Posts tagged "finance" | Prole Cafe Blog

CFPCs

The label 'CBDC' is deceptive and should be discarded. I suggest a replacement: CFPC. Centralized Fiat Programmable Currency. This is important because the existing term throws us off the scent.

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I sense scant interest in crypto out there. What a difference a year makes! Take your mind back to New Year’s Eve, 2024-5. Cryptopians were not sparing the champagne. Trump had won; crypto had dodged a Democrat bullet. Ross Ulbricht was to be pardoned. On December 13th, bitcoin (BTC) had hit six figures in price. Bitcoin Maxis brashly weened1 whether $150,000 or $250,000 was a more likely target for the end of 2025.2 Everything was going to plan. I want to give my top reasons why things did not go to plan.

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Crypto For Lefties, Part Three

I have been trying to convince Lefties that crypto is a good option for them too. In Part One, I argued that it makes no sense to cling to the banksters’ form of money, e.g. dollars, in a reactionary way, unless you really are a Reactionary.1 In Part Two, I gave the reader my recommendation of the three best ‘Left-aligned’ cryptocurrencies to use. I know that most Lefties will have nagging doubts still. Doubts over crypto are reasonable. I will try to deal with some of them.

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How To Set Up OpenAlias DNS

Have you used my OpenAlias Record Maker, and copied your valid OpenAlias record? Skip ahead to Step 3. Otherwise, there's one crucial step first. You need a domain.

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Monero Under Attack

At time of writing, the Monero Blockchain is under attack, and not by some secretive group of hackers, as is usually the case, but by the leaders of a rival coin, qubic (QUBIC). Qubic didn't do anything clever. Qubic said to Monero's miners: "Keep mining XMR, but do it under our control, and we'll triple your profit." Admittedly, it doesn't take much to lure a miner. I think Monero's miners are more loyal than others.1 I suspect that Qubic lured away far fewer miners of monero (XMR) than implied. The whole organization smells fishy to me, but I won't go down that rabbit-hole here. There's a lot of cap-and-gown disquisition at the moment. Proof-of-Work in general is under scrutiny. Well-meaning nerds reach for technical solutions by default, but I think Satoshi's system was successful due to behavioural economics.

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The Coming Crypto Crisis Opportunity

I want to get ahead of this one. I suspect a plan is being rolled out. A recent article in the Financial Times alerted me to it. The plan is to coordinate media to blame crypto for the next big crash. I also think a big crash is closer than we think.

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Two Kinds of Centralization

Recently, I wrote that, by calling it a 'Central Bank Digital Currency', it's too narrow, our scope of wariness. The ‘Central Bank’ part is not to be sneezed at. Just don't end up watching for wolves and getting mauled by a bear. It’s the centralized aspect itself which demands vigilance. If our form of money is centralized, then expect it to be conquered. This might come as a dramatic takeover, but more likely would happen with bribery and blackmail behind the scenes. I want to flesh this idea out with examples. Specifically, I want to look at the two main kinds of centralization with a cryptocurrency: centralized ‘mining’ (i.e. the minting of digital currency) and centralized development.

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What is P2P V4V?

P2P V4V stands for 'Peer-to-Peer, Value-for-Value'. 'Peer-to-Peer' is a way of doing commerce. 'Value-for-Value' is a way of doing commerce. Both have been around for a while now. As far as I know, joining them together is new. The result is a basic framework for commerce that is fairer and freeer and leverages existing 21st century technology.

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