Chris Hayes on the coming cryptocurrency scam.

[tetedur]

[rampartd]

1. hat can possibly go wrong?

"pay off the national debt? are these people really this crazy?

and what is wrong with their voters?

why are these massively energy intensive bitcin mines allowed to exist, much less the sems like daily arrests for fraud?

[Celerity]

4. IF you take the most wildly optimistic valuation for BTC (I have seen a $3m per BTC target by 2030) and assume that the

US will end up with 1 million bitcoins (what the crypto bros are calling for), and then take that and and TRIPLE it (to 3 million BTC) that yields a gross valuation of 9 trillion USD at $3m per BTC.

Bear in mind that there are only 21 million bitcoins possible ever, around 20 million have already been mined, and of that 20 million, 4 to 8 million are lost forever (via lost wallets, people who have died and did not leave the privates keys to anyone, people who lost the private keys themselves, etc etc). Taking a conservative guess and saying 5 million are perma-lost, that leaves, atm, only 15 million or so out there. For the US to get to 3 million BTC, they would have to literally buy up 20% or so of all the bitcoins that will ever exist. They also can never come close to selling off 20% of the total supply without crashing the valuation to a massive level.

The national debt will be over 40 trillion USD by 2030, probably far larger. 9 trillion USD (and that number is extraordinarily unlikely to be able to be realised via selling off the US holdings in toto or anywhere near in toto) will never come close to paying off that ever-increasing US national debt. It is fantasyland.

[BeerBarrelPolka]

6. Good

Good post. Thank you.

[Celerity]

8. Let's take it to a maximal level. By 2050 or so, counting unfunded liabilities, the US cumulative exposure could well be

closing in on 200 trillion USD (hard debt, plus unfunded liabilities).

Let's say that the US somehow (fantasy but let's play this out) ends up with HALF of all BTC that is available.

Around 7.5 million bitcoins (and that is IF the perma-lost BTC stays, or is, only 5 million lost, and that number may well be, as time goes on, far too small, it may end up at 7 or even 8 million perma-lost, reducing the 7.5m BTC US holding number (if we are saying the US holds HALF of all BTC) down to as low as 6 million BTC)

Let us also project an extraoridinary 10 MILLION USD per BTC market valuation.

That 7.5 million BTC would have a GROSS value (if ALL were liquidated, which again is impossible for reasons stated before) of 75 trillion USD.

Nowhere near paying off the national debt (which if we go off current defict rates, could be around 80 trillion USD by 2050) PLUS covering the unfunded liabilities, and that is with my utterly profound fantasyland projections of the US holding HALF of all of the entire BTC supply and a ONE HUNDRED-FOLD increase in the price from its current 100K USD per BTC.

[BeerBarrelPolka]

9. Looks

Looks very bleak for the USA.

[Celerity]

12. That ability to add insane amounts of debt (sometimes called the never ending printing press) is why the US empire

has to maintain a global force projection (well over 1000 military bases, etc etc).

The petro-dollar matrix is a fundamental underpinning of the whole debt scheme. It is what helps to maintain the US dollar as the word's reserve currency and allows for dollar-derived assets to be maintained and/or created.

In order to buy petrol/oil, you, in most cases, have to exchange your non US dollar funds to US dollars. The USD exchange pit, driven by petro-dollar exchanges to a large (of not 100 per cent) degree, is the biggest on the planet, able to absorb trillions of dollars in exchanges with ease, and it ensures the demand for dollars, which in turn allows for the issuing of USD debt via US treasury bonds and other instruments.

Take away the demand for USD and other assets derived from it, and the whole US debt system collapses, along with the nation to a massive degree.

[BeerBarrelPolka]

13. .

Are we in danger of that happening with trump?

[Celerity]

14. That (complete collapse of the petro-dollar matrix) is one (of the very few) things that I am not that worried about

with Trump, unless he starts WWIII (which I suppose is possible).

[BannonsLiver]

16. The US has about 750 bases around the world.

Not “thousands”. I’m guessing many fellow Europeans are probably glad those bases exist, given the current state of the world and their limited ability to defend themselves.

[Celerity]

17. I did not say 'thousands' but I did forget to subtract hundreds of bases in Iraq and Afghanistan that were closed, and

I did say 'etc etc', meaning not just bases, but also smaller installations/offices as well.

Sweden, btw, has superb defensive capabilities, far beyond many other European nation states.

Total defence

https://www.government.se/government-policy/total-defence/



Sweden’s total defence involves the whole of society. Total defence is the range of activities required to prepare Sweden for war and consists of two areas of activity – military defence and civil defence.

[Lovie777]

2. Devalue of the almighty dollar....

Whatever shithole touches …..

Dies.

[keithbvadu2]

3. Of course, the regulations have to be lessened.

They restrict the grift.

[kansasobama]

5. That was one of the best from Chris Hayes

I have mentioned before to DUers, we should not blindly not support MSNBC because of Morning Joe or Katy Tur. We have to support Hayes, Maddow, Lawrence and Wagner. Alex Wagner is putting out some good stuff. I yell and scream at MSNBC management but also support these people.

The price of eggs crowd have a disaster coming after Trump leaves (how convenient). Elon Musk will be fine as the nation's reserve screws up. We really hope an outstanding Democrat shows up as a leader that energized everyone, including red staters. Not easy because SC and Constitution is against us. It is so important Trump administration is so disastrous that he is thrown out early and is a lame duck early. It is not about "let us work together" Democrat. Else fascism will become permanent.

[hunter]

15. I don't pay any attention to Hayes, Maddow, Lawrence and Wagner BECAUSE they work for MSNBC.

Working for the advertising-supported-television-news-and-opinion-industry makes them part of the problem.

They are cogs in a machine that makes people comfortably numb to all sorts of atrocities.

My own television plays DVDs and Netflix. My wife and I quit all advertising supported television in 2012. We don't have cable, satellite, or broadcast television, no television "channels" at all, news channels or otherwise.

Traditional television created the Orange Monster. I cannot in good conscience support it in any way.

[Uncle Joe]

7. A 21st century version of investing in tulips, at one time you could get five houses for one tulip bulb

Thanks for the thread tetedur.

[William Seger]

10. Take your pick, crypto is either a legal Ponzi scheme or legalized gambling

... but the Burger King will go for it because he believes that markets create wealth. They do not -- markets are simply where "things of value" are traded, and every dollar taken out of a market is a dollar someone else brought in. The problem is, when demand is based on absolutely nothing but greedy speculation that someone will pay more than you did, that demand can evaporate very quickly. As constituted now, as an "investment" opportunity, crypto is not and never will be stable enough to be taken seriously as a "currency." Would any sane person ever hoard dollars in hopes that someone will pay more for them than they did? Would you want the value of a dollar to drop significantly because of a Tweet?

[BoRaGard]

11. Kreepto

k and r