Speaking of bubbles, "blockchain" and crypto currencies are two different things. While there is a legitimate concern, and value of an on-going discussion on the currency side being a bubble, blockchain is not. Blockchain is a very real and emerging technology that will undoubtedly find its way into everyone's lives.
Yes, I know that. I have no issues at all with blockchain tech.
While I agree that there is a lot of distasteful stuff going on, not everyone's intentions in the crypto currency side are nefarious. What would be a more productive conversation would be a non-partisan discussion on the realities of fiat currencies. Specifically how our governments seem to think the answer to paying back debt and financing their budgets is easily handled by just printing more money. And the fallout from that tactic such as the devaluation of the dollar and inflation.
Oh, don't get me started on fractional reserve banking and central banks - it's central planning determining winners and losers based upon a proven to be garbage economic theory. The reason it isn't challenged is because the people in a position to change it benefit greatly from it.
Granted, it has certainly worked well enough as long as they maintained a very light touch (except in inflationary emergencies as in the early 70s) with respect to central bank manipulations of interest rates and treasury funded bailouts. That is no longer the case and hasn't been since they began bailing out companies that deserved to fail in the 90s, thereby creating a huge moral hazard where companies could act irresponsibly because they knew they would be bailed out due to the systemic hazard they presented. That was really made evident in the reaction to the burst of the housing bubble. BTW, we're now in housing bubble v2.0 in many areas, once again fueled by easy money from the Fed meant to lessen the impact of their last bubble.
Now, with massive amounts of government and private debt worldwide due to easy money (low interest rates), central banks must maintain artificially low interest rates or just the interest alone on debts would be ruinous.
They're trapped. Thing is, keeping those rates artificially low results in new bubbles, this (probably final) time in E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G. As Japan has shown, this can go on for decades. I have no idea when this mother of all bubbles will pop. If I did, I'd be the world's richest man.
For those who would like this paradigm to end and hope that cryptocurrencies will help with that, be careful what you wish for. A HUGE part of the (false) prosperity in this country is based upon personal and government DEBT and that debt will only be financed as long as people are willing to finance it. That willingness is largely based upon the fact that the US dollar and not some cryptocurrency is the world's reserve currency. When that changes, it's pretty much game over as we know it for the US.
I strongly suspect governments and other beneficiaries of the current financial and monetary paradigm will fight any threat to it with everything at their disposal. Whether they'll succeed is anyone's guess. Anyway, as I pointed out above, be careful what you wish for.
Where do you believe the current tactics are going, who do you believe benefits from this strategy, would you characterize this strategy as a bubble, if so where do you think we are when it comes to the bubble popping and what do you think it will mean, who do you believe it will effect, do you believe it is sound economics or even common sense?
I think that right now cryptocurrencies are in an absolutely textbook speculative bubble - people are buying them because their prices (note I didn't say "value") are going up... which results in the price going up... rinse, repeat. This could go on for a very long time or it could end tomorrow. If cryptocurrencies ever become -WIDELY- used to pay for physical assets and services and their value is then based upon a relative demand for THAT capability, I'll pay much more attention.