Now if only you could by bread with bitcoin.
Ask your local baker for a deal. It won't just happen automatically.
Fiat vs. Bitcoin
31–40 of 77 posts
Re: Fiat vs. Bitcoin
#32By any reasonable definition, Bitcoin is a fiat currency. Unlike commodities like gold or silver, it has no inherent value whatsoever, and no applications for industrial use or jewellery. Bitcoin is a fiat currency because it only has value while some group of humans collectively agree to pretend that is has value. The same as dollars or yen.
> By any reasonable definition, Bitcoin is a fiat currency. Sure, if you entirely change the definition of fiat currency. A fiat currency gets its value by being declared by government as legal tender, and then required by law to be accepted in a jurisdiction. Bitcoin might share the "no intrinsic value" property of fiat, but that does not make it fiat. It's pretty much the opposite of fiat in every other respect. Ev…
> speculation driven by scarcity
which makes it interesting as to why Ripples get "so much" value as a currency that has so many "coins". From Coinmarketcap[1], the circulating supply of ripples is 38,531,538,922 while bitcoin is limited to 21,000,000.
The other interesting thing is that Ripples "distribute" its coin as opposed to letting miners mine them.
I know nothing about economics so I would be interested to know why people put much value on Ripples. (disclaimer: I myself invested 6000 ripples just because they are currently cheap compared to the market cap they have.)
Re: Fiat vs. Bitcoin
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
More specifically, the majority of individuals who control mining. I’d be interested to know how many people would actually need to agree a fork that, say, didn’t halve the coinbase. Also, of those, how many would give priority to the philosophical underpinnings of Bitcoin over making more money in the short/medium term.
Even if miners could change the rules and print more, do you think the users would continue to use it?
How would the users blacklist the miners using the newer inflationary protocol? Is it even possible? By design, the longest blockchain wins, and that would be the one with the inflation if the majority of miners agreed.
Re: Fiat vs. Bitcoin
#34By any reasonable definition, Bitcoin is a fiat currency. Unlike commodities like gold or silver, it has no inherent value whatsoever, and no applications for industrial use or jewellery. Bitcoin is a fiat currency because it only has value while some group of humans collectively agree to pretend that is has value. The same as dollars or yen.
The key difference, though, is that fiat currency is easily debased because whoever controls it can print more, while Bitcoin does not have a single owner and can only change if the majority of miners agree to do so.
That is not a very distinctive difference. Note that it's also not that easy, at least in the developed world, for a Reserve Bank to change the issuance because it has to make sure that the inflation is under control to ensure financial stability, plus there are many other checks and balances in place including legal & regulatory policy, input from economists / researchers, ...
The interesting part of the Bitcoin experiment is that so far it has had a very large inflation. This has been decreasing, and the critical part of the experiment will determine if a deflationary currency will work or not. My guess is that it might be in danger of collapse as miners will not want to mine it due to lack of incentive, meanwhile users would not want to transact since most will be hoarding it. Which is when the issuance rate might need to be fixed just to keep the miners rewards going...at least, it's one of the scenarios to consider...
Re: Fiat vs. Bitcoin
#35Interesting graph. Of course it's saying a lot more about fiat currency than about bitcoin. The graph would look about the same with almost any commodity, stock, real estate, ... and so on and so forth. It would look the same (exponential shape) for any state, and crucially, it would look the same even if you went back centuries or even millenia. The only real conclusion to draw from this is that governments have alw…
Well, yeah, that is kinda the point of inflation, to stop people from storing their value in money and instead use it and invest as to not loose value. If we had permanent deflation nobody would invest because the most reliable way to not loose value is to simply keep money and not invest it.
Re: Fiat vs. Bitcoin
#36Interesting graph. Of course it's saying a lot more about fiat currency than about bitcoin. The graph would look about the same with almost any commodity, stock, real estate, ... and so on and so forth. It would look the same (exponential shape) for any state, and crucially, it would look the same even if you went back centuries or even millenia. The only real conclusion to draw from this is that governments have alw…
"your" money...
Show me the coin used for paying the tax.” They brought him a denarius, and he asked them, “Whose image is this? And whose inscription?” -- Matt 22:19-20
Re: Fiat vs. Bitcoin
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
Even if miners could change the rules and print more, do you think the users would continue to use it?
How would the users blacklist the miners using the newer inflationary protocol? Is it even possible? By design, the longest blockchain wins, and that would be the one with the inflation if the majority of miners agreed.
The 21 million limit is in the user's bitcoin client, not in the miners proof of work.
Re: Fiat vs. Bitcoin
#38I think that currency volatility won't be a problem in the future. Everything will be online and prices of items will update in real time to reflect supply and demand relative to any digital currency of your choice. It will be like in the old days when people used to haggle over the price of everything.
You mean like in major inflation or other humanitarian crises when people would get their wage and rush to the shop immediately to buy food for next week? Because god knows what their money will be worth after half a day? Wonderful future to look forward to.
Re: Fiat vs. Bitcoin
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
Even if miners could change the rules and print more, do you think the users would continue to use it?
How would the users blacklist the miners using the newer inflationary protocol? Is it even possible? By design, the longest blockchain wins, and that would be the one with the inflation if the majority of miners agreed.
> By design, the longest blockchain wins
The longest blockchain which follows the rules. If a chain does not follow the rules, it will be ignored by the nodes, even if it's the longest one. To change the rules, you have to update all nodes, not just the miners.
Re: Fiat vs. Bitcoin
#40By any reasonable definition, Bitcoin is a fiat currency. Unlike commodities like gold or silver, it has no inherent value whatsoever, and no applications for industrial use or jewellery. Bitcoin is a fiat currency because it only has value while some group of humans collectively agree to pretend that is has value. The same as dollars or yen.
No. Dollars have an intrinsic value as long as the IRS and the police exist, because you have to settle your dues with them come April 15, and they only accept USD.
Also, you need dollars if you will ever have any kind of dealings with the American Judicial system.