U.S. Secret Service Launches Cryptocurrency Awareness Hub

Post by Spoom » Wed, Feb 23, 2022, 3:35 PM UTC

danuker wrote: post #115

lr4444lr wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can pay your taxes, fines, and court ordered debts with fiat currency. It's arguably THE MOST stable thing in a functioning society above pure barter.

Try saving for retirement. At 2% inflation (the target rate), after 20 years you'd lose 1 - (.98 ^ 20) = 33.2% of the purchasing power of your savings. But right now, inflation is 7.5% year-over-year. And that's the official measure, which uses "owners' equivalent rent" based on a survey, instead of actual rent prices. In the past 20 years (Jan 2002 - Jan 2022), the CPI went from 177.7 to 281.933, or a 58.6% increase…

Post by danuker » Wed, Feb 23, 2022, 3:37 PM UTC

Spoom wrote: post #181

danuker wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try saving for retirement. At 2% inflation (the target rate), after 20 years you'd lose 1 - (.98 ^ 20) = 33.2% of the purchasing power of your savings. But right now, inflation is 7.5% year-over-year. And that's the official measure, which uses "owners' equivalent rent" based on a survey, instead of actual rent prices. In the past 20 years (Jan 2002 - Jan 2022), the CPI went from 177.7 to 281.933, or a 58.6% increase…

This implies that your retirement savings are in cash, which is inaccurate for most folks. And certainly, I'd rather have it invested in the stock market than the wild fluctuations of the crypto market, especially with its uncertain withdrawal ability and complete inability to recover if someone steals it (which is, again, typically much easier with crypto than a brokerage).

Post by floodyberry- » Wed, Feb 23, 2022, 3:38 PM UTC

aaaaaaaaata wrote: post #93

l-lousy wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that’s the argument, why move to a whole new currency if it’s more of the same problems with fewer safeguards for the non technical and no way to get lost items back?

Why would the poor have wanted to switch to the Internet? After all, it required expensive custom hardware, and know-how. What changed? Have you considered it's just really early days ?

Post by bitxbitxbitcoin » Wed, Feb 23, 2022, 3:39 PM UTC

deprave wrote: post #173

survirtual wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For Bitcoin and other PoW coins, the value is built into the name for minting: Proof of WORK. Less abstractly, today we can think of this as proof of energy consumption / production. In other words, it is sort of crystallizing energy into abstract & transmissible value. By holding a coin, you hold that value / solidified energy. It takes a certain and increasing amount of energy to generate 1 coin, which binds the va…

So I can pay my utility company $100 a month for energy I consume, or pay $40000 for a bitcoin representing energy someone else consumed? Got it.

Post by atlantas » Wed, Feb 23, 2022, 3:41 PM UTC

AlexandrB wrote: post #78

nrzd wrote: post #52

I’m blown away by how anti-crypto this discussion is. I hadn’t realized how negative the prevailing sentiment is on Hacker News. One argument seems to be that cryptocurrency is purely speculative, which is apparently a dirty word. What about the stock market? What about any kind of investment? If you truly believe that cryptocurrency is the basis for a superior economic system, isn’t it rational and wise to put some…

> One argument seems to be that cryptocurrency is purely speculative, which is apparently a dirty word. What about the stock market? What about any kind of investment? Most other assets represent ownership of... something. A company, a commodity, property. Cryptocurrency is closest to either a fiat currency without the government backing that typically tries to stabilize those. Or to more exotic and abstract financia…