Basically the future of finance is less humane (Bitcoin is hard currency) and more unfair (Bitcoin is unfairly distributed). It is also not, in practice, distributed
I suggested on the bitcoin forums and devlist that currency minting be the square root of current block hashing power, this would be inflationary yes, but it would stabilize the currency and incentize mining (unlike current plans to reduce fees further). but you know, a hundred people who first heard of bitcoin through the cryptography mailing list either lost their bitcoins, or own combined a large percentage of bitcoins. inequality begets instability. the funny thing is that after the next block subsidy cut, a 51% attack would easily be committed. but if there's a major war, the world's internet connections will be disrupted, and bitcoin would probably die in areas in which mining is less than the biggest contiguous block of miners. Bitcoin is the worst currency to hold during WWIII, you literally cannot spend it until the world internet is repaired.
On Fri, Dec 12, 2014 at 1:18 PM, Ryan Carboni
but if there's a major war, the world's internet connections will be disrupted, and bitcoin would probably die in areas in which mining is less than the biggest contiguous block of miners.
Bitcoin is the worst currency to hold during WWIII, you literally cannot spend it until the world internet is repaired.
Like fiat, you can still use BTC locally. A country/bloc at war may, or may be subject to, sever border fiber. This is called a fork. Thereafter, you, and miners, all residing within that fork, will have, from your perspective, the last physical copy of the blockchain (in peactime, the single global one, forklevel 0). After the diplomats sign to end the war, as with all other commerce, supply chains, currencies... the parties engage in price discovery, rebuild, reintegrate, settle out. It's maybe impossible remerge the blockchains, but since your local fork still has local value, you'll sell/swap it for value in whatever the global chain is at that time. Local fiat is no different in that revaluation process. However gold seems historically resistant, and after the border is repaired, your gold typically gets you the value it has in the winning country, unlike local fiat/digital which loses drastically. Still, everything is subject to natural rebasing on market cap, forms of management/underwriting. or left to die. There's a twist to the traditional thinking many people might write mirroring the above... your privkey still has value in the "enemy chain" (the one on the other side of the cut). Figure that scenario out. War fucks shit up... don't expect that your fiat/digital/gold currency of choice will ever come out unscathed. The old rule still applies, flee or convert what you need to capital/real value beforehand, if you have enough time. Good luck if it goes nuclear.
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Ryan Carboni