13th November 2021 > > Miami Coin.

tl;dr

Voluntary taxation or Ponzi scheme - Miami Coin will not work.

Market Snap

Market Wrap

In the interests of full transparency about the Wild West of DeFi, I will report daily in the Market Snap above for the life-to-date performance of the CCC investment in ZEUS (see yesterday’s CCC if you were too busy to pay attention).

I fully expect it to go to ZERO very soon. I rather hope it doesn’t. It will certainly be volatile – as you can see, we went from +40% to -10% in 24 hours.

Remember – I am only involved in XEUS for the benefit of the CCC community, cos I am nice like that.

Occasional Series – Political hypocrisy (too easy I know but it gets my goat)

Natalie Elphicke, the Conservative MP who has demonstrated her deeply innate ability to completely misjudge the public mood, has previously told Marcus Rashford to stick to his day job.

No prizes for guessing that Elphicke has a second job – in her case as chair of the New Homes Quality Board.

Do as I say, not do as I do.

This attitude in the public sector makes me despair.

Curious Cryptos’ Commentary – Free pretend cryptos anyone? Or why CBDCs really are rubbish

The City of Miami has released its own coin, imaginatively called Miami Coin.

This is of course a centralised token, and suffers from all the same drawbacks we have discussed regarding Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs). Key takeaway – centralised tokens are NOT cryptos.

But I must cover them, as most people fail to understand this distinction, and CBDCs will impact on our core business.

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Francis Suarez, Mayor of Miami and not his biting namesake, says that proceeds so far total $21mm. Residents buy the token, stake it for rewards, and the city gets to spend the money on whatever it likes.

It’s a form of voluntary taxation, which has never been a particularly popular idea, even for the woke twitterati.

Every one of us can send a bigger cheque to HMRC at the end of each tax year if we so choose. I suspect a straw poll will show no-one ever does that. Not even amongst those who claim that taxes at over 40% of GDP are just not high enough yet to support the vast army of Diversity Officers the NHS so patently needs.

Now Francis has floated the idea of providing a wallet to every resident of Miami and redistributing some of the income from sales of Miami Coin back to the local population.

This is just nuts.

There will be a whole new administrative structure built up around redistributing voluntary donations from a few individuals to the broader population.

What an utter waste of time and resources.

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If you don’t like the description of Miami Coin as a form of voluntary taxation, I have another one for you.

It’s a Ponzi scheme.

Future rewards and future withdrawals (if allowed) can only be funded by the new mugs.

Last time I checked, Ponzi schemes remained illegal.

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This is the type of stuff that happens when decision makers fail to understand that centralised digital currencies are not cryptos.

I know you won’t make the same mistake yourself.