I wish this question was more like this—“Conditional on cryptocurrencies growing by another 1.5+ OOMs in the next five years or so, what happens to the global financial system and world economy? Anything bad?” The specific scenario you sketch is just one way of answering this question, but not the only way probably.
One other thing that could happen, maybe, is that world governments act to nationalize or otherwise control the cryptocurrencies. I’ve been told that major governments have the power to do this if they wanted to. This could maybe lead to heightened risk of war.
Another possibility—the dollar is the reserve currency of most of the world, IIRC. I’ve heard that that’s important, though to be honest I don’t really know why. But if it’s important, and it changes (and e.g. Bitcoin becomes the more common reserve currency) then maybe the US would lose some of its power, maybe the US debt would start being harder to service, etc. Idk.
I wish this question was more like this—“Conditional on cryptocurrencies growing by another 1.5+ OOMs in the next five years or so, what happens to the global financial system and world economy? Anything bad?” The specific scenario you sketch is just one way of answering this question, but not the only way probably.
One other thing that could happen, maybe, is that world governments act to nationalize or otherwise control the cryptocurrencies. I’ve been told that major governments have the power to do this if they wanted to. This could maybe lead to heightened risk of war.
Another possibility—the dollar is the reserve currency of most of the world, IIRC. I’ve heard that that’s important, though to be honest I don’t really know why. But if it’s important, and it changes (and e.g. Bitcoin becomes the more common reserve currency) then maybe the US would lose some of its power, maybe the US debt would start being harder to service, etc. Idk.
Very good! I’ve incorporated the question, but I’d like to keep the post focused on AGI timelines. :-)