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284 comments
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It's backed by math. There is a fixed amount of Bitcoin. We have never had the concept of "digital scarcity" before. There are thousands of computers running independently that are following a consensus algorithm. it's an open, permisionless, trustless system that anyone on the planet can be part of.
You would rather have money controlled by corrupt governments? Hilarious.
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There is a fixed amount of Bitcoin.
That is part of the problem. As long as the economy grows, then Bitcoin is deflationary. This encourages people who have it to hoard it, rather than to move it around and drive the economy. It is almost perfectly designed to be used as a speculative investment rather than an actual day-to-day currency.
Having a fixed pool of money to represent your economy only makes sense if the total value of the economy will never change. This doesn't happen in the real world. Populations grow, new technologies add value, and poverty generally goes down. This is all fairly simple math.
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It's a great place to store and hold wealth.
The concept you are describing is Gresham's Law. https://bitcoinmagazine.com/culture/how-does-greshams-law-relate-to-bitcoin
Bitcoin is digital gold. Other cryptocurrencies will become used as well for basic payments. Eventually you will be able to pay cross chain so it wont even matter which coins you hold.
Edit: Using ChainLink: https://twitter.com/0xShmn/status/1696169139168059896
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Amid all of this, nobody has managed to give me a reason why I would want to use crypto for transactions instead of my debit/credit card.
Crypto doesn’t come with any of the consumer protections I expect from my current payment methods. And in fact, it is designed to make some of them literally impossible (I.e. chargebacks). This might be appealing to sellers, but financial transactions are a buyers market. Sellers hate dealing with PayPal, but they put up with it because consumers trust PayPal and demand to use it.
So right now, crypto has these problems:
- It is riskier to me than my current solutions.
- Even with PoS, it is an order of magnitude more energy intensive than current centralized solutions. The the energy cost for just McDonald’s to replace all their credit card transactions with Ethereum would be staggering.
- Most importantly, it does not solve any problems I have that other solutions do not. There needs to be a reason for consumers to change their habits. You can’t build your sales pitch on intangible benefits that are only relevant to a tiny minority.
It’s been over a decade and blockchains are still a neat technology without a useful practical application.
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Ah, I see, you think that because you can mint Schmecklebux or whatever and use it as a medium of exchange, you're somehow exempt from the laws of whatever country you're in when the trade goes down? Tell me, does your flag have a fringe on it?
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Why do you assume I think I'm exempt from laws? I paid over $300,000 usd in taxes last year! I'm not using crypto to break laws, I'm using to to become wealthy.
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Then how are you free from "corrupt governments"? You're still paying taxes on income and on property, so even if you acquired property with funny money the government is still getting its cut. And if the government felt like crypto was getting out of hands it would apply further laws to it or outlaw it.
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Free in the sense that the place I store my wealth can't be confiscated (e.g. Cypress, Greece, etc...) or it's value inflated away by money printing.
Bitcoin is peer-to-peer digital cash. Governments can't ban it, that's why they are regulating it and accepting it as a thing.
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Why do you think they can't ban it? If they can regulate it they can ban it. Use of an illicit currency would be a financial crime that they would investigate like any other.
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Because banning things only makes them more powerful... If a country bans bitcoin, then it's putting all of it's citizens at a global disadvantage vs other countries. There is no practical way to enforce a ban of bitcoin. You can run a node over TOR.
It's the same concept of banning AI. Sure, a few people would stop, but the rest of the world will continue development.
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That sounds more like a profession of faith than a logical argument. But to refute, kiddie porn is banned and not at all powerful. In any case TOR is quite thoroughly compromised by multiple law enforcement and related agencies, so maybe that particular pirate cove isn't your best bet.
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It’s backed by math.
No, it's backed by the power grid. Shut off the power, and you have nothing.
Also trying to create scarcity in a realm where none actually exists shows how greedy and scammy it is.
It's worse than any other fiat currency. There's literally nothing behind it.
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digital scarcity
ipv4 addresses. Also bitcoin is the worst example here, as it's just an asset. It's not bearable as real money, you can't trust its always changing value. It's also a victim of constant market manipulation. XMR on the other hand is a relatively stable currency.
Bitcoin is also a privacy and ecological nightmare.
In general it's also really fun that you can lose all your money without doing anything wrong.-
yeah, but we have ipv6 now. ipv4 was never designed to be a scarce asset, and it's managed by a centralized authority.
XMR is one of the best cryptocurrencies. Big fan of privacy!
I've been holding bitcoin since 2011. Haven't had any instances of "losing all my money without doing anything wrong".
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But that's digital scarcity, even if not designed like that.
You didn't lose anything because it's completely random. There are big pools just randomly generating wallets to see if they get a used one. And they had multiple hits.
Even when not talking about people not good with computers, people mess up backups and forget passwords. They shouldn't lose their belongings just because of that.
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I think crypto could have its place as the cash of the internet. No one can watch your transaction, but if the other person takes your money and runs you are shit outta luck. No way to revert transactions, perfect for money laundering, but also anonymous, which can be a plus.
But all this makes it completely unsuitable in everyday use.
Also: yes, there is a fixed amount of Bitcoin. But you know what governments all over the world did when Inflation was sky high? Change the interest rates to change the amount of money that goes into the economy to make everyday items affordable again.
And for Bitcoin in particular, if everyone actually uses it as intended the artificial limit of the transaction rate would only allow you to perform one transaction every two yearsor something like that.
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284 comments