"All money is money" quoted from infamous smart guy and musical genius fifty-cent. Smart people already know about crypto or upon hearing about it become immediately engrossed in it. Why? Why did the same thing happen when computers were invented. Because even though those really smart people couldn't predict how disruptive technology would shape our world. They didn't have to. The smartest man alive is the one who realizes what a fool he is. The Universe is always giving us something new to study, in other words either proving our assumptions wrong or handing us something new we don't understand. Sometimes other humans create technology so useful, its full use is not even realized until other technology is invented but still in its earliest most primitive bulky ugly forms it is heralded by those in the know as the next big thing. Think computers the size of entire offices. If you look at today we have progressed but the largest companies still need entire data centers devoted to their operation. That's pretty clunky. Hello cloud storage, hello cloud computing. hello decentralized ledgers. Hello crypto-currency. We have come a long way from secret commie trials of innocent actors yet our freedom of speech is controlled by a few centralized corporations. That is not very free. Bitcoin was great until it priced out all the little guys. We wanted to be our own bank but it turns out you had to pay to play...Hello Steemit hello SteemPower , Steem and SteemDollars. Hello blogging as mining meaning we all can take part at free or very low cost yet still generate real value from and for ourselves.
Why am i ranting like this? Because the first question I get asked when I tell people about Steemit is "But can I turn it in to real money". Real money? Lets examine that for a second. I'm 99% sure they mean USD so lets use it for an example.
So I propose we change the definition of "Real Money" from "Money issued by a government " to "Something quickly exchangeable for another form of value " like fifty said, All money is money. All money is not created equal. Money is subject to manipulation. Money is subject to abuse and artificial value created by necessity. You might not kill for a dollar but if it were the only way to get a dollar in time and you needed it to call someone and warn them their life was in danger it wouldn't be such an easy decision. Market forces can be as cruel as the humans who adhere so zealously to them. Diversify, Diversify, Diversify and your portfolio can only multiply. Well it isn't that simple but it is darn close.
Steem fits the criteria for "Real Money" even better than gold. Because nobody is going to other planets to find huge Steem deposits, Because its more liquid than gold and easier to carry around, Because you can earn it by blogging.
Because it is inflationary... wait what why is that a good thing? If all we ever have is the same supply of gold we had on this planet and some gets lost and never found, what are we all going to just take a loss?If we switch to using gold to trade and the 1 percent already own all the gold wouldn't that be even worse than the USD predicament we are in. imagine gold dust going for thousands of dollars or many hours hard labor. Dystopian society much? Steem like any other currency is mostly controlled by the rich but unlike other currencies it is not ENTIRELY controlled by the rich. On Steemit your vote matters. You can help decide where inflation goes and who it helps. You can make a difference. You might even become the next whale reading this post and thinking hey whales are people too!
The moral of the Story is "Real money" is what you think it is. It only has value because you decide it does and at least one other person with something to trade for it agrees. The power has always been in our hands. We just lacked the tools and education to realize it and put that power to work for us. Steemit to me is more than social media. It's a tool of mass empowerment. It's basically doing what Bitcoin failed to and appealing to the every-man. The casual never heard of bitcoin before internet user is now very excited about Steemit and for good reason.
Great article and I agree with almost all of it but one thing your misunderstand about using commodities such as gold or silver is that if there is a permanent destruction of some of the commodity the market adjusts by lowering prices because people value the commodity more. Businesses will take a loss because they have investments in inventory but the average person will be better off. This means your wage may go down but your real wage, the amount of goods you can buy with a given unit of currency, will go up.
Your Hypothetical scenario of the 1% owning all of the gold is impossible because all humans have wants and needs so gold would constantly be flowing out to businesses and people that serve the 1% which in turn will flow out from the businesses through wages and people purchasing lower cost goods and services which will push the gold along in the same manner until the poorest person in society gets the gold.
Also due to increases in technology we will have a near infinite amount of metal ex. mining asteroids or other planets.
The only issue with physical commodities used as currency is that they aren't infinitely divisible. So if you have a huge expansion in goods and services the commodity could deflate to the point where lets say clothes are .0000001 oz of gold. Which isn't a bad thing it is just inconvenient because the market would be able to adjust in a sufficient time span to not be a jarring shift.
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Anything really can work as money, have you herd of the rainbow gathering? well during this event using any form of paper money is frowned upon and people are encouraged to use the barter system to get anything they may need for the duration. Now of course this sounds good until you realize you need a base currency to sort out odds and ends in transactions so they started using snickers bars as a currency when trading in just goods didn't amount to a fair trade for both parties. Of course this isn't the best example as snickers are a manufactured product that you have to buy but it does show anything can be viewed as money from the right prospective.
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The government doesn't issue money. The Federal Reserve does and it's a privately owned bank.
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