The ECu

Consider :

lobbes it dawned on me today: Eulora is more than just a game where you have boundless space to conquer; it also functions as the fiat currency of the Republic. Interesting enough, the game itself almost acts like a 'proof of work' to becoming a banker of sorts in this currency.
mircea_popescu well, not exactly. it is the fiat-equivalent ; per that 2013 discussion, ie a frictionless, worthless, fiat cover for bitcoin. centralized, everything the lamers keep clamoring makes the "utility" of usds.ⁱ

lobbes aha. now this makes sense, yes. allows making micro-payments that are backed by bitcoin proper. centralized under a clear individual rather than an amorphous group

Leaving aside patent idiocy along the lines of "the celestial teapotⁱⁱ will regulate Bitcoin hurr" as well as utterly insensate "USD Bitcoinⁱⁱⁱ is a purely speculative pretend-currency not backed by anything whatsoever" nonsense, what exactly is left of the theory that fiat currency has some kind of value proposition ?

Consider :

• The ECu is inflationary, in fact it just underwent a massive inflation event^iv, yet it is inflationary correctly^v, which is to say by ever degrading the potentiality of later comers in comparison to the actual acts of their foregoers (ie, the exact opposite tack to this spoiled brat's unwarranted expectations).

  The first Euclid is not to be paralleled by some guy born in 1970 who, conceivably, had the same sort of calm, structured mind and in due time were the field empty would have produced the same "Elements". The field was not empty in 1970, and this significantly reduces the potential of a late coming Euclid. As time goes on you get less and less and less and less for the same unit-effort, so better get up and get it. Now.^vi

• The ECu is centralized, which means everything you think "the advantages" of USD are : I can for instance roll back any transaction at no cost ; impound the money of any "criminal" as however defined ; create as much money out of thin air as I want and everything else. Yet most of those powers are powerful especially for not being used, which should be of some concern to you.^vii

What exactly do you suppose is left ? And please, try to steer clear of the traditional "I personally have no use for USD because the shop end of the factory-shop scrip economy I'm chained to doesn't take USD but instead uses $random-token they arbitrarily picked in complete disregard of my all-important person" -- this is plainly an argument for, not against!

Well ?

1. Whatever you call them, Unified Standard Dosidoes or Universally Simplified Dubaloos or whatever else. Do you understand that it makes absolutely no difference what you call them, and that there's absolutely nothing more to "pound sterling" than to "shpoung merling" ? Absolutely nothing more : you did away with tradition with all the gleeful idiocy of an "independent mind" cutting the branch it perched on, and that was the last strand holding your world together -- god knows they hadn't been sterling in quite a long while, and quite loudly at that.

   The tradition you "progressed" from, and at every twist and turn did your best to belittle and insult will not come to your rescue now. What do you have left, to support the notion that the pound is special ? A kid named Rachel printing little bits of colored paper in his parents' garage is just as much and exactly the same as some queen named Elizabeth printing little bits of colored paper in her parents' garage.

   What do you have left to support any of the notions you self-servingly imagine unassailably all-important ? In actual, factual reality they're anything but : meanwhile you lost the technological battle, because who could have predicted that sitting on ass all day and labelling things is no path to either wealth or power ; and "the people" couldn't care less, as you deliberately and insistently trained them not to. Turns out Plato was indeed correct, democracy does collapse into bureaucracy, and through exactly the avenue he identified : the bureaucrats misperceive "the people" as their only competitor, so deliberately misguide them, and then they're natually uninquisitive, lazy and blessed with a tendency to fatten. The working of these two prongs soon leave them stranded in the middle of an inexistent nowhere, to wonder where exactly did the Heavenly Hosts go. They were there, guarding their back, right ? At some point ? MAGA ? [↩]

2. Have you ever stopped to wonder what exactly are the differences between your notion of "the government" and Russell's notion of a very special teapot ?

   I don't write about government involvement in Bitcoin because I have no need of that hypothesis ; do you understand that your need for such is a discussion of you, specifically of your failure and inadequacy, and in no way nor to any degree does that failure and inadequacy establish anything into the world ? Not that hypothesis, nor any other, feel any livelier because of your unwelcome perturbations, can you grok that ? [↩]

3. Have you noticed how often this "I know you are but what am I!!!"... discoursive technique, let's call it, is deployed in public conversation now that women are permitted to take part in it en masse rather than through selected participants ? It's almost like the mental age of the Internet went from 25 to 19 in 1993, when the mass male was allowed in, and then once further from 19 to about 13 in 2008 or so, when the mass female was... well practically speaking she was forced on, by the introduction of computers "in the workplace", which is to say the modern gynaeceum (the current word is "office", if you're curious).

   "White priviledge" in the sense of African-American priviledge, and "glass ceiling" in the sense of women always making more than men per unit-effort, and in the exact same vein the "speculative, unbacked Bitcoin" said by proponents of entirely unbacked, absolutely worthless paper about the only transcendent. [↩]

4. Leaving aside the very inflationary underlying, consider that on September 2017 the ECu lost 90% of its value against Bitcoin -- from a hundred million ECu to the Bitcoin down to one billion ECu to the Bitcoin.

   What fiat currency do you know of, either today or in history, that could survive such catastrophic event ? I don't mean carry on uninterrupted and without any concern like the ECu ecosystem did ; I mean outright survive.

   Well ?

   But wait, there's more : over the 4 years, 3 months of its existence that comes to an annualized inflation rate of
   of a whopping 71.9%! [10^(1/4.25), if you're curious how to do these.] What fiat currency do you know of, either today or in history, that could maintain 72% annualized inflation rate for years ? I don't mean actually grow and strengthen, like the ECu ecosystem did, I mean outright survive.

   Well ? [↩]

5. Probably of interest to the student of this topic, Let's dig a little deeper into this entire deflation "problem" and Inflation, deflation, economic regulationat the very least. [↩]
6. Consider this well : your choice, for it was a choice, made and signed by you even if "you had no idea", to not write on your tits for America Day, 2014 resulted in your not having 0.1 BTC in your hands -- which 0.1 BTC may have felt like 40 bucks back in 2014, but it feels closer to 1`700 bucks in 2017, and it will forever fucking stay 0.1 BTC -- much like the USD won't. Three years! What of the next three ? What of the next nine ? Thirty ?

   Can you actually afford to keep making the same choice, you think ? Or is it more a case of "noi sclavi care n-avem o sansa" ?

   And for bonus points, did you notice that I'm quoting a 2014 article discussing your 2014 failure for your 2017 needs ? Who could have predicted, how the hell did I know what was happening as it happened ?!

   Tell you what : it's easy to know what the history will be when you write it. Now consider this simple point : Bitcoin is backed by the very Heavenly Forge itself, a dude that outright writes history ; USD is backed by a fumbling set of lame ducks who recently discovered that technology. Does it still look all that rosy to you ? [↩]

7. Technological items, such as say a steam engine, are more valuable the more they're used -- their value comes from usage. Meanwhile religious artefacts, such as a miraculously-healing icon or whatnot, are more valuable the less they're used -- their value comes from worship, which is to say "mind share" in modern parlance. The more people "think" about them in a certain masturbatory manner, the more valuable they get.

   This value is at risk through usage, however, because the technologically-minded "sociopaths" may "care more about abstract principles than the masturbatory activities of people themselves" and discount the holy. To zero. So it's best not to ever actually use any religious artefact, ever.

   Now, considering the properties you think give the fiat its value are rather of the second kind, do you see how you have a problem on your hands ? Or do you prefer not to see, and reach for the labelmaker, prayer underbreath ?

   Consider meanwhile how the Republic works (and no, that's not at all an isolated case, price formation underwent the exact same negotiation process throughout the Eulora marketplace for years now!). [↩]