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Home / 🗃️ unorganized / general notes / Why cryptocurrencies may not be necessary

Why cryptocurrencies may not be necessary

References:

  • Star Trek Universe does not have currency.
  • Yet when connecting with regions outside the federation, they still have to use an exchange currency called the Federation Unit with the external species.
  • A similar concept is drawn in What all must a person do

Cryptocurrencies were meant to provide an alternative means of currency. The advantages of the platform were mainly:

Advantages Satisfied Necessary
It provides an alternative to the banking system, where we have to rely on banks for the security of our digital storage and transactions. Yes Yes
It provides a uniform currency for everyone This is satisfied only within the scope of the communities we are already connected with No

There are also disadvantages to it:

Disadvantage Whether true
It consumes too much electricity to keep the system running, and hence contributes to increased greenhouse gas emissions. True, but it seems to be better than the banking system at that. See Power Usage Comparison of CC and banking systems
It requires everyone to be equipped with a cellphone for even the basic transactions. True, but this can be solved by printed Layer 2 notes and banks, for example. This is like traditional banks, but still the energy requirement of the banks themselves are not a concern here.
It may eventually require more electricity than banks since the system runs on the incentive of profit. And this also fuels the capitalists True, but this is the same for any capitalist system in general. This system can be made to burn the profits, but then no one will run the nodes, and the security will decrease. It can't even be made to evenly distribute the profits to everyone because of false identities.
Left-click: follow link, Right-click: select node, Scroll: zoom
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