I guess I woke up and chose violence today. LOTS of assaults on stupid Europooreans doing stupid Europoorean things.

We've basically covered the Icelandic EU referendum here already (#1555171 #1558903) and it was kind of a non-event anyway... TOO BAD, we wanted out of our crappy money:

But at least maybe after this EU vote and the bazillion years of political negotiations (over fishery rights and bureaucratic rules) that would had followed, we could have toppled the disastrous monetary regime that is Seðlabanki Íslands? Alas, no dice. We like our 5.6% CPI and 11-14% year-on-year growth in monetary aggregates.

"Do I like the European Union, ECB, the euro, and the filthy face of Christine Lagarde?" #1020250

Absolutely not. But there are degrees in hell, and eventually joining the euro would include:

• removing the ~0.3-2% drag on everyone making transactions abroad or importing stuff (thus, everyone!) via foreign exchange: Money wants to be one, and there’s absolutely no raison d’être for the Icelandic króna (let alone the Norwegian or Swedish; just abolish — or, you know, bitcoinize).
• exerting some serious competitive pressure on the banks (BNP, Santander, and Barclays, pleeeease come!).
• in one fell swoop, we’d reduce the ~5% inflation rate, with recurring bouts of 10%+ once a decade, to the eurozone average. (Very fel indeed; the popular expression “one fell swoop” is from Macbeth, but the word itself could have come from Old French, where it’d mean evil — like central banking itself.)

Sure, yea, issuing stablecoins is a great business... but who wants to hold a derivative euro stablecoin?!

you can’t fault (central) bankers for wanting to get into the highly lucrative and incredible business model that Tether pioneered a decade ago. Issue non-interest-bearing tokens on a blockchain that someone else maintains, hold interest-bearing government debt in reserve — and rake in 2.25% on ECB deposits (or 2.9%-3.3% on German bunds) in basically pure profit.

The euro doesn’t have monetary demand outside of the eurozone (plus adjacent countries) the way the dollar has; the Global South doesn’t want euros in their mobile wallets. And intra-eurozone payments already work fast and cheaply (as opposed to in America), and Europe has basically no problem of unbanked customers that could benefit from a euro stablecoin.  
So I ask again: What in the world would be the point of a euro stablecoin?!

But these fuckheads posing as senior economists at major banks are pretty goddamn clueless sometimes:

READING LIST

Scant pickings this week

Peach Bitcoin No Longer Peachy: The fiat regulators come for Swiss-domiciled P2P No-KYC exchange Peach. The sudden regulatory rug-pull read via Steph is terrifying. Efforts like Bull Bitcoin’s STOP DAC8 better succeed. #1559053

A Matter of Pride: It’s now “prestigious” to write for yourself (not using AI). At the Nordic Node, we’re proudly prestigious — always. Can’t you tell from our snark?!

A Hasher in Every Home: oh lord, look at these brand-new Ofen III home miners — not marketing or affiliation, I just love these 21 Energy products and I’m stoked to see the new product series. (The Ofen II is next to me in the office as I’m writing this, happily hashing away.)

Three Weeks to BTCHEL Mania! Let’s. Fucking. Go. All set. You got your ticks, bruv?

Disagree but worth reading: Bitcoiners hitting on Ursula von der Leyen’s recent speech and proposal to “mobilize” EU savings. Doesn’t mean what you think it means. Also you can’t “mobilize” bank deposits; they just move to somebody else’s bank account. Bank deposits can only shrink by a) repaying debt, b) withdrawing into cash (or stablecoins!)

Plus, bank deposits are already financing businesses and investments via the banking system (what do you think a bank is?). Issuing additional securities against that same base of deposits is, uh, doubly unnerving.

The Nordic Node #8: "Suitcoiner Phoenix, Pokémon, and Blockchains"

The Nordic Node #7: "The Day the Token Wars Came"

The Nordic Node #6: "A Dilution a Week Keeps the Saylorbois Weak"

The Nordic Node #5: "EU Overlords, Decaying Cultures, & Treasury Companies Dying"

The Nordic Node #4: "Satoshi Talks, Mining Controversy, and some Suitcoinery"

The Nordic Node #3: "Two Suitcoiners and a Bitcoin Bodyguard Walk into a Bar..."

The Nordic Node #2: "Lambs, Bitcoin Adoption, and Criminals"

The Nordic Node #1: "Welcome to the Nordic Node!"

Subscribe to The Nordic Node over at BTCHEL.com, the coolest(!) place on the Nordic Bitcoin scene.

Also, go buy a ticket/pay my bills/help us keep the lights on. Even better come to Helsinki and be cool with us.

PEACE!