Ame on Nostr: 1. We're essentially dealing with stereotypical medieval peasants - they don't know ...

1. We're essentially dealing with stereotypical medieval peasants - they don't know what an "economy" is. Maybe they'll riot if they can no longer afford doritos and soda, but I think they're too low-agency to riot when not being told to do so. The upshot is that that 40 percent lives off of welfare, and does not contribute anything meaningful, meaning that there is neither a positive contribution to be erased nor a negative consequence to be enacted as a result of their happiness or unhappiness.

2. As near as I can tell, Crypto is largely a way of signaling that you oppose the status quo, both when an individual buys it and when a government tries to facilitate its adoption. It has practical value in grey market transactions and in financially supporting popular dissidents anonymously, but it's not a currency yet. Thinking adversarially, suppressing the price of crypto is a fairly guaranteed way to financially harm anyone who disapproves of the regime. I've heard conspiracy theories about "CBDCs", but it doesn't sound plausible to me, given the fact the government couldn't even roll out a health insurance website back when its tech personnel were a lot more competent and a lot less brown.