Ep. 484 Stablecoins, Gold, and the Fate of the US Dollar
Adam Haman returns, to help Bob unpack a fascinating article outlining the intersection of stablecoins and monetary compeition among the global powers.
Mentioned in the Episode and Other Links of Interest:
- The YouTube version of this conversation.
- This episode’s sponsors, the Scott Horton Academy and The Swan Brothers.
- Bob’s episode on a billionaire bunker, and the leaked briefing to the president.
- The HamanNature substack.
- Help support the Bob Murphy Show.
About the author, Robert
Christian and economist, Chief Economist at infineo, and Senior Fellow with the Mises Institute.
We already tried the idea of trusting large institutions and ultimately governments to hold all the gold and issue fake junk for us peasants to trade with, and it didn’t work.
I’m not seeing how adding crypto to the mix changes anything. Why would you trust Tether any more than you’d trust JPMorgan or USGov? The fact that you have a provable token doesn’t mean they didn’t double dip and play FRB with the gold. You can’t prove anything about that gold just because you have a crypto token. Bitcoin was created in the wake of the 2008 crisis precisely because we can’t trust any 3rd parties. All this stablecoin nonsense is just an abomination bringing us right back to where we started.
Russia learned how much a sTablEcOiN is worth when the US took their stablecoins away :p. Honk.
Why would someone go through one additional intermediary to buy bitcoins, instead of buying them directly with whatever shitcoins they possess? Especially if that intermediary is sooooo much easier for govs to control … imagine someone locking up their gold or cash in these stableshitcoins …. that’s terrifying.
You also don’t really understand what a “blockchain” is, it’s not simply a chain of blocks, git and hash functions existed for a long time – the novel thing that exists now is that the *bitcoin chain* in particular, and only the bitcoin chain(?), has more computation power behind it than anything else, and thus is immutable. Every other chain (including gold) is effectively relatively just a plaintext document that anyone can modify or delete.
An immutable public chain is a horrible idea, as it destroys fungibility and exposes everyone’s financial dealings with the entire world. Do you want the whole world to know that you just acquired a gold bar? Do you want the stores you shop at to know your income and net worth? How about the people shopping in line behind you?
The fact that there is no chain at all with gold is a great thing. It literally doesn’t matter how you got the gold. It’s a pure bearer instrument.
If you’re going to use blockchains, then you need mandatory privacy, and Bitcoin has steadfastly refused to care about this at all.