Nassim Taleb - Bitcoin future and difference between other valuable bank-controlled currencies

Nassim Taleb shared his own preface to the book by Sayphedin Ammus The Bitcoin Standard. Let's follow the logic of things from the very beginning. Or, rather, from the end - c of modernity. At the time I am writing these lines, we are witnessing a total riot against a certain class of experts in areas that are too complex for our understanding - such as macroeconomics, in which these experts are not only unaware of themselves, but also do not realize this. The fact that former leaders of the Federal Reserve System, Greenspan and Bernanke, had little understanding of the empirical reality, we realized too late: it is easier to hang large noodles on ears than small ones, so it is necessary to be cautious about those whom we empower to make major centralized decisions.

Worst of all, all the central banks worked on the same model, creating an ideal monoculture.

In complex areas, experience does not concentrate: in real conditions, the distribution mechanism works, as convincingly demonstrated by Hayek (Friedrich Hayek, one of the prominent economists and philosophers of the 20th century, Nobel Prize winner of 1974). But Hayek used the notion of "scattered knowledge". Well, it seems that we do not even need what we call "knowledge", that everything works. We also do not need individual rationality. All we need is a structure.

This does not mean that all participants in the process make a decision in a democratic way. One motivated player can change the state of affairs (I studied this asymmetry of the minority rule). But each participant has the opportunity to be this player.

Somehow, when scaling, there is an amazing effect: a rational market does not require rationality from a single trader. In fact, the market works perfectly without the intervention of reason - a large number of uneducated participants in a competent organization cope better than total control and a narrow circle of intellectuals at the helm.

That's why bitcoin is a great idea. It satisfies the needs of a complex system, not because it is a crypto currency, but precisely because it does not have an owner, there is no authority that influences its fate. It belongs to the crowd, belongs to its users. Now the track record of bitcoin is several years old, and this is enough to recognize his right to exist.

To compare with bitcoin, other crypto-currencies need a similar quality, which Hayek described.

Bitcoin is a currency without a government. Someone will ask: but do we not have gold, silver and other metals, other classes of currencies without the government? Not really. When you trade gold, the lot can be in Hong Kong, and when you get the right to assets, you might want to transfer them to New Jersey. Banks control the managers, and governments control the banks (and rather, bankers and government officials, so to speak, have close relationships). Therefore, bitcoin has a huge advantage compared to gold: the transaction does not require special permission from officials. No government can control the code in your head. Finally, bitcoin expects ups and downs. He can fail; but then it will be easy to reinvent it, because now we know how it works. In its current state, it may not be very convenient to use, they do not pay a cup of espresso macchiato without caffeine in a cozy coffee shop on the corner. Perhaps bitcoin is too volatile, at least not yet. But this is the first organic currency. The very existence of bitcoin is insurance, which will remind governments that they no longer have a monopoly on currency, the last object that the ruling elite controlled. This is our insurance against the future under the scenario of Orwell.