Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

jabberwocking.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 203 posts

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

#31

Post by kenjackson »

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…

I think the point the author makes is that all Bitcoin is the Mantle cards. Ethereum is the Mays cards.

Gold has inherent value. You can melt them and use the gold. A better example might be diamonds. They have value, but very little is intrinsic in the actual gem. They are collectibles.

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

#32

Post by lukecameron »

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.

Fungibility is a spectrum. Bitcoins are _somewhat_ less fungible than most fiat currency, but way more fungible than art, or baseball cards, or NFTs.

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

#33

Post by graeme »

paxys wrote: post #20
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…

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.

Those all have some kind of use value, and a story attached. Gold makes beautiful jewelry, collector’s cards remind people of childhood and baseball flory, art is lovely to look at and a way to flaunt wealth or feel a connection through the ages. You can look at all three and feel a fuzzy glow of happiness as you ponder the attached narrative.

My point was that, if the author’s argument is true, bitcoin will only have value as a pure collectible if people maintain some wider narrative that opposes the argument in the essay.

No one would collect a sterile piece of cardboard devoid of any story, just as no one would collect “Digital token #385839, definitively devoid of use”.

I’m not saying Bitcoin needs to become a useful currency to maintain a value. I’m saying it needs to have people believe it will, or to believe some other narrative about it which makes them consider it as more than a collectible.

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

#34

Post by agumonkey »

syllable_studio wrote: post #9

I don't agree with this assessment at all. I think the immense value of bitcoin and other technologically advanced, secure, decentralized networks comes from the detailed network communications which they enable. They allow global financial transactions through a powerful medium in a way that has never existed before. This has nothing to do with baseball cards. The fact that decentralized networks enable NFTs and col…

what if decentralized monetary network ends up having the same effect on communication and social relationship as internet did ? are we becoming degen gig economists ?

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

#35

Post by dnautics »

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…

> If everyone suddenly switched to believing “Oh bitcoin doesn’t do anything but it is a fun collectible which also has mining costs to track ownership” its value would plummet.

That's generally true for all currencies. If everyone suddenly switched to believing "X-sovereign-currency" doesn't do anything but legitimizes that sovereign and has military and human rights costs to maintain the illusion of that legitimacy, its value would plummet.

Currencies are not real, their value is in our collective heads, or at the tip of the gun, or because you can pay taxes in it or get sent to jail. Yes, in general they're nice because it makes transactions less of a pain, but that isn't specifically true for any one currency.

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

#36

Post by john_alan »

RealityVoid wrote: post #29
john_alan wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

https://bitcoinmagazine.com/.amp/culture/u-s-imposes-sanctio...

https://cointelegraph.com/news/over-10-000-blacklisted-btc-f...

Tonnes of examples. I’ve been unable to sell coins on coinbase and polo that I got from Bisq

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

#37

Post by jazzyjackson »

Triv888 wrote: post #21
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.

Holders of gold seek no innovation in the material science of gold.

Would like to hear more of your theory, in my view Bitcoin is a fossil whose community is intent on keeping it a fossil. All energy towards improving the network are focused on Layer 2. Transactions per second will not be increased, max supply will not be increased... the various forks of bitcoin speak to this. Why do you believe Bitcoin can keep an edge?

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

#38

Post by paxys »

The explanation I have seen works best for a non-technical audience is – Bitcoin is digital gold, and there is a global ledger which automatically tracks who owns how much of it.

There is a finite amount of it out there, and it has to be "mined".

There is nothing that makes it different from any other "coin" or really any other combination of bits (just like gold isn't unique among all the elements in any way), but it is simply what most people decided would be the one.

No country or central government decides how much Bitcoin is worth. It is all up to people trading on many individual exchanges. Or you can buy/sell it directly without using an exchange, all same as gold.

Is Bitcoin (or will Bitcoin ever be) a currency? This one is complicated, and goes into subjective discussions about what currency even means.

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

#39

Post by handmodel »

dnautics wrote: post #35
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…

> If everyone suddenly switched to believing “Oh bitcoin doesn’t do anything but it is a fun collectible which also has mining costs to track ownership” its value would plummet. That's generally true for all currencies. If everyone suddenly switched to believing "X-sovereign-currency" doesn't do anything but legitimizes that sovereign and has military and human rights costs to maintain the illusion of that legitimacy…

> their value is in your head, or at the tip of the gun, or because you can pay taxes in it or get sent to jail.

These all seem very real. And not something that will disappear (or even drop) if media attention or nerd interest moves elsewhere.

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

#40

Post by jazzyjackson »

john_alan wrote: post #28
throwaway_kufu wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm pretty sure we just haven't seen the war that would stop it.

A few cut undersea cables and a dose of kessler syndrome would make all those burned cpu cycles for naught.

Post reply on HN