Why own weapons when you can control the people who own them?
As our software systems get more complex and as we become more reliant on them, hackers become increasingly influential politically and economically.
Lawyers, doctors and financiers have had thousands of years to figure out how to gain unfair zero-sum leverage within capitalism, software engineers, on the other hand, didn't exist until recently but it's only a matter of time before they group together and get their leverage.
it's already done. see, for instance: - the impact of digital campaign outreach in the 2008 election - various 3letter "cyber" groupos since early 2000s - anonymous circa 3 years ago - btc manipulation last year
there are probably more
The cartels found one poster in a local internet cafe. They did their cartel thing. I didn't hear any more about that fight.
Also, the ETH/ETC fork did not technically reverse anything. The fork allowed the inclusion of an "irregular" transaction that moved funds from the DAO account to a "Withdraw" account.
They used a magic fork to create the irregular transaction. They could have removed the original transaction and use the magic to declare the intermediate has valid. (I've seen this "solution" in discussions about what to do if someone puts illegal content in the blockchain.)
So that is literally true, but is it really true from a pragmatic sense? If the US government used their military might to destroy a significant portion of large mining installations, would bitcoin really be in any way resistant to that? If the NSA and DOE used their combined supercomputing power to outhash everyone else, couldn't they take over the bitcoin network and do whatever the heck they want with it?
a more interesting evaluative plot-element might be something like:
how many developers would need to die for bitcoin to be exterminated?
vs.
how many economists would need to die for the dollar to be exterminated?
frankly, if some gov wanted digital coins (or their supporting networks) destroyed... I think it would be easier than reducing a traditional, national currency to rubble.
... that's a smidge over 1% of the US military budget.
It's not easy, but it's not impossible (to parent's bombastic assertion).
I believe the Manhattan project spent something like 0.55% of the US military budget (against ~2013USD$900b yearly budgets, which seemed the peak in 1942-45).
And I know what smidge means, I was expressing ire at your attempt to sound folksy.
The complexity of the financial instruments used by the Fed is intentional and serves to obscure the fact that they are essentially giving free money to large banks and corporations.
Corporations are not getting bigger because they're more efficient at delivering value to consumers - They're getting bigger because the Fed makes sure of it.
The Fed is like a river; those who are closest to the source can get the most out of it. In this case it means bankers, financiers and corporations. Regular workers are far downstream, they get whatever is left.
Be real. Between USD and BTC, one has lost 70% of its value over the past ~7 months.
>BTC is worth the same as it was in November 2017
>Between USD and BTC, one has increased ~150% in value over the last year
>Between USD and BTC, only one is worth ten times as much now as it was worth two years ago
At the end of the day I am pretty sure I agree with the point you're trying to make (USD is a lot more stable/predictable/reliable than BTC even taking into consideration inflation) but you shouldn't use arguments that someone who disagrees with you could easily attack.
Deflating currencies are terrible things for economies
The dollars may be fake but the man with the gun who is standing behind them is very real.