141–150 of 151 posts
I think Bit Coin is a fad... it will be replaced. Canada's 'Mint Chip' is catching up quickly and it is a superior product/currency.
How is MintChip a replacement for bitcoin? It isn't as anonympous and it isn't decentralized. It seems like they go for two entirely different goals.
But FYI MintChip transactions are anonymous.
It is a digital form of cash.
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Sure. Bitcoin is a fiat currency that has, so far, generally appreciated.
It's not fiat because you can't create Bitcoins from nothing. If you can then create one. I dare you to create a single Bitcoin.
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It may change eventually, and the exchange rate does fluctuate dramatically sometimes, but it has been shown in the past that the market value of bitcoins tends to stabilize around the electricity cost of mining.
Does this mean the total value of all bitcoins is similar to the cost of the electricity used for mining them? If so, isn't it worrying that so much electricity has been used because of bitcoin? I have often wondered if a currency could be constructed such that the mining would solve real computational problems, thereby doubling the value produced per energy consumed.
I don't like it either, but you can't control what people do with their resources.
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It's not fiat because you can't create Bitcoins from nothing. If you can then create one. I dare you to create a single Bitcoin.
ooo, I can play this game. I dare you to create a single US dollar. ha! proof that the US dollar isn't fiat.
Whether you use it get drugs, gamble, bet or speculate on some other place doesn't matter. It has become a game on its own right just like UO, WoW or EVE ... You can view it as game of a currency instead of currency of a game. It has intrinsic entertainment value, thus a commodity that can be priced in real currency.
Nobody bats an eye when a mmorpg makes millions in revenues, nobody bats an eye when a gamer builds a four grands rig. Why should we care about bitcoin replacing real money now or ever? It is not like governments will readily hand over monetary control to its citizens anyway.
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To say Bitcoin has no inherent value is not quite accurate. The inherent value of the Bitcoin comes from the electricity required to power the computational cycles to "create" it.
Cost does not equal value. And it goes the other way around anyway. Higher prices lead to more people mining.
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ooo, I can play this game. I dare you to create a single US dollar. ha! proof that the US dollar isn't fiat.
Not really, you missed the point which was the government can create new dollars at will. Nobody can create new Bitcoins on a whim.
There is also a voting mechanism that can change the Bitcoin protocol, the NSA for one probably has enough computing power and bandwidth to flat out 'take over' the network and give themselves arbitrary bitcoin amounts.
PS: Voting is a basic problem with all network based protocols. If enough machines say this is what happened then that's what happened.
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Fiat does not imply constructed. The notion that gold (or tulips) are valuable are equally constructed ideas by humans. Nothing has 'inherent' value apart from the value humans perceive these things to have. No, the only thing fiat implies is manipulation - the ability for a government or person to mess with the value of a currency by 'willing it to be.' Bitcoin is not fiat.
You have made the Internet-libertarian/goldbug mistake of thinking fiat is a dirty word.
We can argue about whether or not that is a good thing, but let's at least be clear about what we're talking about. Using definitions of words that are different from what everyone else uses is not the way to communicate your ideas to other people, let alone convince them that you're right.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Fiat does not imply constructed. The notion that gold (or tulips) are valuable are equally constructed ideas by humans. Nothing has 'inherent' value apart from the value humans perceive these things to have. No, the only thing fiat implies is manipulation - the ability for a government or person to mess with the value of a currency by 'willing it to be.' Bitcoin is not fiat.
You have made the Internet-libertarian/goldbug mistake of thinking fiat is a dirty word.
We can argue about whether or not that is a good thing, but let's at least be clear about what we're talking about. Using definitions of words that are different from what everyone else uses is not the way to communicate your ideas to other people, let alone convince them that you're right.