82,891
edits
Bitcoin is Venice: Difference between revisions
no edit summary
Amwelladmin (talk | contribs) No edit summary |
Amwelladmin (talk | contribs) No edit summary |
||
| Line 38: | Line 38: | ||
By contrast the bitcoin ethos is, of course, not to ''trust'' trust — not ''compelled'' trust, anyway — and to decentralise and disintermediate where possible to remove any need for even voluntary trust. A [[Permissionless blockchain|permissionless]] decentralised ledger functions well without trust. That is its basic use-case. That is the problem it solves. | By contrast the bitcoin ethos is, of course, not to ''trust'' trust — not ''compelled'' trust, anyway — and to decentralise and disintermediate where possible to remove any need for even voluntary trust. A [[Permissionless blockchain|permissionless]] decentralised ledger functions well without trust. That is its basic use-case. That is the problem it solves. | ||
Bitcoin is ''capital'', then, not currency, and | ==== Bitcoin as capital ==== | ||
Bitcoin is ''capital'', then, not currency, at least as we are used to thinking about it. It is more like ''gold''. Its scarcity is more or less fixed, and it gets progressively harder to extract more of it from the earth. In this way the “mining” [[metaphor]] is correct. It holds its value wherever it is. You can take it out of the system. It does not depend for viability or validity upon the “implied violence” of central banks, investment banks or other rent-extracting intermediaries. | |||
This view, that bitcoin is a sort of [[non-fungible token]] for platonic capital is, I think, fundamental to getting a purchase on where bitcoin maximalists are coming from. If we think about bitcoin as on-chain gold rather than on-chain cash, we have a closer starting point, though as Farrington argues, a dematerialised electronic communication can do a bunch of really useful things that a lump of metal cannot. | |||
Nevertheless, this is where I part company with Farrington, though it may be one of those “agree to disagree” scenarios. | |||
Perhaps this is the [[nocoiner]]’s fundamental misapprehension: have we been slating bitcoin for lacking qualities it isn’t even ''meant'' to have? If it is not a currency, then criticisms that it isn’t very good at the sort of things currencies are meant to be good at fail, defeated by the simple objection, ''so what?'' | Perhaps this is the [[nocoiner]]’s fundamental misapprehension: have we been slating bitcoin for lacking qualities it isn’t even ''meant'' to have? If it is not a currency, then criticisms that it isn’t very good at the sort of things currencies are meant to be good at fail, defeated by the simple objection, ''so what?'' | ||