Re:The political case for a blanket cryptocurrency ban
by einpoklum on Wednesday March 31, 2021 @12:56PM
(#26649731)
I'm not sure. Do these DeFi schemes involve currencies which cannot be cancelled or created in large amounts by political decision (e.g. democratic)? If the answer is "yes", then these may be just another form of pyramid scheme, perhaps less taxing on the environment.
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Re:The political case for a blanket cryptocurrency ban
by jtolds on Wednesday March 31, 2021 @01:09PM
(#26649929)
The answer is not yes, and there is clear evidence that cryptocurrencies are cancelled and created democratically.
https://vitalik.ca/general/2021/03/23/legitimacy.html (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26560626) talks about the Steem/Hive split, and explains how the community democratically overrode the network owner's undemocratic decisions.
Re:The political case for a blanket cryptocurrency ban
by einpoklum on Thursday April 01, 2021 @05:40PM
(#26666443)
That Steem example is interesting. I wonder what the basis for the voting system they have there, though.
Anyway, when you have a democratic (or otherwise subject to popular influence) institution which can do things like "print more money", forfeit some part of existing money, levy taxes etc. - then indeed it's an interesting and potentially positive-in-my-opinion cooperative pooling of resources. Of course then you have the opposite problem, which is the tyranny of the majority, but "you can't grab the rope at both ends".