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- Scarcity, a blunt instrument
- DeFi a double-edged sword
- Uncontrolled Finance has imminent risks
Accelerationism is an idea in sociology that envisages accelerated capitalism and technological change, which precipitates great revolt and establishes new, unique political and economic systems. Accelerationism is further split between the left-wing and right-wing variants. Left-wing variants, as the name, suggests attempts to push for the utopian goal of socially beneficial and emancipatory ends. On the other hand, the right-wing variant seeks to intensify capitalism to bring about a technological singularity indefinitely passively. One of the staunch protagonists of Left-wing Accelerationism is Peter Wolfendale is a philosopher based at Newcastle University in the United Kingdom.
Talking to Coindesk, Wolfendale spoke in length about Bitcoin and how it could become a tool of emancipation. He also elaborates how Bitcoin begets the current form of prejudice and its effects on the future of capitalism.
Changing outlook of money
According to Wolfendale, both artificial intelligence and the idea of philosophy thou alike as chalk and cheese are still much similar. Humans are already computational, and so are the social, political, and economic systems built by us. The ambition of the cryptocurrency community to change the outlook of money on a planetary scale by distributed computation is quite understandable.
Exciting things are happening in Cryptocurrency
According to Peter Wolfendale, Cryptocurrency can be labeled as a source of significant returns on investments. It also gives a feeling of creating a new sort of social organization. However, the quantum of these two factors could be overestimated and could lead the system in a false and questionable direction.
Peter elaborates how NFT is a technological perceptive which hinges on the principle that scarcity is an insecure replacement for use-value. Anonymity, decentralization, and coordination, in other words, also mean no need for proofs, systems that are pruned for blockchain interoperability with on-chain governance. The myth that bitcoin is fraud-proof is questionable. Is Cryptocurrency the only alternative to a monetary framework that does not repeat errors or worsens the situation?
Scarcity, a blunt instrument to build financial infrastructure
Most cryptocurrency values inflate riding upon scarcity. Peter questions this very concept and feels that absence should not be about money supply but rather on outputs in the economy. What is desirable is the quantity, quality, and sustainability of the production rather than conserving and making it scarce.
On the other hand, the existing banking system is not doing its job well. It is geared more towards giving birth to opportunities for recurring income and cutting down investors’ risks. Institutions are losing trust, but society has to rely upon it.
Making DeFi (decentralized Finance) better
The anchor sheet of Cryptocurrency is Defi, and to make it better, it must guarantee the share of the investor in the pie before it decays over a while.
To ensure this, Peter feels we should encourage unmediated supply-demand negotiation, a process in which consumers invest directly in products/services (i.e., crowdfunding). The method of minting coins must be fine-tuned to check their lending decisions than forking or divestment. Tokens are like legacy units of account and must develop more decentralized and transparent successors to the fractional reserve model.
Is bitcoin a tool for reducing disparity?
Peter does not feel that way. Bitcoin is a primed financial process to fight inflation and act as a store to preserve the investment value. It is bound to augment inequalities in the long run. Also, we are still not discussing the energy costs and the environmental impacts of maintaining and running the crypto industry.
Finally, Peter concludes and says that money is power, a necessary evil that always tends to become uncontrollable unless there is a check by a regulatory mechanism. Decentralization isn’t a sufficient check all on its own.
Steve Anderson is an Australian crypto enthusiast. He is a specialist in management and trading for over 5 years. Steve has worked as a crypto trader, he loves learning about decentralisation, understanding the true potential of the blockchain.
