Post
Topic
Board Bitcoin Discussion
Re: Do we really need Bitcoin?
by
inBitweTrust
on 19/07/2014, 12:43:33 UTC
I think I understand your general view (please correct me if I am wrong). Your vision is that Bitcoin, while having at this moment some drawbacks like yes, extortion by individual scammers is possible or funds can be lost (but coming technology is making this more unlikely than losing fiat) it solves the biggest of problems: institutionalized stealing by state agents and the economic elite. Or in other words, Bitcoin may, at this moment, make us a little bit more vulnerable to small-scale thefts (and even that is being solved) while protecting us from the biggest scammers who steal money in front of our face and modify the laws as needed to make it 'legal'.
If so, of course it would open another whole can of worms about in which situations the market should or should not be free, like in asymmetric information scenarios (car dealer-client, health insurance-client, etc), or in which scenarios could be useful to devaluate the currency and, of course, if the people who make these decisions are honest or not. But well, I am sure it would be a really interesting debate but that is not the scope of this thread.

Maybe we are in opposite sides of the world but thanks to Internet we are having this interesting discussion. If Bitcoin makes to the economy what the Internet made to the information I am sure that interesting times are coming.  

You have done a great job of summarizing my argument. The beauty of the Bitcoin protocol is that it is designed in such a way that it encapsulates voluntarism and agorism at a protocol layer. Certainly, any government or person with any political ideology can use Bitcoin and benefit from its feature sets but at a design level no one can be forced into using bitcoin or upgrading to another version with features that they don't agree with(I.E... blacklisting). Bitcoin just IS, and like pandora's box cannot be removed or completely controlled by regulators. Society is going to have to adapt to this reality despite their misgivings. Mathematics is the great equalizer which allows individual people to have certain protections equal to even the most powerful organizations.

Bitcoin has its flaws and will never be perfect but right now has many qualities which make it more honest and safer if you understand it than traditional banking. There are some radical transparency and accountability features that can be used:

If you have a charity or are running a crowd-funding campaign you can accept donations where all donors or investors can clearly see the funds accountable in real time that are 99.999% verifiable. You can than use a M of N multi-sig to ensure that it is impossible for the treasurer or any individual to embezzle the funds or spend them without the agreed upon consensus within the bylaws. In the past a long drawn out legal battle would ensue with any dispute with parasitic lawyers milking both sides and with Bitcoin the protocol protects everyone.

Blockchain technology and crypto-currency is a black swan event. Many of us are unapologetically embracing the cleansing effect of its disruption. Whether its Bitcoin(most likely) or another crypto-currency doesn't matter, the effects of this technology is going to change everything just like the internet has.