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Riccardo Biffi
pantarey@nsec.app
npub1jq9n...ahqj
Senior IT consultant & full-stack dev | 10+ yrs in finance | Bitcoiner since 2023 | Plan B Network top 21 & B-CERT | Building Bitcoin apps & culture
I was thinking... 🤔💭 ...capitalism stops working when money can be printed. If liquidity can be created out of nothing, entrepreneurship no longer follows real value — it follows proximity to power and proximity to the money-printer. Incentives shift: instead of innovating, businesses seek easy credit, subsidies and bailouts. 🏥Take for instance Pfizer, Moderna and other major pharma firms racing to protect patents and delay generic competition. The U.S. Congress recently flagged an $8.8 billion “bailout” for BIG Pharma via exemptions in Medicare price-negotiation. 💻Or look at Meta Platforms, Google LLC and other BIG Tech platforms. Regulation is being demanded (e.g., the EU’s Digital Markets Act) to rein in their dominance — but such regulation also creates complex compliance burdens and can solidify existing players at the expense of competition. 🍖And consider Nestlé S.A., Coca‑Cola Company and major BIG food corporates: subsidies, guaranteed loans or trade protections shift incentives away from truly competitive markets into political rent-seeking. The “free market” loses its meaning when it’s distorted by the wrong incentives. And when the distortions become tangible (e.g., high drug prices, rising mental health issues, high obesity rates), the public demands government intervention — feeding a paradox: to fix the problems caused by intervention, we ask for even more of it. As a result, the state grows, the economy becomes more bureaucratic, and capitalism turns into an inefficient hybrid where no one has a real incentive to change the rules, making the world worse rather than more efficient. The outcome? A system that feeds on the problems it creates and makes things worse each time it tries to fix them. image #Bitcoin #Jobtober #Capitalism #Finance #Innovation #BigPharma #BigTech #BigFood #Regulation
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RiccardoBiffi91 2 months ago
One of the many things we are learning on #Bitcoin during #LuganoSummerSchool25 is: ~~~ What does Bitcoin tries to fix??? ~~~ image Quick explanation on the sets: - WROGDOING: bad actions, also honest mistakes (eg miscalculation) - EVIL: wrongdoing, but done intentionally (eg insult) - CRIME: evil actions, but they also violate a principle (eg theft) - MAFIA: crime, but organized (eg state) - FIAT: mafia's control over money. ➡️THIS⬅️ FIAT is what Bitcoin is attacking directly and trying to fix. It doesn't fix mafia, crime, evil or wrongdoing completely, but by replacing FIAT there will be good indirect side effects, for sure! 😊 Thank you @Plan ₿ Network and @Giacomo Zucco !
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RiccardoBiffi91 2 months ago
A quick thought experiment to disprove the theory of objective value, by reductio ad absurdum. Let’s say we all agree that drinking water is worth €10 per cubic meter. Universally accepted, even objective — it’s a definition of value, just like the meter or the kilogram. And let’s also say that breathable oxygen is worth €10 per cubic meter. Now I put you in a room containing 100 cubic meters of drinking water and 100 cubic meters of breathable air. Outsiders see that the room’s value is €20,000, and you inside agree. Now I replace all the air with water and leave you in the room immersed in drinking water. Objective total value of the room: €20,000. Do you agree that the room hasn’t changed its value, not even for you? You have just a few minutes to think about it before you lose consciousness and kick the bucket 🙂 @Knut Svanholm ∞/21M am I going well? 😁 image
Bitcoin is not a get-rich-quick scheme. It is a don't-get-poor-slowly scheme.
Every now and then, I ask myself, 'Am I in a cult?' — just because sometimes I do get some 'cult vibes' and I like to question things. You never know, right? 😂 After attending Plan B 2024, I think I finally answered myself with a solid NO: I saw tons of people from different backgrounds, with their own life journeys, principles, and interests, coming together to talk about something they've learned independently, using the resources they like best (e.g., books, videos, podcasts, friends, ...) on the topics they’re most passionate about (e.g., economics, politics, computer science, ...), and, without any central direction, they arrived at the same conclusion. You’d never see something like that in a cult. Cults are top-down, Bitcoin is definitely bottom-up. Bitcoin emerges; it’s not imposed. That’s more than enough for me 🙂.
I went to Lugano's Plan ₿ last weekend, my first Bitcoin event, and I have to admit I was surprised by the diversity of people involved. I saw elderly couples over seventy, minors accompanied by their parents, entrepreneurs in their fifties, university students, and many young and adult women across all categories. In my mind, I expected to find only a bunch of men aged 20 to 40, but that wasn’t the case at all. It was amazing, really a great sign.
I can see that, by taking a piece from your capital and giving it to everybody else, you can say that everybody has access to free health care and education, even if you can't afford it. It's free because somebody else paid for you (and the state took it's share). In a democracy with "healthy" (surviving) and "educated" (indoctrinated) people, the state raises more treasure through taxes since people produce more. But this way you are removing the "natural selection", the survival instincts, the ingenuity and the community-help from people. People become more and more weak, poor, lonely and dependant from the state. But people are powerful when given the freedom, the chance. This top down approach is creating a fragile society for the advantage of the state. Bad things need to be let go, even if it is painful. Otherwise prepare for a big crisis. View quoted note →