Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well we could always make a new worthless currency. And set it so it intentionally inflates infinitely so that this can't happen. Zimbabwe-coin maybe.
>Well we could always make a new worthless currency. And set it so it intentionally inflates infinitely so that this can't happen. Zimbabwe-coin maybe. Yeah that might work. If you could somehow decay the value of held currency to encourage spending directly that would be even better though I can't imagine it being feasible.
How Dogecoin changed my perspective on cryptocurrency
81–90 of 173 posts
Re: How Dogecoin changed my perspective on cryptocurrency
#82Basically, the author is saying that the absurdity of Dogecoin made him realize that most currency is intrinsically worthless, with the only reason that it has value being a state power or arbitrary group of people (as in the case of cryptocurrency) has assigned it one... also known as fiat. A very old and evident observation. Not exactly enlightening, but there you go.
I thought I was reading economics 101.
Re: How Dogecoin changed my perspective on cryptocurrency
#83There’s no inherent reason that a piece of paper has a certain amount of value. There is a subjective reason, though: namely, that a large enough number of people agree that USD is a worthwhile commodity. They believe that for a number of reasons, including that our Army will go off and fucking kill anybody who threatens to break the spell that makes everyone agree that USD are worth your time to accept.
That's a bunch of needlessly cynical and completely ignorant bullshit. We don't use the army to convince people to use dollars. That's quackery. People use dollars because the value is relatively stable, most goods for sale in the U.S. and exported from the U.S. are priced in dollars, people in the U.S. pay their taxes in dollars, oil tends to be priced in dollars internationally, foreign countries hold lots of dollars as reserves, in the U.S. you can have a bank account denominated in dollars that will retain it's value up to $250,000 even if the bank blows up(!), and so on. All of these are reasons people use dollars. It isn't something that's done at the point of a gun.
Everyone agrees that dollars are worth something, and we trade them all the time. They’re really easy to trade. I don’t know of any coffee shop near me that takes Euros, so even though 1€ is “worth more” than $1 USD, the Euro note I have in my backpack is basically useless for me to get some coffee. Economists call this property ‘liquidity,’ and it basically means ‘how easy is it for me to get what I want with this commodity.’
Stop calling currencies commodities. Currencies aren't like some weird subset of commodities. The reason Euro isn't useful in the U.S. is because there are no good reasons for it to be useful. I can't pay my taxes in Euros. Almost nothing for sale here is priced in Euros. If I try to deposit Euros in my dollar denominated bank account I will get a shitty FX rate from the bank. There is a lot of obvious friction involved in using things other than USD as a currency in the U.S. It has nothing to do with "liquidity."
Imagine a “Dogecoin VISA”, a credit card where I hold a balance in DOGE.
Great idea! Ok so now a bank has given me a certain amount of dogecoin denominated credit. Presumably that is backed up by dogecoin denominated savings accounts or whatever. People give their dogecoins to the bank and the bank lends the dogecoins to me. I spend my full line of credit but I can't pay it back. Suppose there are a bunch of crappy dogecoin debtors out there and none of us can pay back our dogecoin denominated debt. Now suppose the banks depositors get wind of the situation and all try to withdraw their deposits at once. Classic bank run. Depositors are all fucked because there is no FDIC insurance for dogecoins.
* TWTR -> USD -> BTC -> DOGE -> MYCOMPANY *
You lose money at every step along the way. You pay the spread for every transaction, and if banks get involved, you can probably expected to get fucked in all sorts of mysterious ways by the FX desk at some point too.
Re: How Dogecoin changed my perspective on cryptocurrency
#84I was in the early days of Dogecoin and it was fun BECAUSE it was worthless. Give out 10k on a lark for a funny picture, etc. Now that's it's being seen a real story of value, rather than a tool to send a bit of karma around... it's kinda losing the fun. Serious investor/speculator people are buying and selling, arbitrage between exchanges, absolutely massive GPU farms that out mine anything regular person could get.…
Well we could always make a new worthless currency. And set it so it intentionally inflates infinitely so that this can't happen. Zimbabwe-coin maybe.
Re: How Dogecoin changed my perspective on cryptocurrency
#85Here we have more evidence of the miraculous ability of crypto currencies to turn unassuming computer programmers into economics experts. Let's take a look at some choice quotes. There’s no inherent reason that a piece of paper has a certain amount of value. There is a subjective reason, though: namely, that a large enough number of people agree that USD is a worthwhile commodity. They believe that for a number of re…
I specifically said I wasn't an expert. ;)
> That's a bunch of needlessly cynical and completely ignorant bullshit.
We're arguing the same thing. I'm just being a bit snarky about _why_ those things are true. You're totally right that those are the first-order reasons.
> Stop calling currencies commodities.
Sorry, my Marxism is showing. From a Marxist perspective, money _is_ just another commodity, though a special one. Maybe shouldn't have mixed that concept in, good call.
> Depositors are all fucked because there is no FDIC insurance for dogecoins.
Agreed. That's why I describe myself as 'scared.' I just said it's possible, not that it's a good idea. You won't find me quitting my job and starting that project any time soon.
> You lose money at every step along the way.
Absolutely, which is why you have to account for that when making the trades. I assumed that was too basic to bother to mention.
Re: How Dogecoin changed my perspective on cryptocurrency
#86There is one other aspect here I find very interesting, and it has to do with the efficient market hypothesis. The fact that people are buying Dogecoin simply because it is a fun internet meme kind of flies in the face of people who still view the price of financial assets as mostly rational, value-based prices, that can be deconstructed along the lines of asset-based valuation, financial ratios, available informatio…
Part of the reason is because for the longest time, the smallest unit of "value" recognized by most people was 1 US Cent. Crypto currencies, like Dogecoin are intrinsically more divisible. If someone made a funny comment on the internet, and i wanted to reward them. In 2012, I might "like" or "upvote" their comment -- a subjective measure of appreciation. In early 2013, I might "give gold" or "gild" comments or posts…
Re: How Dogecoin changed my perspective on cryptocurrency
#87Here we have more evidence of the miraculous ability of crypto currencies to turn unassuming computer programmers into economics experts. Let's take a look at some choice quotes. There’s no inherent reason that a piece of paper has a certain amount of value. There is a subjective reason, though: namely, that a large enough number of people agree that USD is a worthwhile commodity. They believe that for a number of re…
BTW, I looked to see if there was a correlation between oil commodity and USD, and here's what I found: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petrocurrency
Note the bit about oil in the Middle East being paid for by USD.
Re: How Dogecoin changed my perspective on cryptocurrency
#88Here we have more evidence of the miraculous ability of crypto currencies to turn unassuming computer programmers into economics experts. Let's take a look at some choice quotes. There’s no inherent reason that a piece of paper has a certain amount of value. There is a subjective reason, though: namely, that a large enough number of people agree that USD is a worthwhile commodity. They believe that for a number of re…
wow. much serious. many tears. so angry. I specifically said I wasn't an expert. ;) > That's a bunch of needlessly cynical and completely ignorant bullshit. We're arguing the same thing. I'm just being a bit snarky about _why_ those things are true. You're totally right that those are the first-order reasons. > Stop calling currencies commodities. Sorry, my Marxism is showing. From a Marxist perspective, money _is_ j…
You said it yourself. People are scared by this. Anger comes with fear.
Re: How Dogecoin changed my perspective on cryptocurrency
#89Re: How Dogecoin changed my perspective on cryptocurrency
#90Here we have more evidence of the miraculous ability of crypto currencies to turn unassuming computer programmers into economics experts. Let's take a look at some choice quotes. There’s no inherent reason that a piece of paper has a certain amount of value. There is a subjective reason, though: namely, that a large enough number of people agree that USD is a worthwhile commodity. They believe that for a number of re…
He's realized that "money" is just a very complicated game we play with each other. Possibly this is the lead-in to realizing that society is also a complicated game we play with each other. Either way, dude just had his mind blown because a silly joke currency made him start to think about What Money Is for the first time in his life.
That said, yeah his lengthy chains of currency exchange are a bad idea. Which is why there are exchanges that let you buy and sell BTC (and other cryptocurrencies, maybe even DOGE - I'm not going to bother checking) in currencies other than USD.
And there are a lot more rules that need to be added around cryptocurrencies before having a DOGE credit card, or bank account, is a sane game to play. Don't be putting anything you can't afford to lose in DOGE, or BTC for that matter.