Oddbean

Holy shit, I just realized something else that is actually a significant benefit with stablecoins replacing banking infra that I hadn't considered... stablecoins are a *push* system like bitcoin is. Meaning when you pay for something you aren't giving your personal information out every single time you do so! It really is a lot like the free banking era and i hadn't locked in on that rather important piece of it. Damn, I wish that had come to mind while i was doing the show. That's another pretty big way that the embrace of stablecoins over traditional banking can be a meaningful step forward, rather than the implied "terrible outcome" that we didn't jump instantly to a bitcoin standard.

Stablecoins covert debt instruments (fiat currency) into an asset. It's a less perfect asset than Bitcoin, but it can act in the same way and provide the same user experience. I'm just looking forward to the day where 1 USD = 100 sats, and we start to see people waking up to realizing that there is a better path forward.

Pull payments are a menace. Can't wait to see this disappear, or at least reined in. I do like the NWC approach of being able to set budgets and limits and imagine this could be the way forward. But that's a great point and would be worth mentioning if you do a followup or adjacent episode. There's two main issues with Stablecoins - centralization and the fact they're based on the dollar. The former is something that may be mitigated in time. I wonder if when bitcoin grows to a large enough size and network, if a stablecoin upon Bitcoin will be a reality. Then we don't need to worry about the permissioned system like Tether. The fact that they're based on the dollar is something that will matter until it doesn't. =)

Thanks for this episode - finally some pushback and rationality applied to the discussion. From the moment Goodwin and Webb came out with this there seemed to be a massive group think approval over the internet like this was some forgone conclusion and revelation they’d come up with - but like you concluded there are so many major differences to the petro dollar, it seemed bizarre to me how many people have accepted their take as matter of fact. I recently watched Webb being interviewed by Brunell and her statements about Bitcoin in my opinion show she has a gross misunderstanding of the underlying technology of Bitcoin, its theory, and how it operates.