Monday, October 14, 2013

MIT Economist: Bitcoin Likely to Be Quashed

Governments and established financial institutions are likely to launch a campaign to quash the decentralized digital currency Bitcoin, according to a leading economist and academic. Simon Johnson, a professor of entrepreneurship at MIT’s Sloan School of Management, expects Bitcoin to face political pressure and aggressive lobbying from big banks because of its disruptive nature, reports MIT Technology Review.

“There is going to be a big political backlash,” Johnson said on stage at MIT Technology Review’s EmTech conference in Cambridge, Massachusetts, last Thursday. “And the question is whether the people behind those currencies are ready for that and have their own political strategy.”

Johnson said, according to TR, that Bitcoin’s success will draw increased attention from governments and regulators, who are used to having tight control over currencies. He believes they will be egged on by established financial institutions, which will likely seek to quash the currency.

Johnson was chief economist for the International Monetary Fund in 2007 and 2008

4 comments:

  1. No doubt they will shutdown bitcoin, Government does not want competition for anything they are involved with or might get involved with, especially money!

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  2. Just a thought but would it be beneficial to encourage both party voters to take up Bitcoins? Maybe not a campaign against government or its policies. That would only make Bitcoin people look like criminals and traitors because how most people are statists (excuse the cynicism). But, a campaign kind of like gold and precious metals where they could save a person's investments, but with Bitcoin it seems to have the capability to be more convenient. However, Bitcoin people have got to figure out a way to penetrate the market more where larger amounts of people are using the coin, not the whole "let's meet in some park and exchange currencies" or do bank transfers along with providing ID and waiting or whatever else. Which, I think they are trying to set something up that's easier for exchanges. They're competing with ATMs; it's what people know. This way people will understand what is at stake if government quashes it. The more people that uses it - the more average people that uses it - the more trouble the government will have quashing it. Maybe people will figure out what the true nature of the fiat dollar is.

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  3. Yeah that's what we need. A campaign to badmouth Bitcoin.
    People need to limit their attention to fiat money instead, because that is REAL money.

    And what Kokesh did is really stupid. You don't take action against the state and you mock those that do.
    Better to constantly write little articles and hope for some kind of miracle instead.

    I just have to wonder what the point is of cynically putting down any attempt, naive as though it may be, by people who actually TRY to do something against the state other than pointlessly participating in the machine (such as Ron Paul, no slight intended on the educational merits).

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  4. Back in the 1930s when gold was still money, and competing against the paper dollars, the government made it illegal for private citizens to own gold and required all existing gold ownership to be turned over to the Fed in exchange for paper dollars. Gold ownership was then banned for 40 years, probably to allow the old generation who viewed it as money to die off. I have no doubt that the government can and will likewise ban bitcoins, if it feels sufficiently threatened and there is no organized political opposition. At that point, bitcoins, like gold was, will be contraband, with all of the risks and hassles that come with that status.

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