I'm pretty bullish on cryptocurrency, but I've actually been nervous for awhile about what you're talking about.
I think that cryptocurrency might be an example of what futurists are always talking about with regard to exponential change. In that regard, it's very much like AI (and maybe CRISPR) and a bunch of other things that we aren't even paying any attention to right now. But almost overnight, these things could basically turn all of civilization upside down, or end it as we know it. I think it unlikely for any one of them, but you only need 1. And while they might be good in themselves, I think it's the shockingly fast shift that may cause issues.
With cryptocurrency, there are a few things that give me pause though.
The first is the question of what makes cryptocurrency fundamentally different in this take-over-the-world scenario from gold? Why hasn't gold or some other precious commodity spiraled up in price to the point where it's the most valuable thing in the universe?
The second is that the USD (and other currencies) isn't going away, because you have to pay your taxes in it. So doesn't that provide an upper bound on the value of Bitcoin? Whether I'm getting paid in dollars or in BTC, the government wants 30% of it in dollars, so that's going to create a demand for dollars that keeps them from going to hyperinflation, right? I'm clearly not a macroeconomist :)
Also, isn't the price somewhat limited by how much wealth there is in the world? Not that it'd be great if BTC was worth a few million, of course, but it couldn't reach billions could it?
What actually worries me more is what happens if Bitcoin goes to $1mm or $10mm. For that to happen, a large portion of the world's wealth would have to have shifted to BTC, and the value of other currencies would drop in that case, right? It just seems very destabilizing in ways that are hard to predict. To go from something being 0% of the world's wealth to 50% or something in a decade with a totally different (and probably even more unequal) distribution of that wealth seems like it would result in a lot of nasty things.
Anyway, enough rambling, maybe cc will be fine, who knows. But I think that there's a good chance that in 100 years (assuming anyone is around to look back), things like 9/11 or Trump or nuclear war with North Korea might just be a relative footnote, and something like AI or cryptocurrency or CRISPR will prove to have been far more important and a huge inflection point in the evolution of humanity.
I think that cryptocurrency might be an example of what futurists are always talking about with regard to exponential change. In that regard, it's very much like AI (and maybe CRISPR) and a bunch of other things that we aren't even paying any attention to right now. But almost overnight, these things could basically turn all of civilization upside down, or end it as we know it. I think it unlikely for any one of them, but you only need 1. And while they might be good in themselves, I think it's the shockingly fast shift that may cause issues.
With cryptocurrency, there are a few things that give me pause though.
The first is the question of what makes cryptocurrency fundamentally different in this take-over-the-world scenario from gold? Why hasn't gold or some other precious commodity spiraled up in price to the point where it's the most valuable thing in the universe?
The second is that the USD (and other currencies) isn't going away, because you have to pay your taxes in it. So doesn't that provide an upper bound on the value of Bitcoin? Whether I'm getting paid in dollars or in BTC, the government wants 30% of it in dollars, so that's going to create a demand for dollars that keeps them from going to hyperinflation, right? I'm clearly not a macroeconomist :)
Also, isn't the price somewhat limited by how much wealth there is in the world? Not that it'd be great if BTC was worth a few million, of course, but it couldn't reach billions could it?
What actually worries me more is what happens if Bitcoin goes to $1mm or $10mm. For that to happen, a large portion of the world's wealth would have to have shifted to BTC, and the value of other currencies would drop in that case, right? It just seems very destabilizing in ways that are hard to predict. To go from something being 0% of the world's wealth to 50% or something in a decade with a totally different (and probably even more unequal) distribution of that wealth seems like it would result in a lot of nasty things.
Anyway, enough rambling, maybe cc will be fine, who knows. But I think that there's a good chance that in 100 years (assuming anyone is around to look back), things like 9/11 or Trump or nuclear war with North Korea might just be a relative footnote, and something like AI or cryptocurrency or CRISPR will prove to have been far more important and a huge inflection point in the evolution of humanity.