It will stunt some sectors and stimulate it in others. For example, there are literally billions of people who'll experience booming economic growth because their economic potential has been under utilized due to political and financial corruption (homegrown and imported) especially in third world countries. Bitcoin's velocity and accessibility will be very valuable features in those areas as its acceptance grows.Originally Posted by Yossarian
The international remittance market is where this is already occurring. Big predatory companies like Western Union are seeing increasing amounts of market share disappear while those in third world countries are starting to get ALL of the wealth that is being earned by their family members abroad.
In the U.S., where vast wealth is made available to large corporations who have track records of stripping the earth of resources, there would no longer be loan creation from the top down, which is how it is made available now (e.g. from a Central bank to Citi to Shell), and no/less political cover via lobbyists who influence laws favoring such. This would create a level playing field for the competition: companies that offer sustainable energy and use renewable resources.
In Germany, and in other European countries, sustainable energy is flourishing. Oil companies here have a tight hold on policy and monopolize energy. In fact, they have so much control even before lower gas prices, shale and fracking companies were already losing money, i.e. for every dollar made on oil extraction, they spent 1.30, unsustainable financially and environmentally. But, they've been able to continue with financing through junk bonds, and heavy profiteering especially when oil was above $100 a barrel.
The above assumes a world that is ultimately dominated by a cyrptocurrency very similar to Bitcoin, only with some advances in accessibility. How we get there will be interesting to say the least.
There are others that could more cohesively make the case than I, but I understand enough to know that the root problem that Bitcoin can address is the debt based money system (the primary root problem which can't be addressed by any currency or technology is the love of money which is what created the current system).
So, long term, Bitcoin has the potential to even out some or all of the imbalances in the world economy because it is not debt based or centralized. It is money/value by agreement to use math that is open source.
There's an old expression that says there's nothing new under the sun, which may be true even for Bitcoin/cryptocurrencies but I don't see any precedent for it, not on a global scale anyway.
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