Vika on Nostr: I've recently been thinking about claims on how #Bitcoin, according to Bitcoiners ...
I've recently been thinking about claims on how #Bitcoin, according to Bitcoiners themselves, has the potential to stop wars by making it harder to finance wars with a finite currency supply that cannot be devalued by government-controlled inflation.
There's only one problem with this. If a country that hasn't adopted the #BitcoinStandard starts a war with another country, then the attacking country can inflate its own fiat currency supply ad infinitum (with obvious consequences for that country's citizens, who can be considered main holders of that country's currency, as most likely that currency is mandated to be the only legal tender — rapid inflation will most likely lead to massive poverty since nobody's actually gonna raise wages to keep up with inflation) and potentially have an economic edge over a country with a stable currency, that might have trouble assembling enough capital and human forces to fight off the attack.
This makes a country adopting a Bitcoin standard essentially fully subservient to the will of its own citizens, since in case of hostile policy people can just stop paying taxes (bitcoin doesn't go away if a single country collapses, assuming miners are spread out more-or-less uniformly — and it's rather hard to forcefully take possession of) or stop buying government bonds denominated in BTC, cutting off lending for the country. Which, in case of an attack by another country, could lead to the country's defenses being compromised — since you can't issue more currency, eventually you will run out of money to pay wages to cops and soldiers that could roughhouse people into giving up their money.
This subservience of a government to their own people may be a good or a bad thing, depending on your political views and whether you are the government or one of the aforementioned people.
There's only one problem with this. If a country that hasn't adopted the #BitcoinStandard starts a war with another country, then the attacking country can inflate its own fiat currency supply ad infinitum (with obvious consequences for that country's citizens, who can be considered main holders of that country's currency, as most likely that currency is mandated to be the only legal tender — rapid inflation will most likely lead to massive poverty since nobody's actually gonna raise wages to keep up with inflation) and potentially have an economic edge over a country with a stable currency, that might have trouble assembling enough capital and human forces to fight off the attack.
This makes a country adopting a Bitcoin standard essentially fully subservient to the will of its own citizens, since in case of hostile policy people can just stop paying taxes (bitcoin doesn't go away if a single country collapses, assuming miners are spread out more-or-less uniformly — and it's rather hard to forcefully take possession of) or stop buying government bonds denominated in BTC, cutting off lending for the country. Which, in case of an attack by another country, could lead to the country's defenses being compromised — since you can't issue more currency, eventually you will run out of money to pay wages to cops and soldiers that could roughhouse people into giving up their money.
This subservience of a government to their own people may be a good or a bad thing, depending on your political views and whether you are the government or one of the aforementioned people.