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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

#61

Post by spookthesunset »

fny wrote: post #52
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…

Here's a question: how many people do you know that buy crypto intend to spend it? You know, use it like currency? Or are they all just HODLing in the hopes that some other buyer will come along who believes it will become a medium of exchange? In my view, it's not a currency until people stop speculating and start using it like a currency. So yes, it's a collectible with ridiculously high transaction costs that make…

The problem with Bitcoin is it is a horrible currency. It’s slow and it doesn’t scale beyond a few transactions a second.

I’ve been following Bitcoin for more than seven years and absolutely nothing about it has fundamentally changed. It has always been a “currency” majority owned by dodgy shadowy characters. It’s always been slow. It’s always been unscalable (by design!). It has always been a get rich quick pyramid scheme.

It doesn’t matter what its USD value is. It’s a scam. Always was, always will be.

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

#62

Post by rawtxapp »

fny wrote: post #52
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…

Here's a question: how many people do you know that buy crypto intend to spend it? You know, use it like currency? Or are they all just HODLing in the hopes that some other buyer will come along who believes it will become a medium of exchange? In my view, it's not a currency until people stop speculating and start using it like a currency. So yes, it's a collectible with ridiculously high transaction costs that make…

Personally, I'll start spending it when it's value stabilizes and that won't happen until it either "wins" as in becomes the global reserve currency or "loses" as in becomes worthless.

If it were to freeze at it's current price, it would only be able to power a very small economy of 1T$, that's nothing considering it's borderless and digital.

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

#63

Post by gonehome »

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…

I’ve basically come to believe the argument described in the following is true: https://www.matthuang.com/bitcoin_for_the_open_minded_skepti...

Bitcoin isn’t a cash competitor, it’s a gold competitor - and it’s a pretty good one.

Part of something like gold is the shared social belief in it as a store of value. Bitcoin has this and there’s enough time and infrastructure behind it at this point that I’d bet it’s likely to keep it.

That plus its scarcity guarantee and disconnect from the federal monetary policy of any one country or bank makes me bullish on its future in the long term.

I’m also bullish on ethereum, but for different reasons.

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

#64

Post by rawtxapp »

spookthesunset wrote: post #61
fny wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's a question: how many people do you know that buy crypto intend to spend it? You know, use it like currency? Or are they all just HODLing in the hopes that some other buyer will come along who believes it will become a medium of exchange? In my view, it's not a currency until people stop speculating and start using it like a currency. So yes, it's a collectible with ridiculously high transaction costs that make…

The problem with Bitcoin is it is a horrible currency. It’s slow and it doesn’t scale beyond a few transactions a second. I’ve been following Bitcoin for more than seven years and absolutely nothing about it has fundamentally changed. It has always been a “currency” majority owned by dodgy shadowy characters. It’s always been slow. It’s always been unscalable (by design!). It has always been a get rich quick pyramid…

I feel like beating a dead horse, but there's tons of L2 technologies at this point, lightning payment channels or rollups on eth, etc. The blockchain itself is like a settlement layer.

Our current financial system is also layered similarly btw. When you buy something with your credit card, it doesn't settle right away.

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

#65

Post by cyphertruck »

This article is knocking down a squadron of strawmen. First off, bitcoins key attribute is not “privacy” but censorship resistance. It’s why wikileaks has been able to keep operating all these years after being cancelled by the mainstream payments industry. Not to mention many smaller, politically oppressed activist organizations, and much of the marijuana industry.

Secondly, the attributes of money are, according to Rothbard from memory:

- hard to counterfeit: bitcoin has this better than anything else.

- a store of value (not price stability.): It’s doing this great, just don’t buy late in the post halvining revaluation period. (Bitcoin haters don't seem to know the halvening exists. Bitcoiners are not worried about “price stability”.)

- divisible: down to 1/100,000,000 of a bitcoin, further possible with lightning. This rnables micro transactions.

- immune to spoilage: bitcoin can’t dissolve in water like salt (a previous form of money) and is quite robust, and can be backed up!

- easy to transport: bitcoin can be stored in any number of ways, more portable than paper money even.

- fungible: bitcoin is pretty fungible, but anti-freedom forces are trying to change that.

- liquid: bitcoin is extremely liquid with a global exchange network and ATMs all over and multiple p2p exchange services like localbitcoins.com to serve even places like the Sudan. Is paypal easy to use in the Sudan? Bitcoin is a more liquid form if money than anything other than the US Dollar and is competitive even there.

What bitcoin IS NOT, is a collectible like baseball cards. Baseball cards are absolutely not fungible— that is what makes them collectible! A babe ruth rookie card in mint is worth a lot more than last years random rookie card.

The author of this piece doesn’t understand what money is, or why bitcoin is the way it is, which means they haven’t done basic research.

I understand, certain people really hate bitcoin— and for good reason. Bitcoin will eventually obsolete the fiat inflation system which has created the wealth inequality in much of the world. The system that lets politicians buy power and escape responsibility for violating rights.

Bitcoin destroys the number one tool of human oppression.

A tool which, by the way, paid money to indoctrinate people into beliefs that result in them hating bitcoin.

But bitcoin isn’t alive. The hate doesn't affect it. Bitcoin is a well constructed set of incentives.

Embrace or ignore, your choice.

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

#66

Post by [deleted] »

Ansil849 wrote: post #45
throwaway81523 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't use bitcoin but one attraction I see is that it lets you spend your money without anyone else's permission. If you buy something with it, the seller gets the money without your having to worry about automated fraud checks causing your credit card to be declined, check to be put on hold, etc. It's like cash that way. Wire transfers might be an alternative, but they are only practical for fairly large transacti…

That's a potential use, one of many, but it is not a current widespread use of crypto. Why? Probably because Paypal (despite its many, many faults) works just fine for most people.

[deleted]

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

#67

Post by chii »

zbraniecki wrote: post #50
graeme wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 hav…

That feels like a rationalization of an emotional argument. Gold's current value is not related to its function as a material for jewelry, but from a myth that it is a store of value. If people would stop believing the myth, the cost of gold would plummet and stabilize around the value it provides as a material for jewelry. Similarly, "art is lovely" is a really stretched argument. If you want, you could print your t…

> If people would stop believing the myth

imagine if tomorrow, we suddenly find ourselves mining gold from asteroids, and that gold suddenly became super-abundant. Would the price of gold drop to match just the material usage value (e.g., for jewellery and electronics)?

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

#68

Post by didibus »

It's a new technology, I don't think comparing it to collectible is totally accurate.

As a collectible, it can choose to print more of itself if needed, all it takes is a majority to agree to it by altering its protocol (which could also result in a fork).

As a collectible, it can also trade itself digitally, but cannot be copied.

As a collectible, it keep tracks of all transactions between parties (even though the parties are anonymous).

So I mean, it is what it is. It has resemblance with gold, with fiat currencies, and with collectibles, but it's also none of those.

And similarly, different cryptocurrencies and blockchain based technologies have similarities with one another, and yet important differences.

I think the question that matters more is: could it be used as money?

The article says it needs to be usable to pay a central governments taxes, that's just a matter of policy, so it seems like it could.

It also says it has to capture dept, well that's an interesting difference here, some other crypto could work as such, but Bitcoin has a fixed limit right now. I don't know if money needs to capture dept, that's what it does now, it didn't always.

And so I think I won't agree with this articles definition of money, I recommend people read wikipedias take instead: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money#Functions

> Money is any item or verifiable record that is generally accepted as payment for goods and services and repayment of debts, such as taxes, in a particular country or socio-economic context

Maybe you don't consider Bitcoin generally accepted quite yet, but it could be, and I think that could make it money if we wanted too. And that's because it has all the functions needed to do so: it can store value, it has a unit of relative measure, and it provides a medium for its exchange.

Which leads us to the most important question: Why would we use it as money over the alternatives?

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

#69

Post by DubiousPusher »

I don't know why there's an article that makes the rounds once a month analogizing bitcoin to some other thing when..

1 bitcoin is its own thing

2 bitcoin has a clear analog in the form of gold

Collectibles are a terrible analogy because

1 they are not fungable and bitcoin is

2 they are not easily converted into currency whereas bitcoin is

3 they carry novelty and bitcoin does not (cryptocurrency may carry some novelty but each individual bitcoin does not).

4 their value is based on nostalgia turned speculation whereas bitcoins is more complex (though still speculative)

5 neither is really good for anything other than maybe as a value store (though both are questionable on that front too)

I could go on. Gold is genuinely a pretty good analogy for bitcoin. People buy both believing they can be converted into money later or directly traded. Both have pools of true believers, spectators and novelty purchaers. The main difference is simply that bitcoin does not have the long history that gold does.

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

#70

Post by skohan »

paxys wrote: post #38

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 i…

The thing about this argument is, bitcoin used to be a lot more like money. In 2015 there were several Bitcoin ATMs in my city, and a handful of shops where I could pay directly from my wallet to buy a cup of coffee or computer parts.

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

It's a nice ambition, but is bitcoin really decentralized? The thing which made BTC less useful as a currency between 2015 and 2017 for example was that the core team refused to increase the block size, meaning transactions got much much slower and more expensive.

To compare BTC to gold, our best physical manifestation of "intrinsic value" seems a bit off the mark for something which is vulnerable to being rendered useless if a hand-full of unaccountable individuals decide to make it so.

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