Share this page!

Alex Gladstein 🌋 ⚡ Profile picture
Twitter logo
Feb 12 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
This @ecb paper on CBDCs reveals what kind of plans central bankers are toying with:

-Overcoming use of banknotes for savings
-Overcoming ZLB with negative interest rates on cash
-Easier ability to provide helicopter money
-Larger seignorage income to the state
-End to privacy
Full paper: "Tiered CBDC and the Financial System"

(H/T: @HaggsBoson)

ecb.europa.eu/pub/pdf/scpwps…
I would point out that these “benefits” are mainly monetary, for the state. Ending privacy is nice for them but they have bigger aims

Satoshi knew
What kind of effect do people think CBDCs deployed at scale will have on scarce asset and commodity prices? 😅

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
　

Keep Current with Alex Gladstein 🌋 ⚡

Alex Gladstein 🌋 ⚡ Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @gladstein

Alex Gladstein 🌋 ⚡ Profile picture
Feb 1
Some thoughts on the @saylor / @jack fireside:

On Bitcoin's global impact, Jack says it's important for there to be a world currency where "decisions in Washington don't impact people in Nigeria"

✅
Saylor brings up the Blocksize Wars and says he didn't appreciate their significance when he first learned about Bitcoin but now realizes how critical they were.

Jack points out how remarkable the outcome was given that Satoshi didn't have to get involved.
Jack mentions that in Bitcoin, "nothing is hidden"

This is, IMO, one of the most important parts about Bitcoin.

Everything is open and knowable. There are no smoky back rooms.
Read 20 tweets
Alex Gladstein 🌋 ⚡ Profile picture
Jan 30
1/ Democratic Peace Theory rests on the idea that democracies have “skin in the game” when it comes to war and are less likely to fight than autocracies unless for a narrowly-defined, popular, vital cause.

This book by @sekreps argues convincingly that this theory is broken 🧵 Image
2/ History shows that over time representative governments—especially in this case the US—inevitably turn to financing war through *borrowing* instead of through taxes or war bonds, hiding the immediate costs of war from a public that is less and less interested in war fighting.
3/ America’s wars in Afghanistan and Iraq (and the ongoing Global War on Terror) were — unlike WWI or WW2 or even Vietnam — paid for *entirely* by borrowing.

Bush even cut taxes during the Iraq War.

So far Americans have paid ~ $1 trillion on interest for this borrowing spree.
Read 7 tweets
Alex Gladstein 🌋 ⚡ Profile picture
Jan 29
1/ I recently finished "The Lords of Easy Money," a superb new book from @CLeonardNews on how over the last three decades the @FederalReserve financially engineered a system of cheap borrowing and inflated asset prices with shocking consequences 💵 🧵

simonandschuster.com/books/The-Lord…
2/ Many people don't believe the Fed has much power over society, saying for example, they just "follow the market."

This book gives strong evidence to the contrary, showing how Fed decisions shaped the American economy--and American society more broadly--to a significant degree
3/ The book focuses on quantitative easing, showing how the Fed used QE post-GFC to basically take away savings accounts of banks by buying up tons of 10-year Treasuries, removing "safe" assets and forcing the economy farther out on the yield curve into riskier investments.
Read 70 tweets
Alex Gladstein 🌋 ⚡ Profile picture
Jan 26
1/ "The development of payment gateways and online stores and adopting BTC as a payment method in physical spaces led to a $ in BTC listed higher in Cuban pesos than a $ in cash for the first time"

🧵 on what Cubans are doing with Bitcoin 🇨🇺 ⚡

eltoque.com/products-and-s…
2/ **Paying for Apple+, Netflix and Spotify Premium**

-More and more homes are able to access a stable internet
-VPN use is widespread
-One can use BTC to pay for streaming services via services like @bitrefill
3/ **Transfers to international bank accounts**

-Using services like @QvaPay, one can top up their account with BTC and transfer funds to a US bank account
-Outside of cryptocurrencies, this isn't structurally easy, as the Cuban financial system is designed to trap value
Read 10 tweets
Alex Gladstein 🌋 ⚡ Profile picture
Jan 26
1/ Big-brained @Slate journalists write that Bitcoin is "just a crappy tech stock" and think that its purpose is "absolutely nothing"

Where to begin?

First, Bitcoin has completely destroyed tech stocks over the past decade.

AMZN is up 16x since January 2012.

Bitcoin? ~3,500x
2/ Unlike tech stocks, Bitcoin is open to anyone in the world with an internet connection.

It is open and inclusive technology, and cannot exclude by its very nature.

Palestinians, Cubans, Iranians, and Nigerians can't buy US tech stocks -- but they can buy Bitcoin.
3/ Unlike gold, BTC can teleport anywhere on earth instantly and cheaply, courtesy Lightning.

And unlike gold most BTC is held by individuals, NOT governments + big banks.

It's not centralized in one place and thus can't be demonetized or have its spot price suppressed for long
Read 9 tweets
Alex Gladstein 🌋 ⚡ Profile picture
Jan 23
1/ It is fascinating to see establishment financial “experts” try to dunk on Bitcoin and claim that the recent crash shows that BTC is “not an inflation hedge”

The reality is that BTC has been a superb inflation hedge since it was created and released in the wake of the GFC 🧵
2/ Since BTC’s 2009 invention we have seen dramatic dollar price rises or expansionary behavior across many sectors, assets, and measures.

For example:

-Real Estate 📈
-Stocks 📈
-National Debt 📈
-Bank Lending 📈
-M2 📈
-CPI 📈
-Healthcare 📈
-Education 📈
-Interest rates 📉
3/ Curiously, gold—which had been a great inflation hedge for centuries—did *very* well for a few years after the GFC, but has been pretty much flat for the last decade:
Read 12 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!

This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Don't want to be a Premium member but still want to support us?

Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal

Or Donate anonymously using crypto!

Ethereum

0xfe58350B80634f60Fa6Dc149a72b4DFbc17D341E copy

Bitcoin

3ATGMxNzCUFzxpMCHL5sWSt4DVtS8UqXpi copy

Thank you for your support!

Like this author's thread?

Get emails when @gladstein has new unrolls!

Check out other threads from @gladstein!

Read all threads by @gladstein

:(