On Bitcoin’s potential: Q&A on what Bitcoin can and cannot offer a troubled world
Posted on March 13, 2014 by yanisv   

Following my debate with Andreas Antonopoulos on ABC Late Night Live, graduate students of mine (at the University of Texas) were kind enough to piece together a related Q&A reflecting my views on BTC. Read on…

What is Bitcoin (or BTC for short)?

It is a beautiful algorithm.

If Einstein, von Neumann and Nash were the beautiful minds of the 20th Century, BTC is the 21st Century’s beautiful algorithm. A brilliant answer in search of a worthy question. A breath-taking solution to as yet undiscovered problems! But democratising and de-politicising money will not be one of them, I am afraid. It will not replace government issued money and it is not about to enfranchise the world’s billions that live in poverty, contrary to the lofty pronouncements of its evangelists.

What makes the BTC algorithm ‘beautiful’?

It makes possible a decentralised network within which trust is built because everyone is monitoring everyone else. There is no sentry. No guardian. No Leviathan who may become tyrannical or fall asleep on the job (as regulators did prior to 2008). Instead there is a type of benign Benthamite Panopticon where everyone is kept honest because everyone else is watching every activity, every exchange, every transaction. It is truly splendid. But it is not a sound foundation for an alternative monetary system.

How big/significant is BTC?

It is tiny in size and macro-economically insignificant. Its total global value in real money is less than the bailout money ‘given’ by European taxpayers to a smallish Greek bank last year. Of course, BTC enthusiasts will argue that what matters is its growth potential. I am not convinced. (See also my post The dangerous fantasy of apolitical money)

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Continua qui: http://yanisvaroufakis.eu/2014/03/13/on-bitcoins-potential-qa-on-what-bitcoin-can-and-cannot-offer-a-troubled-world/