Quote from: PrimeHunter2023 on September 23, 2024, 07:48:19 PM

All of the evidence indicates that the current wave of crypto, btc etc, is intended to acclimate people to digital currency.

That's kind of a stupid argument actually, at least with regard to Bitcoin. People have been doing on-line banking and using plastic for a very long time. Nothing can be more 'digital' than that and people are very used to it. Besides, L1 Bitcoin sucks as an exchange currency and few people use it for that.

Quote from: PrimeHunter2023 on September 23, 2024, 07:48:19 PM

1) When btc started the U.S. shut down its two main competitors, including Liberty Reserve before the 2013 pump.

About the only thing that 'proves' is that LR sucks and BTC doesn't. BTC services were under heavy attack for the same reasons in the 2013 timeframe.

Quote from: PrimeHunter2023 on September 23, 2024, 07:48:19 PM

2) Many features of crypto are necessary in CBDCs. For example 'staking' until 'coins mature' introduces the concept of controlling monetary velocity which will be a key feature of CBDCs.

POW, like Bitcoin, don't do staking. Later powers-that-be friendly solutions such at Ripple, very few of them make self-custody and distributed infrastructure very practical, very well could have been invented and funded into existence training-wheels for the plebs.

Quote from: PrimeHunter2023 on September 23, 2024, 07:48:19 PM

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberty_Reserve

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velocity_of_money

If the U.S. can get the market cap of crypto high enough before the rug pull, it will benefit by reducing the money supply. Market cap of $1trillion then rug pull reduces dollar money supply by $1 trillion. It's like the U.S. selling bonds it does not have to pay back. Easy way for the U.S. to reduce inflation at the expense of 'deplorables' and foreigners.

$1T? that's a couple of drops of piss in the bottom of a barrel compared to the problems the fiat monetary systems and governments have. Reminds me of the Austin Powers extortion demand.

Currently it seems to be in vogue for people like Fitts, Webb, etc to try to dog on Bitcoin using the fact that 'it works' as proof positive it was a Fed thing. They rightly estimate that almost nobody has a fucking clue about how it works, what a private key is, what self custody is, etc, so they can spew all kinds of vague nonsense.

I continue to doubt that early Bitcoin itself had anything whatsoever to do with the Feds/TPTB because I have seen so little actual evidence for it, and a LOT of the design decisions and operational elements of it don't comport. I do believe that TPTB _tried_ to convert Bitcoin with the bloat-wars circa 2015. Happily they failed.