241–250 of 268 posts
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So what's the term for something shadier than fiat currency, something not backed by collateral NOR by government dictate? It should convey all the scorn directed at "fiat currency", but moreso.
Cryptocurrency.
Coop currency? Improv currency?
"Finally, I’d like to address the claim made by some critics that Bitcoin is a haven for bad behavior..." Just need more examples like Dogecoin funding the Jamaican Bobsled team[1] to keep the narrative going in the right direction. [1] http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jan/20/jamaican-b...
I've become a big Dogecoin proponent. I believe that Dogecoin will add another dimension to our online experience, and open up avenues for content creators to be rewarded that did not exist before. I'm all in.
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does bitcoin have an intrinsic value? if so, what?
The intrinsic value in Bitcoin is whatever someone is willing to do for it. Just like with beads, USD, or gold, it has intrinsic value if someone is willing to trade their possessions or labor in exchange for it.
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Lybia, Iran and Iraq. This topic comes up every day, and every day someone who doesn't know history will show "skepticism". I don't have a copy/pasteable text in hand, and I'm not gonna write one from scratch. Just learn some history please, for the sake of mankind.
Please explain how any of those were actions taken in support of a strong dollar , as opposed to in support of particular economic interests otherwise.
The war in Iraq and the coup in Libya were done purely out of economic self-preservation, and not because a few savages with AK47s would pose a serious threat to the western world.
Bitcoin is the first Internet-wide payment system where transactions either happen with no fees or very low fees (down to fractions of pennies). Existing payment systems charge fees of around 2 percent to three percent As long as consumers are paid in their local currency and vendors pay their employees, their taxes, and their other costs in local currency, then bitcoin as a payment technology has similar costs as cr…
By making transactions in Bitcoin, you lose legally-mandated formal protection such as chargebacks and FDIC insurance.
Despite what Marc says in the article, I find this is a big minus for Bitcoin on a day-to-day transaction scale. Traditional banking is pretty robust against bad actors, but if I put my Bitcoin in the wrong place for just a second... it's gone.
A great deal of infrastructure is needed to solve these problems, which is partly why it's a good bet for Marc to invest: if successful, there is potential for an uncompetitive oligopoly even compared to traditional banking.
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> [...] But once Bitcoin penetration is significant [...] I think we passed that point, there is an adoption of bitcoin, but it will NEVER be used as a currency IMHO. I really hope the price stops fluctuating so we can use it as a value storage medium, but even that can be disputed.
There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home. - Ken Olsen, 1977 I have traveled the length and breadth of this country and talked with the best people, and I can assure you that data processing is a fad that won’t last out the year. - Editor of Prentice Hall business books, 1957 There's no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. - Steve Ballmer, USA Today, April 30, 2007…
Let me rephrase some of these for you to illustrate:
- There is no reason [in present time, that I know of as to why] anyone would want a computer in their home. - Ken Olsen, 1977
- I have traveled the length and breadth of this country and talked with the best people, and I can assure you that [from their current understanding of current applications of data processing that] data processing is a fad that won’t last out the year. - Editor of Prentice Hall business books, 1957
- There's no chance [that I am going to admit to my share holders] that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. - Steve Ballmer, USA Today, April 30, 2007
- I think there is a world market for maybe five computers [currently/at this time]. -- Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943
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If a currency is "backed" by something, it means the issuer is willing to exchange it for another resource, usually at a fixed ratio. For example, a gold-backed dollar (when they used to exist) could be exchanged for a certain weight of gold. There is no such thing for Bitcoin.
Bitcoins can be exchanged for the ability to add a new transaction to the blockchain, at the very least. It might be abstract and of questionable value but there is certainly such a thing. And this is getting a bit whimsical, but why is the gold valuable?
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This is true, but the end of your post implies that recessions have become rarer and less pronounced in a fiat system. They haven't. In other words, sure, central banks "flooded the markets with capital and blunted the impact of the crisis and avoided panic", but what system was in place that allowed the manic colossal 1995-2008 housing bubble to take place? Did it not have anything to do with central banking policie…
I think bitcoin is like any other commodity. People may indeed flock to it, but the relative stability of the current system is what makes it great -- can can predict with some level of certainty what $1 will be worth in say 10 years. That's important because it makes longer term capitalization of things like homes possible. If the world was still using gold or BTC as currency, lending would be like it was in the gol…
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I wasn't thinking of USD, I was thinking more about something used for a couple of millenia as a value storage, but yes sure... Compared to today's BTC even the USD seems okay.
People do not live for millennia . Like, you do realize that no one in the history of mankind has a use for something which "stores value" for millennia right? And that timescale is so ridiculously huge that gold, silver and everything else does inflate away. We might be a type II Kardashev civilization in 1000 years. The volume of gold available will be absurdly large by then either way.
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I wasn't thinking of USD, I was thinking more about something used for a couple of millenia as a value storage, but yes sure... Compared to today's BTC even the USD seems okay.
USD fluctuates a lot less than silver/gold, in case you are implying the opposite.