The Economics of Privacy with Max Hillebrand - WBD636

Max Hillebrand is an economist and open-source entrepreneur who
runs Agora Towards Liberty. In this interview, we discuss fiat
money’s fundamental weaknesses, the teachings of Austrian
Economics, the importance of privacy, and how nano cameras mean
privacy technology will need to keep evolving.


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Whilst the Bitcoin innovation was primarily predicated on the
technical needs for enabling permissionless and uncensorable
digital peer-to-peer transactions, its development was heavily
influenced by the Austrian school of economics. At its root,
Bitcoin is tied to the ethics of money production, where money
production should be decentralized and not subject to the whims
of a central authority.


The long-held fear of Austrian economists was that centralized
control of money production would result in monetary inflation:
governments would be unable to resist the temptation to print
money as quick fixes to crises. This obviously impacts the value
of the money being inflated, violating one of the core principles
of money to be a reliable store of value. The problem for
governments, as we’re seeing, is that the power to print money
becomes an uncontrollable force.


Despite the inevitable fragility of fiat currencies, an
alternative sound monetary system can hasten the collapse of fiat
currencies during periods of loose monetary policy. This
incentivises governments to constrain or ban access to such
alternatives. See Executive Order 6102. This means that privacy
for such alternatives is paramount. This is why Bitcoin privacy
is vital. Because, when fiat currencies collapse, governments
will come for people’s Bitcoin.