It appears if you’re a libertarian who wants an alternative to the United States dollar and oppose central banks then you’re “crazy,” at least according to Yishan Wong, CEO of the popular social network Reddit.
Posting comments on Quora on Thursday afternoon in regards to dogecoin, an Internet meme-based cryptocurrency, Wong went onto mention bitcoin and then criticized the hysteria that has filled the bitcoin community, which has led to misinformation.
At first, Wong wrote that there were legitimate libertarians who understood the problems with fiat currencies, but with the digital currency gaining mainstream momentum it has attracted a lot of “poorly-informed” individuals.
“Without being too inflammatory, the user base for bitcoin is basically crazy libertarians who are increasingly poorly-informed about currency systems and macroeconomics,” wrote Wong. “I say ‘increasingly’ because at one time it was fairly well-informed libertarians but as the currency has become mainstream, it’s attracted more poorly-informed individuals and the conversation have become more polarized and less knowledge-based, driving the well-informed and balanced people away, or at least prompting them to recede into the background.”
Although it might seem that Wong is against the virtual currency, he actually does not have any problems with bitcoin. Instead, it’s some of the users who are giving it a bad name. He argues that there is an obsession with ending central banks, fiat currencies and governments and this is “misguided and generally misses the point of bitcoin.”
“I think is that for the first time in history, we have the technology for enabling extremely low-friction electronic payments and certain trust-delegation mechanisms,” added Wong. “That in and of itself is incredibly valuable.”
Wong made an important point in regards to an issue that concerns everyone: the National Security Agency (NSA). He made the case that he wouldn’t be shocked if the NSA supported bitcoin because it could help them prevent illegal transactions.
“By combining their other data streams, they can cross-correlate activity on the blockchain and essentially know exactly who is doing what,” said Wong.
The Matter of Libertarians
It could be a little bit disingenuous to assert that libertarians are in complete support of the virtual currency. There are a number of prominent libertarian economists and thinkers that oppose bitcoin, including Robert Wenzel, Gary North and Peter Schiff. The aforementioned think bitcoin is a Ponzi scheme, pump and dump scheme and/or an enormous bubble on the verge of popping.
“Bitcoin transactions can be tracked by governments very easily and government regulations are coming that will require all Bitcoin exchanges to identify in detail all buyers and sellers of Bitcoin. Bitcoin is NOT a libertarian instrument to battle government,” Wenzel wrote Friday.
However, even if all libertarians endorsed bitcoin today, Marc Andreessen thinks libertarians will eventually “turn on bitcoin” once they realize the blockchain is public, according to remarks he made at the Coin Summit conference this week in San Francisco, California.
Furthermore, there has been internal strife between bitcoiners. On one side, a lot of bitcoin holders want it to remain independent from governments and central banks and thus oppose regulations.
On the other side, there are other bitcoiners who want some regulation in order to legitimize the digital currency and protect consumers – after the Mt. Gox debacle there were numerous cries calling for authorities to do something.
For anyone interested in viewing a debate between two libertarians on the topic of bitcoin, check out the video below:
