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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

#21

Post by Triv888 »

graeme wrote: post #7

The 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…

You are missing a lot on what bitcoin actually is and what it could be (because it can change)... which is hopefully why it will keep an edge on other cryptos.

Re: Bitcoin has few attributes of money but all the attributes of a collectible

#22

Post by darksaints »

jdnordy wrote: post #3

A key difference between collectibles and bitcoin/cryptocurrency is that collectibles don't claim to be money nor are they trying to replace current money systems. I'm no expert on money, how it works and how it gets value, but I would be interested to find an article discussing whether cryptocurrency has enough of the qualities of "money" to replace any current money system.

The Hitachi Magic Wand never claimed to be a sex toy, and yet it is almost universally recognized as one. It doesn't really matter what is claimed...there are some cryptocurrencies that are technically better suited to currency use cases than Bitcoin, but they aren't popular enough to be used as a currency, so Bitcoin is still more of a currency than they are. Even Tide detergent can be recognized as a currency if enough people use it like one [0].

Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies certainly share a lot of the properties of money: cleanly divisible, readily accepted as a medium of exchange, and difficult to counterfeit. But as much as it is used as a currency, there doesn't appear to exist much of a lending market (a key property of money), and there are tons of people that are sitting on it like an investor might sit on gold stockpiles or land, which makes me think the baseball card analogy is still appropriate.

[0] https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/markets-in-everything-tide-la...

Re: Bitcoin has few attributes of money but all the attributes of a collectible

#23

Post by alwillis »

Of all of the bad articles about bitcoin, this is among the worst.

Here’s the best short description of bitcoin I’ve seen:

    Bitcoin is a non-sovereign,
    hard-capped supply, global,
    immutable, decentralized digital store
    of value. It’s an insurance
    policy against monetary and fiscal policy irresponsibility
    from central banks and
    governments globally.
—@travis_kling

Re: Bitcoin has few attributes of money but all the attributes of a collectible

#25

Post by brbsix » 

    Even its strongest selling point, absolute privacy, is mostly a lie
That only became a supposed selling point among the uninformed as a result of widespread misrepresentation in the media. At least from my perspective, nobody using it very early (i.e. 2011-12) was ever under any illusion that privacy or anonymity were a feature. People using it for illicit purposes have never been. Mixing services and informal brokers willing to exchange cash for BTC were widely available for that reason even then. Later of course BTC->XMR->BTC and then CoinJoin et al.

Re: Bitcoin has few attributes of money but all the attributes of a collectible

#27

Post by travisgriggs »

purplecabbage77 wrote: post #8

Something this article misses though is that Bitcoin, unlike stamps and Beanie Babies, is digital, which I'd argue makes a huge difference. Imagine if you could exchange Beanie Babies with anyone in the world with an internet (or satellite) connection. That seems...at least a little more useful?

I'll bite. Isn't that essentially what eBay and the like are? Among other things, a beanie baby exchange?

I'm curious why you feel that being digital "makes a huge difference"? Sure it's different. And coincident with a current popular disruption (digitization of everything we can think of), but does that make it transcendentally different? Or just different because times are different? Honestly curious.

Re: Bitcoin has few attributes of money but all the attributes of a collectible

#28

Post by john_alan »

throwaway_kufu wrote: post #19
john_alan wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It’s permissionless because you don’t need a home or other status to use it.

It’s decentralised because the US can’t globally stop it.

Re: Bitcoin has few attributes of money but all the attributes of a collectible

#29

Post by RealityVoid »

john_alan wrote: post #17
thesausageking wrote: post #11

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 is anything but fungible. Taint is a real issue.

Is it though? I have never heard of someone not accepting tainted bitcoins. It's a possible issue, but quite theoretical so far.

Re: Bitcoin has few attributes of money but all the attributes of a collectible

#30

Post by bruce511 »

trimbo wrote: post #14

Bitcoin 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…

You are equating different cards to different bitcoins. That's not the point of the article.

In the context of the article there are a limited number of say babe Ruth cards. They are all the same. Bitcoin is the babe Ruth card. Other cards represent other coins.

Arguing if bitcoin is money is like arguing if a ferrari testarosa is a car. It clearly is,but at the same time it's not a terribly useful car.

Sure bitcoin is money, but it's not an especially useful form of money. Its main attribute is scarcity,not utility. A regular car will drive around 200 000 miles in its lifetime, the ferrari maybe 50 000, probably less.

Bitcoin may be money, but its a pretty weak form of money in terms of what we need everyday.

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