The Future Economy
Digital Currency & the Decentralization of Money
Paradigms of Money
Past, Present, & Future
Money
Root of all evil, or integral to our nature?
Paradigm: Money is Time
- "time is money"
- money is time
- time is scarce
- money evolved naturally
Paradigm: Money is Speech
- voluntary transactions express values
- involuntary transactions do not
- free market = free speech
- money monopoly distorts social values
Paradigms of Money
- store of value (time)
- medium of exchange (speech)
- unit of account (time & speech)
Past
Limited use due to limited productivity
A Short History of Man
- book by Hans-Hermann Hoppe
- natural resources & land scarcity
- population growth & productivity
- per-capita income & intelligence
- agricultural revolution
- family & private property
- industrial revolution (life w/ surplus)
- money & the state
Money in Past
- hunter-gatherer style money
- natural resources (shells, gold, etc)
- barter (direct exchange)
- taxation through direct payments (extortion)
- time paradigm: tech & intelligence limits leisure
- speech paradigm: equal but minimal voice
Present
State monopolies capture increased productivity
What has Gov't Done to Money
- book by Murray N. Rothbard
- private property & ethics
- free society needs law and order
- money & state (as money goes, so goes state)
- state monopolizes money through deceit
- gold as free-market money
- gold confiscation & legal tender laws
- taxation through inflation
Money in Present
- state-provided (monopoly) money
- fiat (money by decree)
- corporate (state-regulated) payment processors
- taxation through inflation (fraud)
- time paradigm: excess, but stolen productivity
- speech paradigm: monopoly money, monopoly speech
Future
Technology empowers individuals to reap societal productivity gains
Bitcoin: A P2P Elec. Cash System
- white paper by Satoshi Nakamoto
- scarce, private, secure digital asset
- peer to peer, no central authority
- fast, low-fee transactions
- "code is law" system of governance
Money in Future
- free-market (competing) monetary system(s)
- well-engineered money (scarce, secure, fast, private, easy, etc)
- built-in payment processor
- no/voluntary taxation
- time paradigm: holder reaps rewards of societal efficiency gains
- speech paradigm: maximal expression of societal values
Future Starts Now
Future technology is here; need education & adoption
Past/Future Analogs
- code is law
- monetary system breeds governance system
- population must be informed
- technology is just a tool
- corruption exists in technology
- know your principles
- exercize your power
Blockchain legislation
- follow law =~ run code
- hard & soft forks (user activated / miner activated)
- industry agreements / accords (HK & NY)
- BIP 9 - require 95% vote over 1 difficulty period for activation
- BIP 141 - segregated witness (segWit)
- BIP 148 - ignore blocks not signaling for BIP 141 (UASF)
- BIP 91 - pass segWit with 80% miner vote
- BIP 102 - conditional hard fork to 2x block if BIP141 passes
Blockchain State
- blockchain project ~= state
- holders ~= citizenship
- developers ~= legislative branch
- miners ~= executive branch
- nodes/users ~= judicial branch
- everyone wants more control!
Summary
All this talk, so what?
Economic Laws
- Grescham's Law
- Metcalfe's Law
Key Take-aways
- your money is your time
- exchanging your money is speech
- money & government are evolving
- new technology requires education
- all the old principles apply
- translating principles into actions can be hard
- your individual choices determine society's destiny
- choose wisely
Thank you
Contact information
Extras
Slides you don't plan to use, but want handy just in case
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Paradigms of Money
By Rion Gull
Paradigms of Money
Paradigms of Money - Past, present, & future. Presented on 2017-07-01 at local (Salt Lake City, Utah) meetup (joint meetup between Salt Lake Freedom Hive and Dash)
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