Antonopoulos- we should separate money from the state

[bitmover]

I always find it very good to listen to Antonopoulos.

It had been a while since I heard anything from him, and today I came across this very cool video that I watched again

Five pillars of open blockchains

eature=shared

In the part about censorship resistance, he drops this gem:

 

Maybe in a few years, we will come to the conclusion that we should separate money from the state for the same reason we separated the church from the state

[MrSpasybo]

In the part about censorship resistance, he drops this gem:

Maybe in a few years, we will come to the conclusion that we should separate money from the state for the same reason we separated the church from the state

This is also what Satoshi wanted when he created BTC: a currency that is not dependent on any individual or organization. However, this is quite difficult to achieve for many reasons, and at present we do not see BTC becoming a currency, it is still considered a commodity, asset or investment related to technology.

Governments will not give up their right to print money because the right to print money is as important as the right to control the army. The right to print money allows governments to manage the economy in the way they think is best for the time being, even though it always creates serious inflation. I think we still have to accept one fact in near future: crypto will not be able to replace fiat, crypto will temporarily remain just an investment tool while blockchain gradually becomes a data storage technology.

[bitmover]

In the part about censorship resistance, he drops this gem:

Maybe in a few years, we will come to the conclusion that we should separate money from the state for the same reason we separated the church from the state

This is also what Satoshi wanted when he created BTC: a currency that is not dependent on any individual or organization. However, this is quite difficult to achieve for many reasons, and at present we do not see BTC becoming a currency, it is still considered a commodity, asset or investment related to technology.

I use it a lot as a currency.

As payment for campaigns. As a webdev I receive payments in btc many times.
Some years ago I wrote in a news website which paid me in btc as well. I think it works very well as a currency.

Maybe not so good to buy a coffee, but it is a currency.

[Lucius]

In the part about censorship resistance, he drops this gem:

Maybe in a few years, we will come to the conclusion that we should separate money from the state for the same reason we separated the church from the state

I don't know how it is in other countries, but here in the EU, many countries have contracts with the Vatican that guarantee that the states pay the church every year sums of money that are not insignificant. I think that the Catholic Church in my country receives somewhere around EUR 40 million from the state budget every year.

No matter that the idea seems interesting, I wonder who would control the finances in that case - because if there is no central bank and other regulatory institutions, what would the financial system of a country look like?

Bitcoin as a currency functions as an alternative to the existing system, but with its volatility and sudden fee increases, people simply have a hard time accepting it that way.

[bitmover]

In the part about censorship resistance, he drops this gem:

Maybe in a few years, we will come to the conclusion that we should separate money from the state for the same reason we separated the church from the state

I don't know how it is in other countries, but here in the EU, many countries have contracts with the Vatican that guarantee that the states pay the church every year sums of money that are not insignificant. I think that the Catholic Church in my country receives somewhere around EUR 40 million from the state budget every year.

In Brazil, churches do not pay any Taxes at all

No matter that the idea seems interesting, I wonder who would control the finances in that case - because if there is no central bank and other regulatory institutions, what would the financial system of a country look like?

Bitcoin.

There are some countries which uses usd directly. Panama, Ecuador..  so, it can workout without a central printing.

[Lucius]

No matter that the idea seems interesting, I wonder who would control the finances in that case - because if there is no central bank and other regulatory institutions, what would the financial system of a country look like?

Bitcoin.

There are some countries which uses usd directly. Panama, Ecuador..  so, it can workout without a central printing.

Well, if we were to remove central banks from the equation, what about the volatility of Bitcoin? A man gets paid in BTC today, and within a few hours the price of BTC drops by 10% or lower - not to mention that on-chain transactions are not instant and can sometimes be quite expensive.

Bitcoin unfortunately has a lot of disadvantages if you want to use it as a currency in the sense that it is used by a lot of people every day. Of course, LN is one of the possible solutions, but there is still volatility and dependence on on-chain transactions.

[bitmover]

No matter that the idea seems interesting, I wonder who would control the finances in that case - because if there is no central bank and other regulatory institutions, what would the financial system of a country look like?

Bitcoin.

There are some countries which uses usd directly. Panama, Ecuador..  so, it can workout without a central printing.

Well, if we were to remove central banks from the equation, what about the volatility of Bitcoin? A man gets paid in BTC today, and within a few hours the price of BTC drops by 10% or lower - not to mention that on-chain transactions are not instant and can sometimes be quite expensive.

Bitcoin unfortunately has a lot of disadvantages if you want to use it as a currency in the sense that it is used by a lot of people every day. Of course, LN is one of the possible solutions, but there is still volatility and dependence on on-chain transactions.

I don't think this volatility will last forever. It is already smaller than 5 years ago.

If you take a look at emerging markets, the volatility is very high as well. It is common to see a 10-20% drop in value within just a few months here in Brazil. Just take  a look usd/brl.

It is still has a smaller volatility than bitcoin, but I think bitcoin price will stabilize someday

[Lucius]

I don't think this volatility will last forever. It is already smaller than 5 years ago.
~snip~

As long as BTC is treated (by most) as a speculative asset, I don't expect that there will be any major changes. People buy BTC in order to profit from the change in price, and at the same time they expect this change to be as large as possible.

At the end of 2022, we had a price of 1 BTC of just over $15 000, today it ranges from $56 000 to $72 000 - looking at history, the volatility remained, only the numbers changed.

[bitmover]

I don't think this volatility will last forever. It is already smaller than 5 years ago.
~snip~

As long as BTC is treated (by most) as a speculative asset, I don't expect that there will be any major changes. People buy BTC in order to profit from the change in price, and at the same time they expect this change to be as large as possible.

At the end of 2022, we had a price of 1 BTC of just over $15 000, today it ranges from $56 000 to $72 000 - looking at history, the volatility remained, only the numbers changed.

Here is the Bitcoin volatility chart since 2018

https://www.theblock.co/data/crypto-markets/prices/annualized-btc-volatility-30d


Every asset is speculative. Even usd. When a war , or covid, or whatever, people buy usd for protection and the price goes up.
If you take a look at dxy (dollar index) you will see its volatility

https://www.marketwatch.com/investing/index/dxy

[dkbit98]

It had been a while since I heard anything from him, and today I came across this very cool video that I watched again

I was hoping to hear more from him after latest wave of developers being arrested along with other OG bitcoiners.
Maybe he is concerned and he is not making so much videos anymore, he is not even active on social media anymore, but I know he cares about privacy and bitcoin.
Separating money from the state is utopia if we are waiting for corrupt governments to do it, and I am not saying Bitcoin is ideal but it is the step in right direction to achieve this separation.

[TomPluz]

 

Maybe in a few years, we will come to the conclusion that we should separate money from the state for the same reason we separated the church from the state

Ideally, cryptocurrency is one of the best tools available around to make the goal of separating  - or should we say snatching - control of money from the state. Realistically though, it is not as easy as walking into the park or choosing what shampoo to use for your dandruff. Money is something that the government feels it is owning and controlling hence it will never give it up anytime nor will it ever entertain the idea of one day relinquishing any iota of control over it. Furthermore, as we are going to witness in the years to come there can be more attempts by governments to even control more hence many of these governments are looking at cryptocurrency as an enemy. It would then be interesting on how this control can be wrestled away from the state...as it would take a big revolution to do so.

[AGM]

Maybe in a few years, we will come to the conclusion that we should separate money from the state for the same reason we separated the church from the state

Cryptocurrency is far ahead of fiat in terms of potential and security but governments will never support it. Who does not want to empower themselves? Although unlikely, if cryptocurrency acts as a substitute for fiat, governments will lose their power and banks will lose their control. So they will never let it happen. But crypto doesn't need to take the place of fiat but people are slowly getting educated and showing interest in exchanging value or trading with crypto which will automatically help crypto to take higher place.

[Stompix]

In the part about censorship resistance, he drops this gem:

 

Maybe in a few years, we will come to the conclusion that we should separate money from the state for the same reason we separated the church from the state

Separating an entity from the state is simple, church, military, or monarchy, it can be done because there have been always alternatives to it.

The money problem is completely different, you would have a state that would lose one of its main reasons for existence, if you stop giving that state control over the money you start taking away control over the economy, so when people in that same country would demand policies are you going to enforce them? Unlike religion or the form of leadership, there is no precedent in a state not having control over that, even if we consider countries with pegged currencies or countries in an union like the EU.

Besides, rather than dreaming we should be aware that cryptos are treated less and less like money and more like an investment, the current population even in developed countries are not keen on taking crypto one step further away in that direction.

[NotATether]

How are you going to do that?

Governments virtually need their treasuries in order to have any real power, so what Antonopoulos just said is only of interest to libertarians.

The only way to truly separate money from the state is by using decentralized blockchains. We see that most of the scorn by governments about cryptocurrency comes from this fact.

[Freemind]

Well, Bitcoin was created precisely for that, to have sovereignty over our funds without any government or bank restricting our financial freedom. Although I agree with everything Antonopoulos says on this topic, I must also say that it is utopian to think that something like this would be allowed by any government. The banks are mainly the ones that have the power, not the governments, as they want us to believe on television, the powerful are a few, and they would do anything to prevent their status from changing since at that moment they would lose power and privileges.