Is Bitcoin ‘disgusting and contrary to the interests of civilization’ or should boomers just chill? – The Columbus Dispatch

Arvind Sabu| Guest columnist

I regularly encounter two mythologies about Bitcoin mythologies which allow us to celebrate our existing beliefs about how the world works.

Boomers often rant that Bitcoin is a dangerous and useless fad, while millennials offer rosy techno-utopian visions of how it will address a range of social ills.Both mythologies simplify evolving cryptocurrency-based ecosystems.

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And, as someone who researches the taxation of cryptocurrency an intersection of the machinery of the state with novel blockchain technologies I wince at both mythologies.

But the boomer mythology about Bitcoin troubles me more deeply. It seems misguided on two fronts. First, as an empirical matter, Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies offer a broad range of utilities not present even a few years ago.

Second, as a normative matter, our existing system of value creation and transfer screams injustice; we see in it layers of oppressions the colonizers over the colonized, the haves over the have-nots, and relatedly the easy credit in certain corporate and housing sectors compared to the usurious terms of payday lending and credit cards.

There have been many significant developments in the cryptocurrency space over the past few years.I highlight two: a robust cryptocurrency-based saving and lending infrastructure and thick, mature, liquid markets for Bitcoin.

The wealthy have access to much higher rates of return than do the poor.The latter might have savings of a few hundred dollars, if they have any savings at all, and so rarely receive anything beyond a trivial interest rate for their wealth.

By contrast, cryptocurrency savings platforms such as BlockFi and Celsius offer double-digit rates.These cryptocurrency platforms also offer highly efficient collateral-based loans. They oftentimes fund a loan the same day and at much lower interest rates than those required under credit cards.

Furthermore, there are clear advances in the development of mature, liquid markets for Bitcoin.

Ten years ago, Mt. Gox was the principal bitcoin exchange in the world.Despite the hullaballoo about decentralization, it seemed that most users had to deal with one company and an opaque, unsavory one at that to trade in Bitcoin.

Now, there are hundreds of Bitcoin spot and derivative exchanges.

The largest cryptocurrency exchange in the US Coinbase is now a publicly traded company.The Chicago Mercantile Exchange has offered Bitcoin futures since 2017, andthis week a Bitcoin exchange-traded fund launched.

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Furthermore, technological advances enable political experimentation we see that with El Salvadors decision to make Bitcoin legal tender and Ohios acceptance of Bitcoin for tax payments.

The latter proposal failed as experiments sometimes do but that failure is a necessary step in coming up with systems that work well and at scale.Some boomers seem to ignore such experimentation, preferring instead to imagine that the Bitcoin ecosystem is exactly as it was 10 years ago.

That selective observation may be, in part, due to differing normative commitments.Billionaire Charlie Munger said in May that he hated Bitcoins success, and that the whole damn development is disgusting and contrary to the interests of civilization.

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Attempts to create alternative money seem to perplex some boomers people who have lived at the top in post-war America with easy access to good money.But they live well while much of the world lives poorly partly due to our opaque, deeply inequitable system of national currencies.

To be sure, Bitcoin is no panacea.

But it enables sociotechnical experimentation that has become a promising frontier of possibility.

Arvind Sabu serves as an assistant professor of law at Capital University Law School, where he teaches tax and business associations. He researches the taxation of cryptocurrencies.

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Is Bitcoin 'disgusting and contrary to the interests of civilization' or should boomers just chill? - The Columbus Dispatch