I'm genuinely curious in different people's answers to this question about a hypothetical far off circumstance where a cryptocurrency would replace the US dollar- I personally have been having trouble seeing the benefits that many people seem to implicitly assume in discussions.<p>The negatives I see:<p>1. Inability of a central bank to regulate the econony through quantitative easing and other economic policy. An economy based on cryptocurrency seems like it'd have the same problems with return to a gold standard, mostly financial instability. I understand that for some ideologues this is a plus, most mainstream Americans and economists and basically the government of every developed country would tend to disagree.<p>2. It could feasibly become more difficult to enforce tax policy. As an alternative positive, an open ledger monitored by a savy IRS might actually make enforcing tax policy easier. Again, understand that for some ideologues an untaxable currency is a plus, but most people would disagree strongly.<p>3. The transition from fiat to cryptocurrency would likely be chaotic and result in a transfer of wealth along uncertain lines - who would gain? Who would lose? Somehow I doubt the working poor would be the big winners.<p>So what do other people see as the key longterm economic positives from cryptocurrency?
I would say:<p>1. Decentralized<p>2. Anonymous depending on the coin<p>3. Less fees (once scaling is fixed) for international needs<p>4. Non-government / state-controlled currency