You can count me in as a follower, and I thank you for this wonderful backgrounder to what I hope will be a series of important posts that you will make in response to what I hope will be stimulating discussion in this Steemit space. If the discussion fails to materialize and you get your material published elsewhere, do bring us synopses and links to the detailed texts.
Not only are there some deep philosophical issues worthy of discussion, a number surrounding the concept of money and its function in society including particular the power of various groups to control access to useful money, the way the world of big coin is evolving it is arguable that some key desires of its libertarian founders are going to be dashed partly by The Powers That Be and partly by a rather intractable governance problem that has reared its head within the community and seems to be more or less out of control at this point. (Witness the unfolding of hard forks which create a very bad brand for Bitcoin.)
I would like to keep the discussion rather philosophical and I invite you to suggest the directions (issues) in which you think the discussion should take.
Cheers!
BTW - one of the major point I see few making is the capacity of the cryptocurrencies to become the fulcrum for a major fall of the levels of deep poverty around the world. (By “deep poverty” I am referring to the inability to gain access to supplies of basic goods and services, many of which can be potentially available in a community but are not so practically because trade has been reduced to bartering.) This capacity is used when a cryptocurrency pops up in population/community segments where official money is either nonexistent or extremely hard to get; with the result that the use of the cryptoccurrency facilitates intra-community trading of goods and services.
I suspect that one reason I have seen more more references to this potential function of local-community-based cryptocurrencies is that it leads us away from the debate over whether cryptos will bring down states and the banking system. Well, I think we can now see that while citizens’ cryptos can be accommodated, the Powers That Be will use the block chain, cashless society and official cryptos to increase their profile.
Thank you for your reply. I truly appreciate that!
Cannot agree more with you on that.