This doesn't make any sense. That's a poor definitely of money. And Bitcoin does not have "all of the elements of a collectible". Collectibles have cultural, artistic, or other value on their own and are limited numbers of a set ("non-fungible"). Bitcoin is very fungible. If you own 2 BTC, there aren't specific Bitcoins that are marked for you.
Bitcoin has few attributes of money but all the attributes of a collectible
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Re: Bitcoin has few attributes of money but all the attributes of a collectible
#12This doesn't make any sense. That's a poor definitely of money. And Bitcoin does not have "all of the elements of a collectible". Collectibles have cultural, artistic, or other value on their own and are limited numbers of a set ("non-fungible"). Bitcoin is very fungible. If you own 2 BTC, there aren't specific Bitcoins that are marked for you.
I agree with you; getting that out of the way.
But if I have BTC, there is a specific BTC that is mine. That is how I've understood it. The IRS tax guide for crypto says as much talking about buying and selling two coins bought from two different years.
Re: Bitcoin has few attributes of money but all the attributes of a collectible
#13Whenever people argue as strongly about something as they do with "is Bitcoin a currency?", I think there's a heuristic which can be applied:
If people argue very much about if X applies or not, then X probably applies to a certain part close to 50%.
So Bitcoin kinda is like money, and kinda is not.
So can we just stop the arguing and move on to figuring out ways to make use of it, or write code to improve it if you don't like the as-is state, given that it exists and won't go away? :)
Re: Bitcoin has few attributes of money but all the attributes of a collectible
#14Bitcoin is not a collectible any more than individual gold bars are collectibles.
A collectible can be compared in value to another collectible of the same type. I might want a 1979 Dave Kingman card because I'm nostalgic for Dave "Kong" Kingman. Others will buy the Dave Kingman card to sell it to people like me, but we all give the card value based on its condition, the player, the year, etc.
But a Steve Macko card and a Dave Kingman card are completely different in value. They are independently valued. Bitcoin is not.
Re: Bitcoin has few attributes of money but all the attributes of a collectible
#15As a casual observer I see the cryptocurrency space only seriously used by two groups of people: those who want to buy goods/services which are controlled in their or the seller's jurisdiction and so need a bit more anonymity than Paypal; and people who run ICO and more recently NFT swindles.
I have yet to see a widespread other usage of cryptocurrency.
Re: Bitcoin has few attributes of money but all the attributes of a collectible
#16Bitcoin is not a collectible any more than individual gold bars are collectibles. A collectible can be compared in value to another collectible of the same type. I might want a 1979 Dave Kingman card because I'm nostalgic for Dave "Kong" Kingman. Others will buy the Dave Kingman card to sell it to people like me, but we all give the card value based on its condition, the player, the year, etc. But a Steve Macko card…
> Bitcoin is not a collectible any more than individual gold bars are collectibles.
Some individual gold bars are collectibles.
Re: Bitcoin has few attributes of money but all the attributes of a collectible
#17This doesn't make any sense. That's a poor definitely of money. And Bitcoin does not have "all of the elements of a collectible". Collectibles have cultural, artistic, or other value on their own and are limited numbers of a set ("non-fungible"). Bitcoin is very fungible. If you own 2 BTC, there aren't specific Bitcoins that are marked for you.
Bitcoin is anything but fungible. Taint is a real issue.
Re: Bitcoin has few attributes of money but all the attributes of a collectible
#18[deleted]
Re: Bitcoin has few attributes of money but all the attributes of a collectible
#19One difference though is that all baseball cards were acquired for pennies originally, then grew in value. You don't have to spend a month of heavy-duty electrical bills or $50K to buy a fresh baseball card or a beanie baby or a pez dispenser.
you can’t use a beanie baby or baseball card as a permissionless, decentralised, censorship resistant global remittance tool. That said, BTC lacking the fungible property of sound money is a glaring issue. Though a money system like Monero may end up becoming very important global money for the internet age. I think the author is shortsighted.
So long as the internet is required to use Bitcoin it’s not exactly as permissionless or decentralized as it’s marketing buzzwords pretend.
It is also pretty trivial to fork Bitcoin so there is no more inherent value in Bitcoin vs a clone or fork. Compare that to a USD I think the last attempted fork was the currency of the confederacy going to show it’s not so trivial to fork.
Re: Bitcoin has few attributes of money but all the attributes of a collectible
#20The funny thing is that Bitcoin will basically only have value as a collectible as long as substantial numbers of people believe this essay’s argument is false . People want to collect bitcoin at current valuations because they are convinced it will become a currency/store of value of the future and hence rise in value. If everyone suddenly switched to believing “Oh bitcoin doesn’t do anything but it is a fun collect…
Bitcoin can be a collectible and a store of value without ever becoming a currency. Gold, art, baseball cards etc. all fall into that category.