaranteed way is cash/coin. 

Interesting that Bitcoin ATM's are popping up.  Either banks that are looking to make money on the exchange, or a crypto exchange. Crypto exchanges are not really going to have the infrastructure.  But fees can be steep.  I'm not sure why someone would by Bitcoin at an up-charge from what they would pay directly at an exchange, which you can access through your phone.

Low Fees

Actually, I've seen some of the fees on crypto exchanges.  They can be steep.  So, certainly, while crypto is not the dominant currency, and you have to swap back and fourth, not only are you paying the "low fees" on crypto transactions, you're paying the higher fees to get the crypto, to convert your cash into crypto.  And the fees depend on the crypto you're talking about.  How all this is going to pan out over time and if fees will actually be lower than say credit card transaction fees, is anyone's guess.  I think as crypto organizations offer more services, fees are going to go up.  I doubt they are going to go down, other than avoiding exchange fees.

Cash has no fees.  Unless you're trying to send it somewhere.  So, do you spend more time sending cash somewhere or using it locally?

Although most credit cards don't have direct fees to the buyer, they do charge the seller, who makes that up on higher prices to you.  So, yeah, there's fees.

If crypto really does stay low fee, it will be an improvement.

Decentralized

So, this is a big one, if you don't want some old fart in Washington deciding how you spend your money.  Bitcoin says everyone can participate.  Well, sort of.  The idea behind Bitcoin was to have power spread out across many computers so that you'd have to take them all down to stop or take down the network.  And you have to have a network majority, or super majority, agree to any proposed changes.  No one person or handful of people can change the rules on their own.  All cryptos seem to accomplish that.  But as for Bitcoin and others, not everyone can participate to the same level. 

You can participate as a user, and if you really want to, you can run a node on your computer, though there is little reason to run a node that doesn't mine.  You do add to the network security, but you're using power with no return. What "everyone" can't do any more is mine Bitcoin.  There was a time when anyone with a computer could mine it, be a validator on the system and get rewarded in Bitcoin, but because of the way the Network algorithms were written, it can no longer be done on a personal computer.  Even for cryptos that do allow mining with a computer, you have to buy some relatively expensive hardware and/or join a mining pool.  So, technically, everyone can participate, but if  you have money, you can participate more than others.  Money makes money.  And the governance of the system is also concentrated with those that run the Network.  

I see an interesting parallel between cryptocurrencies and the way the US banking system use to work.  At least in the US, gold was money.  You deposited it in the bank, and for it you got a certificate of deposit.  Since people didn't want to carry around gold, they started exchanging certificates of deposit... the first paper money.  The certificates of deposit were issued by banks, and the banks were not centrally controlled.  In fact, sometimes certificates of deposit from one state were not accepted in other states.  This is similar to what's going on with crypto.  There are various issuers, but it's not controlled by region or state.  They are effectively virtual states, and your money can only be directly used in that state, without exchanging it for some commonly accepted currency.  Unfortunately, crypto is not as good as that arrangement. Though crypto is decentralized, it has no common base to set value, other than the fiat currencies they are all competing with.  A crypto is worth whatever the market says it's worth, hence it's lack of stability.  Unless, the crypto is intentionally backed by dollar or gold.  So, what good is it to back a decentralized crypto, with a centrally controlled currency?

So, yes, crypto networks are decentralized, and that's a big deal, but not as much as they should be.  But the fact that some group of people, not bureaucrats, can decide money policy, is a big deal.  Everything else is centralized and controlled by the government and the banks.  The users of the system, us, have very little say in how things are run, and all the big economic decisions are made by a handful of people, who are completely out of touch with the average human being's needs.  Especially with the needs of the local community.  But even decentralized crypto is not really concerned with the needs of the local community, but rather it's worldwide virtual community.  What I wonder is, whether a bunch of computer nerds (use the term affectionately) will do any better of a job representing the needs of the average person or community, than a bunch of "economists". 

How to keep things truly decentralized and make it so that everyone can participate is not entirely obvious at this point. I was reading a discussion group where the question was being asked, what's going to happen when people really start using crypto, and every transaction is recorded? Since the entire blockchain, resides on every computer node on the network, won't it gets to the point where it gets too big to store on even a high end computer? The answer was, we'll split the records, so that different computers hold different chunks, but all chunks are still held on many computers.  But really, there's no firm plan on what will happen. 

Regarding CBDC.  A decentralized network prevents control by just a handful of individuals, CBDC would give total control to the government.  They could literally program the crypto to only be spent in certain ways, they could go in your wallet and add or take out money.  They would know exactly how you spent your money.  And he who controls the money controls the world.  When it comes to exerting control over the economy and the people, there's no better way to accomplish is than a centralized digital currency.  Don't let it happen.

The problem is that now since crypto exists, government will want it, and we will end up with government controlling our finances.  I think there is going to be a war between centralized and decentralized cryptos, and I'm not sure the decentralized can win.  The centralized people, the government and banks, make the rules, and they can easily cripple or legislate decentralized crypto into uselessness, if not at the network level, certainly at the transaction level.  If it becomes illegal to accept crypto, or exchange it for something else, then what?

Rare

Seems that many creatures, including monkeys, humans, and some birds, like shiny or rare things.  Gold, silver, diamonds, glitter, old shiny cars, you name it.  It's amazing what people are willing to spend on acquiring these rare things.  I think gold is at the head of the pack because it's both rare and shiny, though in all fairness it does actually have industrial uses too.  But aside from gold's industrial uses it's really worthless. It has value because we say it does.

Interestingly, Bitcoin is actually more rare than gold.  Unlike gold, where we're not sure how much of it there actually is on the plant, or how much of it we can get out, Bitcoin has a set number of coins, and it will take approximately 100 years to mine them all.  Not only that, but, with the way the key system is set up, if someone dies with their key, or looses the key, there is no way to get those bitcoin back into circulation, so there will be even fewer of them than planned.

Assuming for a moment that the world economy is worth $500 trillion, if only 21 million Bitcoin will ever exist, for the whole world to use it, it will have to be worth $24 million each.  As far as gold goes, there are approximately 167 tons of it, that's 334 thousand pounds, which is 5.344 billion ounces.  Gold is now at about $1800 per ounce, so it's value is $9.6 trillion.  One of the arguments I hear about gold not being able to be used as currency is that there isn't enough of it.  If you had to use it for all the value in the world, the pieces of gold would be so tiny as to be useless.  Can you imagine splitting a 1 oz gold coin into 18 thousand pieces, and trying to find it in your pocket along with the lint and the bread crumbs?  But notice that there will only be 21 million Bitcoin, but there's enough bullion in the world now to make 5.344 billion gold coins, so there could be a lot more gold coins than there will be Bitcoins.  The problem is it's still not enough because gold is not infinitely divisible, whereas Bitcoin is.  So, the only way gold could be the currency of the world is to digitize it, so that it can be divided.  At the same time, it's value would have to go up by magnitudes. So, then you're basically at a gold backed crypto, where the price of the gold is inflated to a point where no person would be willing to pay that much for it.  At that point you start asking, why do I need the gold?

Why do we want rare shiny things backing up our digital money? It just adds unnecessary complexity.  The fact that money doesn't have to be backed up by something rare has been proven out.  The fact that it's not gold backed doesn't make it bad, what makes it bad is the policies and how it's manipulated. And when you can infinitely divide it, it doesn't really matter how rare it is.  You're just moving decimal points around.  If each bitcoin is divisible down to 10 decimal places, then there isn't 21 million of them, there's 2.1e^17 of them.  I don't even know how to say that.  But it is interesting that at 10 decimal places, to represent that $500 trillion, the last decimal place would be worth $420.  Looks like we're going to need more decimal places if we're serious about using Bitcoin for everything!

So, although I docked CBDC, and US dollars, points for not being rare, this is more a reflection on how people manipulate money and steal value, without the consent of those who are being manipulated.  So, as it relates to crypto it's not really rare, because it is practically infinitely divisible.  What it is, is predictable,with set rules, and I'm saying that's what makes it desirable, because people like predictability, and they don't like to lose value because someone keeps printing more money at an unreasonable rate!  So, the better term would be limited, rather than rare.  Fiat currencies have no limits, or at least insufficient limits.

Trustless

Interesting word. Is it even a word? It is now.  What it really means is do you need to trust the person you're doing business with, the one you're making payments to or taking money from?  I guess it helps to know something about who you're buying something from, their reputation, or the reputation of the product.  But in terms of taking money from someone, you really don't need to know anything about them.  You don't need to know them well enough to know if they are trustworthy.

When you're dealing in cash or coin, really the only thing that can go wrong is that it's counterfeit.  But, that happens less and less.  You have the product, they hand you the money, done deal.  Even if they obtained that money illegally, you're not liable for that.  Once it was given to you, it's yours.

Crypto is also Trustless.  One issue with crypto could be double spending.  Whereas with physical money it's either there or not, computer records aren't physically there and can be manipulated so that someone could spend more money than they actually have.  This is avoided through the decentralized network and the fact that there has to be agreement if someone has the money to spend, and at least 51% of the network would have to agree to change a record, so basically it's impossible for an individual to counterfeit Bitcoin.  So, again, if you get payment via a crypto network, you don't need to know anything about the person who sent you the money.  It exists and it's yours.

Credit and Debit cards are also Trustless.  If the payment clears, that's all you need to know.  One possible issue is that the card being used was stolen and that person doesn't have the right to spend that money.  But, in that case, the credit card company takes on the liability, not the owner of the card or the seller.  Banks/Credit Card Companies can take losses like that because they make money off everyone, which outweighs their losses.  If they didn't take on that liability, then you couldn't trust credit cards, and no one would use them, or a lot more people would be checking ID's when someone used a credit card.  Just like they use to check ID's when a person used a check.

Secure

Is your money secure?  Depends on how well you secure it.

If you keep your money under a mattress, then it's not really secure. If you have a gun, it's more secure, but you can't watch it 24 hours a day.  That's why we keep our money in banks and only take out as we need.  The banks have vaults, and they keep good records, and we can challenge them on their records, and if someone steals your money at gunpoint from them, you're not liable for that loss because the bank has insurance through FDIC.  Even if the bank goes out of business you're covered.  That's pretty secure. 

There is one problem.  If someone has all your banking information, they can clear out your account, and you are out of luck.  You can take legal action and try to determine who took it and sue and arrest them, but whether you'll get your money back or not is unknown.  Same is true of crypto.  If someone gets your key, they can clear out your account.  I guess the good news is that there is a permanent record of where the money went, and if you act fast you may be able to trace it before the thief launders it.  Hopefully you can find out who they are and then take legal action against them.  So, whether it's money in the bank, or crypto from your wallet (your personal bank), recovery is possible and the legal system is on your side.  But recovery is not guaranteed.  There is no FDIC on crypto.  You literally hold your own bank and if something goes wrong, you have to go through the legal system.

Safe to say that your crypto wallet is safer than your physical wallet, because even if someone steals your cell phone, they won't necessarily get your money out of it.  But if they have your keys, you can't stop them.  But overall, your liability is higher with crypto than with physical money.  The better way to say it that you have more responsibility, and potentially more cost to recover stolen funds.

Anonymous

Like I just said above, there is a permanent record of every transaction on a blockchain network. So, with some work, it is possible to know who is passing your crypto, but I'm not sure how much work it is.  In the news you hear things like some big fish bought a bazillion Bitcoin, but it seems they never know who the big fish is.  However, it appears there are companies out there now who work with law enforcement agencies, that can track down transactions and link them to people.  But of course, unless there's a really good reason to do that, no one is going to take the time to identify who you are. 

CBDC definitely would not be anonymous (well, it could be, but it won't), because the account would be tied to you, and the government would have all the information they want.  An in terms of using it, I'm sure the person taking your CBDC will know exactly who you are, or at least to the extent that government decides they want to let them know.  And although now most transactions are debit/credit and stored somewhere.  CBDC is one evil step beyond that, because now the government has all the data in one neat place.

When using cash/coin people see your face.  That's a lot.  But it's not as bad as credit/debit cards which provide your name, and your face if you're face to face. And your address, but with all the online purchases we make, the address is a given. Not very anonymous.

So, yes, crypto is as anonymous as it gets, and actually allows making anonymous long distance purchases, which you can have shipped to a P.O. Box, usually, so no one gets your name or your address. 

For the record, crypto exchanges are not anonymous.  Exchanges are required by law to know who their customers are, and can be more easily traced.

Low Tech

Well, crypto is definitely not low tech.  Cash/coin is about as low tech as it gets. For coin you get some metal, melt it, put it in a mold, cool it, and you have money.  Cash takes a little more tech, because you have to make it difficult to counterfeit.  If I got gold and made an exact duplicate of some gold coin, would anyone really care? They still get the same amount of gold, which has an established value.  If I make my own paper bills that's a problem, because then I get value that I didn't earn, and if everyone did that, nobody would need to work, and there would be nothing to buy with that home printed money.  So much money would be in circulation that there would be a shortage of goods, and the money would be worth less and less as demand goes up.  Wait, isn't that what the government does?

In one way, crypto is actually more low tech than cash/coin, because you don't need anything but a computer, and computers are so mainstream, it's like saying, all you need is a toaster.  You can set up your own crypto currency in hours.  Getting people to use it is a different story.

To me the point of low tech is that less can go wrong with a low tech money exchange process. So, although cash money takes some tech to make, it takes no tech to use; you pull it out and hand it over. Money is something we depend on every day and the last thing you want is for it to not be there when you need it because there was a sun flare or some idiot set off an EMP (Electromagnetic Pulse) weapon.  Something as simple as dropping your electronic wallet (cell phone), or your cell running out of charge, could prevent you from temporarily not being able to transact.  Honestly, it's amazing that our money system functions as well as it does given all the technology involved.  But here we are, happily accepting more and more technology into our lives, and becoming more and more dependent on it.  And you know what happens when you're dependent on something?  It can be used as leverage against you to take away your freedom of choice. Tech is why some guy in Russia can hack into a meat processing plant, or an electric company, or an oil pipeline computer, and shut it all down, and ask for millions ransom to let you have control back.

Promotes Democracy

Don't know about your, but I prefer to live in a democratic society.  A true democracy is one where people, towns, counties, states, and the federal government are controlled by the people, and where everyone has the right to secede if the system no longer supports their interests.  It all comes down to choice, discussing choices, and having the independence to act on choices.  Crypto is definitely about choice.  There are many of them, and you can choose which one to use.  And decentralized crypto is run by the people and they use a democratic voting process to make decisions.

That's not to say that other forms of money can't promote democracy.  By clearly the US dollar and the federal government is more concerned about absolute control than listening to the people.  They control the economy now and CBDC would be the ultimate squashing of democracy.  If you control the money, you control its users.

Granted we don't know where crypto will go, but at least it's a new chance to build it right.  Also, the US dollar didn't start up corrupt and controlling, people made it like that.  But it seems easier to create a new people controlled currency than to try and fix a whole corrupt system.

Stable or Growing Value

Bitcoin is not very stable, but it's definitely growing over time.  Cash is definitely going down in value, by design! Coin would be both stable and growing (just because you can't make an endless supply, but that's also limiting because you may not be able to make as much as you need to keep the economy going).  But, there's nothing inherent in any of these forms of money that gives them stability or growth.  The ratings in the chart reflect the current situation.  Any of them can be set up to create stability and growth, or be destabilized and devalued.

It's interesting that gold backed crypto is very functional, and stable, and if it were used more, would grow in value, since there is a limited supply. Which begs the question, why so many gold backed cryptos fail?

Low Risk

As I said before, you're not suppose to invest in crypto unless you are willing to lose all your money.  It doesn't get much riskier than that, but at least you have a choice.  Almost as bad as losing your money would be not having control of your money, which makes CBDC the worst option by far.  Though you could make the argument that even if the government is controlling you through your money, they'll still insure you have basic living costs covered.

How do you put a risk number on crypto? To me the biggest risk is not that it will fail, but that the governments will make it illegal.  China already has, but it didn't hurt Bitcoin, which hit a new high only weeks after China cracked down.

One has to ask why would people invest in something so risky?  The prospect of making huge amounts of money, for most that's it.  For me it's supporting something I believe in; decentralization and getting out from under governments thumb.

How Does a Currency Fail ? 

I hope all the crypto proponents have asked this question, to make sure crypto doesn't just end up as another failed currency.  There have been hundreds of them though the centuries.  We seem to be stuck in this cycle of wiping the slate clean and starting anew, which I guess would be fine, If the slate really gets wiped clean equally for everyone, rather than value being taken from the less powerful by the more powerful. 

Since a few hundred years BC, somewhere over 700 fiat currencies have failed; 20% by hyperinflation, 21% due to war, and 24% due to centralized monetary policy... So, basically government action is responsible for over 60% of the failures. So, the lessons would be, don't get into wars, don't keep printing money and creating debt, and don't spend tax money like it's going out of style.

Speaking of debt, it's not entire clear how lending will work when it comes to crypto.  Hopefully it will not be like fiat money, where debt creates the money.  Interestingly, the Bible, Old Testament, command from God is that debts should be wiped out every seven years. I wonder if that's why a bankruptcy comes off your credit report in seven years!  But this was a time interval for everyone.  So, if you got a loan in the fifth year, you probably couldn't get one if you couldn't pay it back within that two year period.  Or if someone did give you a loan it would be with the knowledge that you may not pay it all back.  Apparently this was a way to insure that poor people didn't stay in debt all their lives.  We could learn something from that. Wouldn't that insure that the debt never gets out of hand and that people are more careful about what they lend and borrow?  And wouldn't it prevent currency failures? Wouldn't it be better to do it every seven years, than wait decades or centuries and then have mass failure of the system?

What If We Didn't Do It?

I know we're doing it already, and there seem to be some good reason for it.  But what if we didn't do it?  What if there was no crypto?  Well, crypto is like a bargaining chip.  It gives people power to challenge the government in a very in your face way, where it can not be ignored. It says really loudly, we're done with the the stupid monetary policies, and we're changing the rules. But do we really think that we can get governments to rethink their approach? Doubt it.  But, currencies collapsing is nothing new.  If over 700 can fail over the centuries, and we're still here, then when the US dollar fails we'll still be here... won't we?  One thing is for sure, if crypto wasn't created, we wouldn't be worried about CBDC and a whole new level of government control.  So, maybe we would be better off without it. 

That puts decentralized crypto in a do or die situation.  The crypto world developed the technology, so now they better make good on it, and they better be ready for a war, because I don't see governments just rolling over. 

Should You Do It?

The question is, should the people support crypto? Now that it's here, I think yes.  Without support for the decentralized systems, they will just remain a speculative investment, doomed to fail and just hand over the reins to those who want to implement CBDC.  And CBDC will work, because the governments will use their power to impose it on people.

There is a movement called Cash Friday.  Point being that if we all use cash at least one day a week, we can start to change the tide away from crypto and the inevitable CBDC.  I don't know. I think it's too late to do that. Most transactions are electronic already, and people are very used to walking around with their cell phones and doing more and more on them.  Given cash or credit/debit vs crypto, I'd rather use decentralized crypto.  Because lower fees is good for everyone, and I want some say in how my money functions.  What you do, and to what degree, is up to you, but I want a choice.  The current system has been failing long enough and we have the tech to try something new.  Can we really do any worse?

Well, wait, I said I wanted to have a choice, but in a way it looks like I don't have a choice.  if I wanted to use cash, why shouldn't I have a choice to do that?  Or for that matter, if I wanted to use coin, why can't I do that? Right, I think people should still be allowed to use what ever form of money they want. Government enforces the use of currency through their power, but the power the government has is given to it by the people.  If the people want a different approach to money, it should be allowed.  There just needs to be agreement and someone needs to take up the torch.  But so far, the agreement on crypto seems to be the strongest.  That's where the incentives are.