>2) Smart individuals (or lucky early-adopters) can become, or have become quite rich by utilizing the enormous growth of the crypto market which certainly is transformative for the individuals in question
This is called speculation, which you seem to be against. If you like the idea of your cryptocurrency being worth lots of dollars, you’re not supporting the idea of crypto, but the idea of dollars.
>3) It has created a new eco-system in the technology/financial space, where money and ideas flow quite differently than before
This is a sentence constructed entirely of buzzwords.
>the only realistic possibility that would lead to cryptocurrencies not mattering too much in the future is if they get suppressed by governments
This is already happening, because without government intervention people start doing all sorts of immoral things with crypto, such as pumping and dumping, which is already illegal in the normal financial world
>The more idealistic possibility is that cryptocurrencies would be distributed more fairly, based on need and merit
This is called communism, we’ve already tried that many times.
>Nano for example was distributed through faucets, which while quite arbitrary and susceptible to manipulation (eg click farms) at least had the intention of distributing the currency without preferring privileged people.
Bad things done by well-intended people are still bad things.
>What such a currency would look like is of course a complex question when it comes to the details, but there seem to be realistic ways of making huge improvements compared to present distribution models.
It seems a common theme throughout your post that you admit that crypto has many problems and then just hand-wave the problems away.
>rules against abuse and an organization behind it that works with stakeholders and representatives to make sure funds are not only being distributed with a degree of participatory legitimation, but also in an effective manner
This is what a central government already does.
>not have too much authority which would go against the idea of a decentralized currency, but serve more of an educational, regulatory and representative function
Without authority, an organization has no ability to effectively regulate or represent.
>an infinite, slowly rising monetary supply
This is how normal currency already works.
>Maybe some form of cooperation with governments would be ideal so that the currency will not perceived as a competition to traditional money
If the cryptocurrency can be exchanged for goods and services, it is inevitably competition to traditional money
Money is a super tricky problem to manage. Upending the current system and replacing it with a new half-baked one will solve nothing and recreate many problems that we’ve already solved with fiat currencies.
I am not here to say how great cryptocurrency is, although it can undoubtedly be extremely profitable (for better or worse), but to point out shaping it positively is important.
I guess your argument boils down to suppressing cryptocurrency being more viable than shaping its development positively, but history shows that many goods cannot be effectively suppressed and if people derive a benefit from it they will continue to use them, with all the disadvantage a black market brings (I am talking about the drug market).
Also you have to seem a rather idealistic conception of government, where even if people have to deal with the consequences of dysfunctional monetary system (eg Venezuela), it’s still preferable for people to suffer the consequences than to provide an alternative that is not sanctioned by the state.
I’m not saying it should be “suppressed”, but that it should fall under similar regulations to normal money, to prevent abuse and fraud.
Cryptocurrency is a solution looking for a problem. Buying drugs is one of the only problems it’s a significant improvement upon, everything else we can already do with normal money. I see no reason to believe it will ever account for more than 1% of the world’s transactions.
And yes, if the monetary system is completely dysfunctional and a tool for stealing wealth from your citizens, like in Venezuela, then I guess internet money is better than normal money. In the case of Venezuela, Runescape money for example has been used for this same purpose.
Ah, OK, so I think your point is more along the lines of “it’s relatively irrelevant” which I really didn’t even take into consideration given the already significant effects of crypto (for example in terms of CO2 emissions which are already about 0.1% of total emissions) and the extreme growth the market has seen and is seeing. I would say the percentage of transactions is not really the main factor here, more the wealth held in it, and crypto already is well on it’s way of holding 1% of the world’s wealth.
Maybe you don’t believe it solves any genuine problem for you in particular or for society as whole, but creating money out of nothing clearly is a very powerful tool if you happen to wield it, so I don’t see it going anywhere. Even if it does end up just being used in the black market economy, that is estimated to be >10% of global GDP.
Here is documentary that might give you an impression how creating new local currencies can successfully solve real-world problems, blockchain technology fits very well into that because of it’s decentralized and digital nature, making it a lot easier to create, distribute and convert currencies (although the documentary doesn’t focus on that aspect, but is explained more in depth on the website).
>2) Smart individuals (or lucky early-adopters) can become, or have become quite rich by utilizing the enormous growth of the crypto market which certainly is transformative for the individuals in question
This is called speculation, which you seem to be against. If you like the idea of your cryptocurrency being worth lots of dollars, you’re not supporting the idea of crypto, but the idea of dollars.
>3) It has created a new eco-system in the technology/financial space, where money and ideas flow quite differently than before
This is a sentence constructed entirely of buzzwords.
>the only realistic possibility that would lead to cryptocurrencies not mattering too much in the future is if they get suppressed by governments
This is already happening, because without government intervention people start doing all sorts of immoral things with crypto, such as pumping and dumping, which is already illegal in the normal financial world
>The more idealistic possibility is that cryptocurrencies would be distributed more fairly, based on need and merit
This is called communism, we’ve already tried that many times.
>Nano for example was distributed through faucets, which while quite arbitrary and susceptible to manipulation (eg click farms) at least had the intention of distributing the currency without preferring privileged people.
Bad things done by well-intended people are still bad things.
>What such a currency would look like is of course a complex question when it comes to the details, but there seem to be realistic ways of making huge improvements compared to present distribution models.
It seems a common theme throughout your post that you admit that crypto has many problems and then just hand-wave the problems away.
>rules against abuse and an organization behind it that works with stakeholders and representatives to make sure funds are not only being distributed with a degree of participatory legitimation, but also in an effective manner
This is what a central government already does.
>not have too much authority which would go against the idea of a decentralized currency, but serve more of an educational, regulatory and representative function
Without authority, an organization has no ability to effectively regulate or represent.
>an infinite, slowly rising monetary supply
This is how normal currency already works.
>Maybe some form of cooperation with governments would be ideal so that the currency will not perceived as a competition to traditional money
If the cryptocurrency can be exchanged for goods and services, it is inevitably competition to traditional money
Money is a super tricky problem to manage. Upending the current system and replacing it with a new half-baked one will solve nothing and recreate many problems that we’ve already solved with fiat currencies.
Unfortunately you seem to miss the point.
I am not here to say how great cryptocurrency is, although it can undoubtedly be extremely profitable (for better or worse), but to point out shaping it positively is important.
I guess your argument boils down to suppressing cryptocurrency being more viable than shaping its development positively, but history shows that many goods cannot be effectively suppressed and if people derive a benefit from it they will continue to use them, with all the disadvantage a black market brings (I am talking about the drug market).
Also you have to seem a rather idealistic conception of government, where even if people have to deal with the consequences of dysfunctional monetary system (eg Venezuela), it’s still preferable for people to suffer the consequences than to provide an alternative that is not sanctioned by the state.
I’m not saying it should be “suppressed”, but that it should fall under similar regulations to normal money, to prevent abuse and fraud.
Cryptocurrency is a solution looking for a problem. Buying drugs is one of the only problems it’s a significant improvement upon, everything else we can already do with normal money. I see no reason to believe it will ever account for more than 1% of the world’s transactions.
And yes, if the monetary system is completely dysfunctional and a tool for stealing wealth from your citizens, like in Venezuela, then I guess internet money is better than normal money. In the case of Venezuela, Runescape money for example has been used for this same purpose.
Ah, OK, so I think your point is more along the lines of “it’s relatively irrelevant” which I really didn’t even take into consideration given the already significant effects of crypto (for example in terms of CO2 emissions which are already about 0.1% of total emissions) and the extreme growth the market has seen and is seeing.
I would say the percentage of transactions is not really the main factor here, more the wealth held in it, and crypto already is well on it’s way of holding 1% of the world’s wealth.
Maybe you don’t believe it solves any genuine problem for you in particular or for society as whole, but creating money out of nothing clearly is a very powerful tool if you happen to wield it, so I don’t see it going anywhere.
Even if it does end up just being used in the black market economy, that is estimated to be >10% of global GDP.
Here is documentary that might give you an impression how creating new local currencies can successfully solve real-world problems, blockchain technology fits very well into that because of it’s decentralized and digital nature, making it a lot easier to create, distribute and convert currencies (although the documentary doesn’t focus on that aspect, but is explained more in depth on the website).
And here some research:
https://www.grassrootseconomics.org/research