Topic: Republic Of Bitcoin (Read 5168 times)

http://www.africanbusinessreview.co.za/money_matters/bitcoin-an-african-finance-revolution

Written last month by Marco Thomas Picardi,
Centre for African Development and Security
http://cads-cdsa.org/2011/06/bitcoin-an-african-finance-revolution/

We are a "crumbling empire"

Though gold and platinum are obvious choices for Rhodesia, bitcoin is not an absurd option. The average Zimbabwean need not be a bitcoin miner. They already trade ZAR and USD every day and digital money transfers and banking via mobile telephone are more common in East Africa than most anywhere else in the world.

excellent point. This is American ignorance at its finest. Most there don't even realize that they are quite low on the list of countries with bandwidth access. Many parts of Asia enjoy cheaper cellular and internet access rates as a percentage of their income than Americans do.

And don't mind these folks - most of them don't even realize that America looks to be heading in the direction of a third-world country. Maybe there should be an official term for this. As opposed to "developing nation", perhaps "devolving nation" would be the right phrase?

A bank that did this with Bitcoin would be out of business in a week. If it ever opened its doors in the first place.

Fiat backed by bitcoins would be the traditional fractonal reserve banking solution. Ten of us borrow 21,000,000 bitcoins (notionally; we don't need them actually delivered to us as they cancel out in a few short steps, resulting in us paying back the interest-free loan of them so fast there is no time for any interest to accrue on them); print up 21,000,000 bitbills of face value one bitcoin each; deposit 2,100,000 bitbills each into our First National Bank of Bitcoin, use a staggeringly unheard-of-ly high reserve ratio, like huge, vast, entire points (hundredths of a percent) higher than the 10% some of the best banks in the world use, so lets say, at least 11%, heck lets blow the whole banking world's minds with an insanely outrageously high ratio of.... 20% !!!

So the First National Bank of Bitcoin can now offer loans totalling up to 84,000,000, fully fractionally-reserve-backed (hell, more than fully, this is way more than the normal full fractional reserve the world is used to).

So all ten of us borrow 8,400,000 each at the Bitcoin National Reserve Rate, which because we are going to benefactor the entire Bitcoin Nation we'll waive, being as we are the Board of Directors and Major Shareholders, we might as well waive, to encourage us to emmigrate to the Bitcoin nation and perform this massive undertaking for them.

We loan this 84,000,000 to the Bitcoin nation at some trivial rate, only enough to cover a few basic expenses such as buying up all liquidity on the planet including bitcoins, and that only over generations, not right away.

That governmental obligation (to pay the interest on the loan), which of course the government will tax the citizenry to cover, we'll call Bitcoin Treasury Notes, and keep in our digital vaults as reserves so we don't need any actual bitcoins in our reserves, these Bitcoin Treasury Notes are worth four times as much as a paltry 21,000,000 bitcoins (84,000,000 plus interest!) so forget about the bitcoins, we don't need them, as I said at the start they were purely notional...

-MarkM-

Talking about yourself in the third person there?

Off topic but true. There is an Aluminum smelter down the road from me that over a period of years leaked so much diesel that you can put a pipe in the ground and out comes diesel. Perhaps a miracle awaits bitcoin..

mmm... They might actually be receptive to Bitcoin. After all, Zimbabwean politicians have fallen for more ridiculous things like the Diesel N'anga

What's wrong with Bitbills (http://bitbills.com/)?

How about you guys write him a letter, educating him about BTCs. Lets call it the Zimbabwe Connection.

FTW! Sound monetary policy coming from Gideon Gono?? The world has truly turned upside down  

I'm glad I haven't renounced my citizenship yet.

Bitcoin is proudly and voluntarily sustained not by force.

The Bitcoin military would have the motto, "I solemnly swear to preserve, protect, and defend the integrity of the Bitcoin blockchain, from all enemies, whether spammers, forks, or protocol attacks."

Zimbabwe's central bank chief, Dr Gideon Gono is shopping for new currency, saying “The events of the 2008 Global Financial Crisis demand a new approach to self reliance and a stable mineral-backed currency”

Virtual, or online societies wouldn't work, in my opinion, because trade is usually done for physical things.

An earlier poster used the analagy of people saying they are an online king and demand taxes off of everybody. It's ludicrous.

I believe Bitcoins adoption will be slow as pockets of communities reach out to each other on a global level with ease, a level that couldn't be achieved with our surrent monetary systems, this will mean local businesses will eventually pop up.

Of course, if a country wishes to adopt BitCoin as their national currency, how on Earth will they get enough to support a national economy? Will the governmetn be expected to buy millions of BitCoins from the market?

I believe if this adoption were to take place, first the government would create a paper currency which would be backed by BitCoin, (more like digital coin not a certificate for redeemable BitCoin. Self-issued credit in terms of BitCoin) as that would be easier to distribute. They would also declare BitCoins as legal tender, so slowly but surely, BitCoins will be introduced into the national economy, but the economy isn't stunted by lack of BitCoins.

Anonymous enough to avoid taxation, and can work outside of government's monitoring of the financial system. You can work for cash and pay with cash to get the same effects, but that cash is still coming from somewhere and going to somewhere and questions can be asked. With Bitcoin it may be easier to be completely under the radar.

The point is that BTC offer a great way to escape from the taxman here and there. That is one of the biggest reasons why I am a believer in the project.

Guys - we won't need a whole country. A type of special administrative/semi-autonomous region like Hong Kong, Jersey or even some Native American nations would do. After all, all you need is a legal, internationally accepted body for constant money exchange.

As far as physical money in circulation goes... their central bank (or any other trusted institution for that matter) issuing fiat money on the bitcoin standard should do the trick.

If it imports oil: it will go bancrupt.
If it sells oil: it will be invaded by the banksters USofA and bombed into submission to the dollar.
It's as simple as that.