No problem Sheldon, I’ve always enjoyed reading anything in print from you and Roderick!
I’m pretty surprised at the skepticism that Bitcoin has gotten at the Mises Institute, with Tucker’s big emphasis on digital freedom and cryptography it seemed like something they’d be excited about. Putting aside the problems with Mises’ Regression Theorem, the biggest potential pitfall of Bitcoin is its volatility. (Ironically this risk could in theory be mitigated by a central bank.) Currently the value of Bitcoins fluctuates up to 50% in a single day. Even if that gets down to <1% there’s still the possibility of a mass exodus chain reaction if say Bitcoins lose value on a certain day and more and more people abandon it until it’s dead. This is a problem that any purely digital currency will face in my opinion, and doesn’t seem to have a clear technological answer.
In other news, agorists for hard drugs and digital anonymous currency stage a showing:
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/06/silkroad/
Thanks for the link! I’m a bit surprised at how emotionally defensive some people are on this issue.
No problem Sheldon, I’ve always enjoyed reading anything in print from you and Roderick!
I’m pretty surprised at the skepticism that Bitcoin has gotten at the Mises Institute, with Tucker’s big emphasis on digital freedom and cryptography it seemed like something they’d be excited about. Putting aside the problems with Mises’ Regression Theorem, the biggest potential pitfall of Bitcoin is its volatility. (Ironically this risk could in theory be mitigated by a central bank.) Currently the value of Bitcoins fluctuates up to 50% in a single day. Even if that gets down to <1% there’s still the possibility of a mass exodus chain reaction if say Bitcoins lose value on a certain day and more and more people abandon it until it’s dead. This is a problem that any purely digital currency will face in my opinion, and doesn’t seem to have a clear technological answer.