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Austrian Economics misrepresented in crypto

· 2 min read
Catallactic
Catallactic Team
Adolfo Rodriguez
Catallactic

This community has been created because we think Austrian Economics is not represented in crypto industry and we are missing a huge opportunity.

Crypto was born in 2009 with the promise of decentralization from a non-fiat currency, Bitcoin. However, tokenization projects have evolved with the financing of VC backed crypto companies and financial firms, that have derailed the initial promise, to make it more centralized and fiat dependent. Whereas we think this is a distortion from the initial principles, the existing tools and processs developed so far, inherit this centraliced and fiat nature and alternative approaches are miss-represented. In short there is a built-in bias to fiat in tools and processes.

Austrian Economics literature happily includes guidelines on how to create private currencies or how a private currency competition could work. But Austrian Authors could only rely on their ideas because they did not have the tools to do so. The advent of electronic money provides, for the first time, the foundation to make real the principles of Austrian Economics. We think we are already 15 years late.

The goal of this community is to define how private cryptocurrencies should be under AE perspective, with the mission of currency competition, which differs to what is currently being done in the crypto community. It is also within the goal to implement the AE vision and to look for pilot projects.

The community will need technical skillsets to implement the ideas. But it also will need the support from the subject matter experts (AE practicioners, lawyers, philosophers) to provide guidance and promotion. We have a concern that the current technological skill forces are strongly biased to fiat-based principles and available AE advocates will still be a minority compared to mainstream.

Relying in establishment action for AE adoption, e.g. adopting a gold standard, seems a delusional belief. Instead, enabling individuals to solve their own problems with private iniciatives and private risk looks closer to AE principles. In fact, Gold Standard probably will come AFTER by itself.

AE advocates is typically rational and skilled people. We know how to solve problems under the core foundational principle of mutual respect so, hopefully, wont need making the mistake of using politics, ideology or sensationalism to bring our ideas forward.