Originally published at: Rhode Island bill proposes to fix housing crisis with cryptocurrency | Boing Boing
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Interesting aikijutsu move they’re trying to pull on crypto loving libertarians
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It’s got 1000% more BLOCKCHAIN. What’s NOT to love: gluten-free, antioxidant rich, kambucha saturated, chia seeds & kale, cryptocurrency.
I have a slight technical question before I sign off on this bill… can people actually live comfortably inside an NFT?
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This is like Black Friday sales that enthusiastically point out that you will save a ton of cash… by spending even more cash.
Also, do they plan to do an energy audit of the LEED savings vs the carbon footprint of blockchain? I’m guessing no.
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Great bad idea.
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They should make a cryptocoin called RollingCoalCoin to be absolutely open and honest about it.
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Great, we can replace homelessness with NFTs!
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I mean, if you’re gonna do nothing about homelessness, better make sure you do as much nothing as you can.
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If this flies I’ll know who to sell my new ‘quantum impacted tokens’ to.
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Meanwhile, in Texas:
‘Today, Fort Worth becomes the first city government in the United States to mine Bitcoin. This pilot program, launched by the Office of Fort Worth Mayor Mattie Parker and the City of Fort Worth in partnership with Texas Blockchain Council, recognizes the exponential growth of the blockchain and cryptocurrency industries while advancing Fort Worth’s goal of becoming a leading center of tech and innovation.’
Texas - can’t keep the lights on, but plenty of power to grow e-tulips.
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As with absolutely everything else, to properly interpret the situation, all you need to do is replace “crypto” with “scam” everywhere it’s mentioned.
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Sounds like they’ve read KSR’s Ministry for the Future, and picked up on the idea of a carbon currency. It’s a serious idea in new economics thinking, but it sounds like the implementation in RI might be a bit messed up. Here’s a good primer:
I still don’t understand why it requires a block chain, but I guess the idea is that for a truly international currency, we don’t have a government to guarantee it, so blockchain is the best(?) alternative.
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Ok, admittedly I’m no financial wizard, but how is that not just an overly complicated version of just having governments pay corporations to reduce their carbon output/footprint/{insert whatever eco-metric is appropriate here}? I mean, they’re saying the basic problem is that corporations don’t have a financial incentive to get clean. Why the weird layers of new bullshit to artificially create that incentive? Just pay them.
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Kool-Aid Coin.
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I don’t see how Rhode Island can legally create a cryptocurrency, especially as the function of creating and regulating a currency is the exclusive function of congress, according to Section 8 of the United States Constitution.
Article I. Section. 8.
The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defense and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;
[…]
To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;
Edit: spelling.
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“To save the environment, we’re going to burn the planet down. Oh, and somehow build LEED certified, affordable housing.”
This tl;dr demonstrates the fundamental ignorance the state congressperson has regarding what and how cryptocurrencies exist while also displaying stunning disregard for stated goals of promoting affordable housing with a reduced carbon footprint. This is next-level I can’t even. 
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Well, in this case, it’s an overly complicated version of just having governments pay corporations to reduce their carbon output/etc… while also wasting absolutely massive quantities of electricity, and generating a larger resulting carbon output than the corporations they’re paying.
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