Today Tim Swanson (WOT:nonperson) published yet another piece illustrating his fundamental misunderstanding of markets and the world writ large. In this latest piece Swanson supposes that a "Kimberly Process" might be possible for cryptocurrencies. 1 The Kimberly Process is a sort of anti-money laundering process applied to the market for gem diamonds. Through the Kimberly Process "bad guys" can't sell potential gem diamonds2 to "good guys" and the scheme appears to work for this purpose so long as no one cares to observe all the ways it doesn't.
The actual thing it does work for is slowing the flow of gem diamonds to the jewelry market avoiding the corn grower's problem and increasing the price of individual diamonds and profit margins for the De Beers family of Companies.3
Swanson's argument depends upon Bitcoin being some broken thing like gem diamonds when instead there's an actual market. Sorry for your laws.
Swanson of course uses the term plural, this manner supposes a class of many cryptocurrency of which Bitcoin is but one member. To the contrary cryptocurrency is Bitcoin. ↩
As opposed to industrial diamonds which are an actual commodity. ↩
The De Beers cartel ended up falling from prominence around the time the Kimberly Process went into effect anyway because other people caught onto the part where gem capable diamonds aren't as common as De Beers cultivated illusions of their being. ↩
Totally perfect assessment, complete in detail, lucid, insightful, absolutely truthful.
The fundamental problem with this nonsense is that diamonds are oversupplied by about 1000:1. The fact that DeBeers came up with a smart sounding PR explanation to cover up why it's slashing the offer in a market where nobody buys anyway is about as applicable to sane people and functioning markets as democracy, human rights and the rest of the claptrap. There's no kimberly process for guns.
Oh the stupid, it burns.