Naval

1) People who believe that bitcoin has a limited supply don’t understand how the financial system creates money.

2) Most money in the world is not created by governments, central banks or even banking cartels. There is no magic button or printing press.

3) Most money is created by private banks. Even “shadow banks” – non-depositary financial institutions – can create money and tradable assets.

4) Private banks can create money by writing IOUs. In the past, this mechanism was restricted by capital requirements.

5) Today, capital requirements are mostly an inside joke and money creation is practically unrestricted.

6) Unrestricted fiat creation is a big reason why the coin cult has so many avid followers and evangelists.

7) The CME, CBOE and other global exchanges are planning to launch futures contracts on bitcoin. Other derivatives will follow.

8) People and financial institutions globally will be able to gamble on the price of bitcoin on a grand scale whether they own it or not.

This means whoever has most power / status / prestige can use the situation to their advantage. Earlier kings used to create money, now its intellectuals and VCs. Whoever dissents gets punished (in one way or another).

This time there is consensus obtained with a ‘consensus mechanism’.

More through prying on people’s biases towards fear of missing out and filter bubbles. I wonder what %tage of total bitcoinholders know what currencies really are, how investments create value and other econ 101 topics.

For some bitcoin will be a harsh teacher.

I hope non life threatening. Optimism shouldn’t blind our moral responsibility of recognising that not everyone fully understands what they are getting into.

People are free.

Money is a kind of consensual hallucination. The most powerful and persuasive hallucination wins.

Or as Sapiens puts it, a "shared fiction."