Comments

This page collects comments about the Treasury Coin proposal and our responses.

Origin of the Idea

In this X thread, BubbleSurfer claims that “David Yermack at NYU has been talking about this for almost a decade now.” We reached out to Professor Yermack and he declaimed any work along these lines?

But that still leaves open the question: Who first suggested an idea along these lines? We are eager to give appropriate credit!

Rug Pull from the USG

In this X thread, Eric Falkenstein writes:

I don’t see our government supporting a permissionless, decentralized, immutable blockchain. The hook would be instant cash from a pre-mine that they would try to re-neg in a year.

We agree that the USG or, indeed, any government is unlikely to support Treadury Coin. But hope springs eternal! We also agree that there is a danger of the USG reneging. So, we need to give the USG incentives not to renege.

  • The first incentive is that the value of the premine is maximized, not by converting all of it into dollars in the first year, but by using it oer time. Outside of an election year, a president is better off using some of the premine now and some in the following years.

  • The second incentive is that, as long as the system continues working, the USG gets a coin reward with each new block added to the Treasury Chain. If the USG wants these resources in the years to come, then it can’t renege today.

These concerns raises the question as to the best split between the premine and the on-going rewards. Perhaps more on-going resources and a smaller premine are more incentive compatible to continuing USG support.

Privacy

In this X thread, n00buntu notes that:

Bitcoin does not protect privacy at all. … All Bitcoiners 🙋🏻‍♂️ understand this is a severe, fatal, weakness. Zero Knowledge protocols are the way.

n00buntu is correct that, at best, the Bitcoin protocol provides pseudonymity. This is one reason we leave open the possibility that Treasury Coin might not simply copy Bitcoin exactly. Instead, perhaps we should provide greater anonymity, along with other improvements.

Printing Dollars

In this X thread, M L asks:

How is this better than just printing dollars?

First, creating the first government-supported, anonymous, decentralized currency is like creating the first government-supported paper currency, i.e., it is like printing dollars. But creating the first paper currency was a really good idea! Doing so facilitated economic activity and increased the government’s resources via seigniorage.

Second, Treasury Coin is very different than “printing dollars” because its algorithm structure quarantees that the USG can’t create, by fiat, too many T-coins.