> Many governments do not perform this function. The Eurozone is a shared currency standard and it's not like most Eurozone countries have a domestic currency and keep a liquid market of EUR <-> Domestic Currency to transact in the Eurozone. Their credits and debts are denominated in EUR.
I live in a Eurozone country, and while it's not ideal on balance it's been pretty good for us (except for all the bubbles caused by inappropriate interest rates). But it's been absolutely awful for Italy (who are large enough that they probably could support their own currency). And there's a strong argument that the real estate bubbles in the periphery of the Eurozone was driven by extra liquidity and interest rates tuned to get Germany out of it's slump.
But fundamentally the Eurozone is very very different from a stablecoin, particularly around governance and democratic control. To pretend that crypto is the same is pretty misleading. Who is the lender of last resort in crypto? Does anyone know? If you remember the GFC, this should worry you (at least it worries me).
> Then there's countries that use other countries as legal tender, like El Salvador.
How did that experiment with Bitcoin as legal tender go?
There's countries that peg their currencies to other currencies like Gulf States to the USD and the CFA Franc Zone which pegs to the EUR.
So the Gulf states are weird here, as they definitely have the cash to support their currency, but given that their major export is denominated in dollars it makes sense. Then again, I'm not particularly familiar with their economies, so the previous sentence is speculation (like all of this is).
The CFA franc zone is too small to support their own currency. Like, very few countries choose to peg to another currency unless they don't have enough hard assets to defend their currency. It's a least worst option kind of thing.
> > And more generally, if this is your plan, it's profoundly idiotic to say it in public before you've accomplished it, as you're giving your counterparties more time to adjust (which you probably don't want).
> If you're going to call someone's plan idiotic it's best to get your own facts in order first. I mean this is the internet so you can say whatever you want and get internet points but some of us like to think in terms of facts.
To be clear, I'm saying that the CEO of Coinbase was foolish to say this in a public forum. If I wanted to accomplish this, then I'd try to remain as quiet about it as possible while I was doing it, until it was too late to stop me. I think that's a strategic mistake on their part (assuming they want this happen). I'm definitely not calling you idiotic and apologise if that's what came across.
> How did that experiment with Bitcoin as legal tender go?
Interestingly enough, El Salvador uses US Dollars as legal tender. They were forced to stop treating Bitcoin as legal tender when they took a loan from the IMF (because the IMF viewed the instability of Bitcoin as a financial risk), but even before that only small pockets of El Salvador really used Bitcoin. Bitcoin is still usable but not required and I think it's still the same small pockets that use it, often for attracting tourists.
I live in a Eurozone country, and while it's not ideal on balance it's been pretty good for us (except for all the bubbles caused by inappropriate interest rates). But it's been absolutely awful for Italy (who are large enough that they probably could support their own currency). And there's a strong argument that the real estate bubbles in the periphery of the Eurozone was driven by extra liquidity and interest rates tuned to get Germany out of it's slump.
But fundamentally the Eurozone is very very different from a stablecoin, particularly around governance and democratic control. To pretend that crypto is the same is pretty misleading. Who is the lender of last resort in crypto? Does anyone know? If you remember the GFC, this should worry you (at least it worries me).
> Then there's countries that use other countries as legal tender, like El Salvador.
How did that experiment with Bitcoin as legal tender go?
There's countries that peg their currencies to other currencies like Gulf States to the USD and the CFA Franc Zone which pegs to the EUR.
So the Gulf states are weird here, as they definitely have the cash to support their currency, but given that their major export is denominated in dollars it makes sense. Then again, I'm not particularly familiar with their economies, so the previous sentence is speculation (like all of this is).
The CFA franc zone is too small to support their own currency. Like, very few countries choose to peg to another currency unless they don't have enough hard assets to defend their currency. It's a least worst option kind of thing.
> > And more generally, if this is your plan, it's profoundly idiotic to say it in public before you've accomplished it, as you're giving your counterparties more time to adjust (which you probably don't want).
> If you're going to call someone's plan idiotic it's best to get your own facts in order first. I mean this is the internet so you can say whatever you want and get internet points but some of us like to think in terms of facts.
To be clear, I'm saying that the CEO of Coinbase was foolish to say this in a public forum. If I wanted to accomplish this, then I'd try to remain as quiet about it as possible while I was doing it, until it was too late to stop me. I think that's a strategic mistake on their part (assuming they want this happen). I'm definitely not calling you idiotic and apologise if that's what came across.