Bitcoin - Because the problem with global finance is too much regulation.
It baffles me how seemingly capable people have had the idea that a cryptocurrency would counter 2008 style stuff. It seems like a reasoning short circuit: Big institutions failed us, so something without big institutions must be immune.
The big institutions failed us exactly by allowing each other to do too much. By not regulating (which is by definition centrally imposed).
> It baffles me how seemingly capable people have had the idea that a cryptocurrency would counter 2008 style stuff. It seems like a reasoning short circuit: Big institutions failed us, so something without big institutions must be immune.
I think you misunderstood what people mean by saying "counter 2008 style stuff".
The aim isn't to prevent 2008 from happening again, but if 2008 were to happen again, then be in a safe situation.
Also you're taking the input from your opponents, but plugging that input into your own model, without realizing that bitcoin proponents do not share your model.
Your model is: "Lack of regulation caused 2008 to happen", but not everybody agrees with that model.
There are multiple models, but the most common model is that central bank inflating the money supply, and manipulating interest rates caused 2003-2007 to happen. 2008 was merely the well desired correction.
Same model applied to today, it means that we are currently in a major bubble and this bubble will pop in the coming years. Alternate financial systems such as bitcoin and smart contracts, are 'customizable' enough (For lack of a better term) that they give people a fighting chance.
1. Capital controls can't be imposed
2. Bank accounts can't be confiscated
3. If regulations have to be bypassed to make trade happen, then they should be more easily bypassed (for instance minimum wage laws).
So when the next crises happens, people are able to flee nations with their capital, their bank accounts will not be able to confiscated, and they will side step any regulation which screws people over. This is the aim of cryptocurrency proponents, irrespective of what is being said.
What you outline is the libertarian/neoliberal case for crypto, and while more coherent (and is built into the currency with the whole "fixed total supply" structure) it seems to me no less of a fantasy.
The state can damn well impose capital controls and confiscate accounts. You transfer the money elsewhere continue to use it? The state now has perfect transparency to see that. Did you own any assets in the country you're fleeing? They're confiscated. Does the state you're fleeing to have an extradition treaty with the state you're coming from? To bad. You refuse to hand over the account that has been confiscate? You go to jail until you do.
Just carrying gold seems a better choice if that's your game plan.
However, I haven't heard that case that much (and never as explicitly as you put it here).
There are multiple models, but the most common model is that central bank inflating the money supply, and manipulating interest rates caused 2003-2007 to happen. 2008 was merely the well desired correction
Regardless of it's truth value, that is not clearly the most common model.
It baffles me how seemingly capable people have had the idea that a cryptocurrency would counter 2008 style stuff. It seems like a reasoning short circuit: Big institutions failed us, so something without big institutions must be immune.
The big institutions failed us exactly by allowing each other to do too much. By not regulating (which is by definition centrally imposed).