Making up lies with the hope that it will influence behavior in the "right" way is not education and is not the way a government institution should behave.
Because unless there's an awful lot lost in machine translation, the government information website it links to might be anti-crypto slanted but is pretty bland and factual about the risks involved in crypto and its status under Polish law.
(Of course, what's easier to evaluate is the judgement of English language crypto websites like Trustnodes which attack the SEC for "effectively calling investors stupid" for having the temerity to suggest they might not be in possession of all the facts and for the "draconian" halting ICOs that were "legitimate" in every way except perhaps being precisely the sort of unlawful securities offering the SEC is tasked with shutting down. So there's a distinct possibility they just might be exaggerating a tad here)
The basic moral of the video is kind of a combination of don't just assume you're going to get rich off of crypto investing and on a broader stroke, don't put all of your eggs in one basket. (e.g. - don't invest your daily spending money)
The question is, do you believe in the inherent usefulness of a specific crypto? If the only way to make money from a crypto is predicated on other people putting more money in it later on, that's the definition of a Ponzi scheme.
You don't hold onto euros and dollars because you think you can sell them later on for more money. That's why central banks have inflation targets: so that you're incentivized to use currencies as an exchange instrument, not as a store of value.
A bit off-topic, but why is that a good thing? Why is it better for currency to lose its value over time? I'd imagine this leads to people mindlessly buying more and more stuff, to use up that money before it loses its value.
On the other hand, if value of currency would increase over time, then people would have to spend it only on whatever they actually really need or desire. Is that bad?
They don't spend it mindlessly, they still allocate it relative to other opportunities. Low but positive inflation makes a lot of investments relatively more attractive, therefore incentivizing people to invest in economic activities, instead of sitting on their cash. Deflation creates a dearth of resource available to invest.
Plus it's a redistribution mechanism. If all you have to do is to sit on your cash for it to grow, then it's a rich becomes richer system. If you have to invest that money, there's an uncertainty, a risk, and opportunity for people to multiply their starting capital.
Some early bitcoins buyers are saying exactly that: "I got in early, I'm set up for life, if you didn't get early enough too bad you're gonna stay poor". It's not really how we'd like an economy to function.
> [...] people would have to spend it only on whatever they actually really need or desire. Is that bad?
It's bad if you want a growing economy. And usually technical innovation comes from relatively niche investments that no one really needs right now.
Why do hodlers of cryptos get so irate then?
I have never owned any amount of a crypto, neither did I waste more than a few watt-minutes running a mining algo. I would actually be on the other end of the stereotype, "the bitter bitcon hater that has known about it since the early days (mainly from HN) but never invested a cent in it" but alas I do not fit there either.
I am a neutral observer, interested in debate about novel forms of currency rather than any single implementation. The initial point I was trying to make is that I find the argument about ICOs (the vast majority of witch are obvious scams) detracts from the actual technology. The way the trading markets are acting does not help either.
Why? Should I then expect the government to bail me out after I lose all of my money in blackjack, provided that sufficient amount of people do the same.
Sadly, the current party seems to be on the side of stepping in and bailing people out. Once in the instance of mortgages in Swiss Franc, which were taken in '00s (CHF went up significantly several years after, raising people's morgage almost 200%), and secondly in the case of a big precious metals investment scam (Google "Poland Amber Gold").
Those government interventions will not come without costs. A direct one resulting in forcing the taxpayers, which were responsible with their money, to reimburse those who were willing to risk taking a 30-year loan in a foreign currency, or those hoping for high profits from a precious metals investment by a company that existed for less than 2 years on the market. Another cost, which I would argue is a more dangerous one, is destroying fiscal responsibility in the mentality of people. In case of something like bitcoin it can only lead to three outcomes for the ruling party: a) the government regulates/defames or bans bitcoin, b) government accepts that it will need to bail people out at some point once a sufficient amount of "victims" complain, c) it loses the next elections to a party which will promise a bitcoin bail-out
> (...) to try to educate it's indirect users on good and bad risks to take to try to make the country as a whole more competitive. (...) Given that attribution would probably have reduced it's effectiveness, I can see why the country would want it without attribution.
I agree with the educational part, but not so much with the argument for concealing the attribution. The moment someone spills the beans, the smell of "propaganda" can have an opposite effect, i.e., "they did that in secret, because they want to keep taxing you through inflation, that's how powerful bitcoin is".
Well, if the issue grows to such a great scale then bailing people out saves the society, and the economy, from collapsing.
We can argue about the methods, but, well, I guess it's noble that the gov/bank tries to warn people about the dangers of cryptocurrencies. If you look at any crisis around the world the central banks usually turned a blind eye. Then it ended with bailouts and defaults. So, better to act before, than after.
> I actually believe that Bitcoin is a purposefully deployed project by large banks to restore faith to the financial system.
It is absolutely grotesque that public institutions engage in any kind of propaganda. It is also , might I add, incompetent, as a central bank revealed to do this shows that the radical crypto libertarians hating on central banks were right.
no it's not... then how would you stop malicious foreign/external media influence? let people get scammed?
how would you counter that?
And now that they were discovered they've just made it a lot worse for themselves because they lost all credibility on the issue.
Also, is it even the central bank's role to do stuff like this? Shouldn't it be a political or governmental issue?
If a countries citizens go and spend their personal money on risky or stupid investments, it is also the countries problem. If those investments fail, you will now probably have to use government funds to bail them out in some way. Bankruptcy is a government bailout of sorts.
Therefore it does not seem unreasonable for a central bank, whose role is ensuring a strong monetary system, to try to educate it's indirect users on good and bad risks to take to try to make the country as a whole more competitive.
If the video should have had attribution is a policy issue for YouTube and the country. Given that attribution would probably have reduced it's effectiveness, I can see why the country would want it without attribution.