
Basecoin: A Robust, Price-Stable Cryptocurrency with an Algorithmic Central Bank - xwvvvvwx
http://www.getbasecoin.com/
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mooneater
I love the concept of leapfrogging fiat by pegging to CPI in future. Avoid
deflation of bitcoin _and_ inflation of USD. Although then the game becomes
(as it is now with CPI), who determines exactly what's in the CPI basket?

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blueadept111
So how does this coin make or save me money, to compensate for the risk of
buying it and trusting the "algorithmic" central bank (which apparently has a
tweakable algorithm, and therefore requires trust in the central overseer?)

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xwvvvvwx
Right now crypto traders sometimes sell to fiat to wait out a period of market
volatility.

Selling instead to the stable coin would mean they don't have any tax issues.

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namlem
Except that's not true anymore. The new tax plan will tax crypto-to-crypto
transactions.

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xwvvvvwx
Only in the US.

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xwvvvvwx
Really interested in this. There are very good reasons we moved off the gold
standard, and I've never seen a really convincing argument why we would change
our minds.

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qubex
I wrote this about the absurdity of bitcoin's (and other naive
cryptocurrencies’) finite amount of money a while ago, and have posted it a
few times in threads (so please forgive me if you have already seen it). I try
to explain in layman's terms (I am a macroeconomist) why finite-supply (thus
deflationary) and non-fractional-reserve-banking-enabling currencies are toxic
to the economy.

[https://medium.com/@jamesjunghanns/my-0-00000173120-btc-a-
pr...](https://medium.com/@jamesjunghanns/my-0-00000173120-btc-a-practicing-
orthodox-macroeconomists-unsolicited-views-on-
bitcoin-543da352fc49?source=linkShare-229012a5fba0-1513957626)

I specifically mentioned BaseCoin as being a reasonable and macroeconomically
valid currency.

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mooneater
> absurdity of bitcoin's (and other naive cryptocurrencies’) finite amount of
> money

Bitcoin can be seen as a middle finger to inflation, more than a basis for
primary currency.

If nothing else, it certainly as helped advance the conversation on the nature
of money supply.

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qubex
Cryptocurrencies (at least the first ones, those before BaseCoin) aren’t
really currencies at all. They’re ’just’ clever decentralised ways of
manufacturing scarcity in this day and age of infinitely copiable digita
information.

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dreamdu5t
Why pegged to the dollar? Seems like a fatal flaw.

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cantrip
The point is that it's stable relative to the most used and trusted currency
on the planet.

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dreamdu5t
So why not just hold dollars?

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cantrip
A "stablecoin" allows traders to move in and out of cryptocurrency positions
to a stable currency quickly, without converting to true USD, which is slow to
process.

It also allows the transfer of stable value (payments, remittances) on the
blockchain, rather than transferring volatile currencies and converting them
to USD, incurring the risk of price fluctuation and conversion fees.

A stable coin is a very valuable asset to the ecosystem.

