Great conversation. I have not read much of Marginal Revolution, but this makes me want to give it more of a shot.
His points on Bitcoin being not that secure seemed a little unfounded. I grant that you can rent computers, but the current hash power is 45,000,000 Tera-Hashes a second.
To even potentially 51% attack you would need at minimum 33% of the network. You are not going to be able to rent 15,000,000 Tera-Hashes for an hour. That would be insanely expensive through an AWS service, or similar product. And you aren’t going to buy ASICs for an hour to attack. The amount of capital required to attack Bitcoin would be insane.
I grant that you can attack many alt-coins, but that is the point, they aren’t secure. It’s the reason historically Gold was used over Iron, Iron was less secure (scare in that time) than Gold. From any Austrian analysis I don’t see how you can come to a conclusion that there will be multiple currencies. As Hoppe lays out in “Democracy the God that Failed” the Gold Standard worked so well in Europe because it was one currency and everyone could trade and travel between countries freely. If everyone in your neighborhood is using separate currencies that ruins the division of labor.
Your reasoning for not holding alt-coins should apply to bitcoin too though, considering the dollar is far closer to a universal currency at this point. If you say, “But bitcoin is a better choice for a universal currency,” then that’s the same argument people who prefer alt-coins would make.
Thought you might like this Murphy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bkar4jn3JWw
(carbon tax fraud)
Great conversation. I have not read much of Marginal Revolution, but this makes me want to give it more of a shot.
His points on Bitcoin being not that secure seemed a little unfounded. I grant that you can rent computers, but the current hash power is 45,000,000 Tera-Hashes a second.
To even potentially 51% attack you would need at minimum 33% of the network. You are not going to be able to rent 15,000,000 Tera-Hashes for an hour. That would be insanely expensive through an AWS service, or similar product. And you aren’t going to buy ASICs for an hour to attack. The amount of capital required to attack Bitcoin would be insane.
I grant that you can attack many alt-coins, but that is the point, they aren’t secure. It’s the reason historically Gold was used over Iron, Iron was less secure (scare in that time) than Gold. From any Austrian analysis I don’t see how you can come to a conclusion that there will be multiple currencies. As Hoppe lays out in “Democracy the God that Failed” the Gold Standard worked so well in Europe because it was one currency and everyone could trade and travel between countries freely. If everyone in your neighborhood is using separate currencies that ruins the division of labor.
So don’t hold altcoins.
Your reasoning for not holding alt-coins should apply to bitcoin too though, considering the dollar is far closer to a universal currency at this point. If you say, “But bitcoin is a better choice for a universal currency,” then that’s the same argument people who prefer alt-coins would make.