Down 14% in the last month. Still way above its actual value (0) but headed in that direction.

I’m guessing cost of living is driving a lot of hodlers to liquidate. You have to imagine most of the money in this thing is institutional though so maybe it won’t matter that much.

Inflation is driving the cost of commodities up but BTC seems to move in the opposite direction. This is meaningful bc the value prop of BTC as an inflation hedge would suggest the opposite, and BTC overweight portfolios will underperform the diversified commodities basket. If this persists it’s only matter of time before we also see some institutional unwinding

I don’t follow that market super closely but it’s interesting nonetheless. It seems these big corrections happen from time to time as well so could just be more of the same. Still one wonders if we are starting to see some structural covariance.

  • JustSo [she/her, any]@hexbear.netEnglish
    2·
    5 days ago

    At least in Australia if you and your local community decide to create a “currency” token to make your barter system a bit more flexible the government will issue a cease and desist (if you’re lucky,) federal police will come and arrest you and you can catch pretty heavy charges. I know a guy who knows a guy, their trade network was super local and tiny and they still got the whole jackboot.

    They didn’t need state backing to make their 90s era barter tokens viable. Governments jealously defend their monopoly on currency for a reason and it’s not to protect the citizens. (at least not directly)

    So it might not scale the way national currency and crypto do, but bottlecap currency is possible and so is any other so long as participants all trust each other to recognise and honour the value of the caps.

    Also consider: prisoners using commissary items as currency for a more widely known example of alternative currency that works quite reliably.

    • FuckyWucky [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
      2·
      5 days ago

      True, but the token’s value came from it being an IOU, being used to settle debts. Something like a giro, payment society. I think the state gets mad at such tokens because they can’t monitor or collect taxes easily (even if it’s in AUD).

      I’ve been reading these two books 1 2 on the same.

      • JustSo [she/her, any]@hexbear.netEnglish
        2·
        5 days ago

        I don’t think an IOU (or a giro payment, if I understand them correctly) are quite equivalent to the token I’m trying to describe, since IOUs (and giro systems?) are only concerned with settling trade balances between two people, while the token(s) serve as agreed units of value which can be freely exchanged with anyone else participating in the micro-economy.

        Agreed that it’s basically all about taxation though.

        I’ve been meaning to read Debt, have you read much of it yet?