Bitcoin as unit of account (measure of value) does not exist. Products sold in bitcoin are priced in local conventional currencies and bitcoin price is altered frequently to match the changes in Bitcoin valuations.<p>Now somebody may say "That's now but wait until Bitcoin takes over the world." That's a another problem. Global currency or fixing exchange rates is not a good idea (Bretton Woods was a failure). There is thing called optimum currency area. Euroarea is in trouble because it misses many criteria for optimum currency area. They are fixing them now. Without global fiscal union, world government and free movement of labour, global currency and single global unit of account is not a good thing.<p>As a payment system it's already choking and can't easily move value form one person to another. You need intermediaries and intermediaries between intermediaries to fix the system. If you end up using Visa or Mastercard payment system to pay in BTC what's the point?<p>I think cryptocurrencies and have a place in the future, but Bitcoin is not it.
I don't think it takes a Nobel prize to realize that BitCoin, given its recent extreme volatility, currently makes for a poor medium of exchange.<p>EDIT: This article is actually from 2013. Around the time Bitcoin went from ~10 to ~1000 USD. I suppose the same was true at that time. Bitcoin was relatively stable hovering around ~500USD from 2014 to 2017.
<i>> BitCoin looks like it was designed as a weapon intended to damage central banking and money issuing banks, with a Libertarian political agenda in mind—to damage states ability to collect tax and monitor their citizens financial transactions.</i><p>"evil"
I began working in the late 90’s as a web developer. Then adoption of the “consumer” internet was growing rapidly. I recall there was much excitement, naysaying, thoughtful analysis by very smart people, and pure FUD.<p>There seemed to be a set of fundamentals or values borrowed from existing phonomena and applied to the internet, internet companies, and their potential (for great or evil). These of course lacked the benefit of hindsight and today much of what was said (although well intentioned) turned out to be frankly ridiculous.<p>I have a gut feeling that in 10 or 20 years we will look back and realize that this new thing has a set of fundamentals all its own. Once those emerge we will be able to have wonderful arguments. Until then I just try to focus on the technology. It’s the only thing I can make reasonable sense of. Let the talking people talk. Let the builders build and let’s just see where this goes.<p>Crypto currencies like we see now are a new phonomena. We won’t know who the brilliant minds and the fools are until this all shakes out.
From his writing it is clear that he hasn't invested time researching the cryptocoin ecosystem. Who cares if bitcoin is evil it was just a start, and there 's now an entire new financial system being built.<p>He's too hung up on this:<p><i>BitCoin looks like it was designed as a weapon intended to damage central banking and money issuing banks, with a Libertarian political agenda in mind—to damage states ability to collect tax and monitor their citizens financial transactions.</i><p><i>Stross doesn’t like that agenda, and neither do I</i><p>pity
This whole thing is a reference to the argument presented in another article from 2013:<p><a href="https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2013/12/why-i-want-bitcoin-to-die-in-a.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2013/12/why-i-w...</a>
"To be successful, money must be both a medium of exchange and a reasonably stable store of value." - BitCoin isn't 'money' though.<p>As for the Charlie Stross link and the claim that BitCoin is 'designed to damage central bankers' - that depends. It certainly is likely to have the effect of making central bankers more honest. Up until recently there were real consequences to printing free-money but after the 2007 financial crisis it seems central bankers banded together to collectively print money from nothing - it became ok as long as others were doing it too. Well the reality is that printing money does have repercussions and one could well argue that the rise of BitCoin is one such repercussion.<p>Same with the global attempt to eliminate physical cash - it's all great to go digital but when the central bankers decide they want to force everyone to spend more with negative interest rates it can indiscriminately hurt an average worker trying to save money to buy a home! Same goes for taxation - governments think its easy to raise money by increasing taxation, the offshore finance industry used to keep a lid on that until they were cracked down on - digital currencies can fill that gap.<p>Now there's no doubt that governments and central bankers might dislike control being taken away from them but to claim BitCoin hurts them is a bit like claiming jails hurt convicted felons... IMO.
In general, "X is evil" sounds like a troll (even though I don't own any BitCoin, etc.)<p>This author is well known for incorrect predictions, and for not particularly caring about the truth of what he writes:<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/paul-krugman-responds-to-internet-quote-2013-12" rel="nofollow">http://www.businessinsider.com/paul-krugman-responds-to-inte...</a><p><i>By 2005 or so, it will become clear that the Internet's impact on the economy has been no greater than the fax machine's.</i><p>His defense was essentially that he writes things to attract attention:<p><i>It was a thing for the Times magazine's 100th anniversary, written as if by someone looking back from 2098, so the point was to be fun and provocative, not to engage in careful forecasting;</i><p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/cp/opinion/election-night-2016/paul-krugman-the-economic-fallout" rel="nofollow">https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/cp/opinion/elec...</a><p>On election night:<p><i>It really does now look like President Donald J. Trump, and markets are plunging. When might we expect them to recover? ... Still, I guess people want an answer: If the question is when markets will recover, a first-pass answer is never.</i><p>Regardless of what you think of Trump, this statement is hilariously inaccurate.
Totally agree that the goal is to smash central banking. I also think that the cryptoanarchist community must h8 central banking. How could anyone blame them with where our economy has gone. That being said, i think central banking is a great tool, it is just the fed is too conservative.
"This author is well known for incorrect predictions, and for not particularly caring about the truth of what he writes"<p>ROTFL. This really describes Krugman well. Of cause bitcoin is "evil" since it limits his ideas of how to "experiment" with money.