Democracy Demands a Say in the Future of Money
The U.S. Treasury’s decision to impose know-your-customer rules to private cryptocurrency wallets is flawed in more ways than one.
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Bitcoin is commonly regarded as a truly democratic form of money. Interestingly enough, however, there seem to be various explanations supporting this characterization. Furthermore, at least one of these interpretations have caused some to doubt whether Bitcoin does in fact still represent the democratization of money, or whether it has perhaps become susceptible to less democratic forces throughout the years since its inception. In order to understand why this doubt is understandable yet unjust, it is helpful to recognize which two types of democracy, as distinguished by political....
What's the last thing you expect an entrepreneur from one of the most prominent multi billion-dollar banking families in the United States to say? Would it include bitcoin in any form? Many would suggest the digital currency would be a banker's worst nightmare, but Matthew Taylor Mellon II - presently the Chairman of the New York Republican Party's Finance Committee - seems to be quite the fan. In an interview with Forbes, the highly-successful business man suggested digital currency could be the future of democracy in some respects. "I feel like citizens are fed up with banksters," he....
Regardless of one’s opinions about the outcome, the recent Brexit referendum in the U.K. should be considered a welcome example of direct democracy. In fact, letting the citizens express their preference on important issues, bypassing the intermediation of politicians, is often desirable. Why, then, isn’t direct democracy used more often? One reason is that it costs money to organize and run elections. Another is that voting is still a 20th century (or 19th century) process that requires physically going to a place, or in the best cases, sending paper documents via snail mail. Therefore,....
Democracy is antithetical to the fundamentals of private property rights and, therefore, the functional, fair organization of society.
In 2017, high-flying bitcoiners attempted to foment democracy in Venezuela by airdropping crypto and paper wallets. What did we learn from these experiments?