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Look up wildcat banking. Being "subject to the control of free market forces" is not a good thing for working class folks who only hold onto currency.



UPI and M-Pesa have had far reaching effects to this regard. This narritive that crypto helps the unbanked is not true.

If I'm wrong about crypto helping the unbanked, please provide any context or numbers to back up this claim.

P.S. Let the poor countries solve their own problems, if you want to help donate money directly.


Yes that's what I was saying I fully agree other tech has had way more impact on the unbanked. :)


Well then I appreciate you and respect you. Much love.


High five!


This is the exception not the rule. Also making this as your main argument for why crypto is a net positive is telling because you understand that there are 0 uses for crypto in a functional democratic society.


You have a very limited view of the history of capital controls. In the history of the world, capital controls are very common. It's a cycle. The state controls the money supply, they debase it through printing (dilution during gold standard), the value depreciates and everyone panics. One of the first things they do is restrict the ability of people to transfer money out of their currency. When everything is stable, you don't see this happen. But when its not (i.e. what its most advantageous) capital controls are applied. You see this happening in Turkey right now:

> Turkey had an 80% foreign currency surrender requirement in place from September 2018 to late 2019 during a previous iteration of a currency crisis and has also used other “soft” capital controls including changing fees charged on currency conversions and adjusting the requirements for currency hedging.

There are financial assets I cannot hold due to the accident of geography. For instance, I can't hold Chinese stocks. I cannot easily and safely send money to family in Cuba, Iran or North Korea. There are a lot of places I cannot hold real estate.

Capital controls and monetary debasement are very much the rule on a long enough timespan.

[0] https://worldview.stratfor.com/article/turkey-takes-first-st...


Fiat currencies are used in literally every country on the planet and have been through the largest economic booms in history. Limited/hard currencies on the other hand, have a 100% failure rate with one ongoing experiment happening right now in El Salvador. Which would I rather bet on?

I bet we agree on many issues including, let people move freely between countries, have less rules, have smaller countries. But there is nothing wrong with the idea of a government backed currency even if you can point to failures like Turkey, Venezuela and many more.

Also are you seriously saying that because you can't rent seek land in Liberia there is a problem with the global economic order?


> Fiat currencies are used in literally every country on the planet and have been through the largest economic booms in history. Limited/hard currencies on the other hand, have a 100% failure rate with one ongoing experiment happening right now in El Salvador. Which would I rather bet on?

Something has existed for tens of thousands of years and in the last 50 years has been supplanted by something else. Which would I bet on surviving 1,000 years from now? Hard currency.


Ill deal with the factually incorrect parts of your statement to start.

1. The earliest known currency was the shekel and it was more of a accounting instrument and it was used ~5000 years ago.

2. Fiat was invented in the 7th century https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiat_money#China

Regarding your claim that hard money is good.

We are talking about a system that completely floundered under pressure from economic expansion (hard money) vs a system that has been presiding over the largest economic booms in history and is currently adopted by every government in the world (fiat) and your argument is "well look which is older".


1. I never claimed hard money was the earliest form of money. Read my original post more carefully. Gold has been used as a currency for at least 3,000 years. Likely earlier.

2. I never claimed fiat was invested 50 years ago. I stated that the global monetary system switched over from predominately hard money with fiat

> We are talking about a system that completely floundered under pressure from economic expansion (hard money) vs a system that has been presiding over the largest economic booms in history and is currently adopted by every government in the world (fiat) and your argument is "well look which is older".

It floundered because it was routinely debased and not adhered to. That was my whole point. I would also say that fiat has failed a lot. You google list of hyperinflation to get a sense of how bad it has been over time. Even today you have people living in countries in which they have to watch their wealth disintegrate every year by double digit amounts

Civilization didn't begin with Bretton Woods...

[0] https://bebusinessed.com/history/the-history-of-gold/


Why is there any use for blockchain in supply chains? Wouldn't it be more efficient and cheaper to run a append only database?


But if everyone is poor then prices drop...


Yeah thats kinda the point.


A land value tax taxes the value of the land not the things built on it. It hurts speculators/landlords and benefits people who build/improve.

It works very differently than a propery tax.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ok2uR3btMrE


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