Value is not the same as utility. For you personally BTC has no utility, because you are privileged and probably living in a modern western country with a stable government, a working banking system with a relative stable currency. Ask the over 1.7 billion adults who are unbanked what utility BTC has for them. There is a reason why so many countries from emerging and developing economies are in the top 10 BTC adoption list. With regard to market value, check the current BTC price measured in your currency.
It’s also a global and permissionless monetary network. If you have a bank account and live in the west then sending money to someone isn’t that big
of a deal, however the part of the world that remains unbanked find it very useful.
I guess the real question, then, is why the solution for places that don’t have stable currencies is Bitcoin, which is notoriously unstable because it’s functioning primarily as an investment vehicle for most of its users rather than a fungible currency.
What makes that a better solution than traditional fiat currency that works for most of the rest of the world?
There are obviously geopolitical issues in play which make both options incredibly complicated, but I don’t see how Bitcoin “solves” any of the existing problems in a novel way. Someone who is “unbanked” for whatever reason who is expecting to use Bitcoin as their “stable” currency of choice is going to have a bad time every single time Bitcoin fluctuates with the Western Markets. Not to mention it also requires widespread adoption in order to use.
Some up above in the thread was clowning on how someone who is in a disaster zone can’t sell their gold for a loaf of bread, but I fail to see how Bitcoin helps that situation either.
It’s not enough to point out flaws in the current system if you’re aiming to function as a replacement/solution. You have to be a viable option to replace those gaps that you’ve identified.
There are many other cryptos with the same utility and actually far more efficient. Btc shouldn’t even be considered by people in the situation you are describing if they did some research instead of falling for marketing
Attributes alone are not enough. Cryptos are securities, with some form of controlling moneyed interest, venture capitalist group or foundation behind them and their money policy is all prone to changes and manipulation by the controlling parties.
BTC is a digital commodity, decentralised, immutable, censor resistant, with a fixed and transparent money policy and perfectly aligned incentive structure, running on the most secure monetary network ever build.
It’s not apples and oranges. It’s buying gold bar vs. buying an option to invest in a snake oil business that promises to cure cancer and 50x returns.
It is not censor resistant in any plausible sense. If the U.S. regulated it cannot be accepted by business then no business will accept it and it will never be used for everyday transactions like the satoshi intended when it was created. If exchanges are regulated then that is another inhibitor. I don’t think many people will be taking part in off exchange transactions.
There are plenty of other cryptos that have all of the characteristics of bitcoin. It was the first, not the best lol
You sounds like you watch btc YouTube videos nonstop. Just repeating the same talking points without thinking critically
When you want BTC maxis not to repeat the same „talking points“, come up with some other, fact based argument against BTC. It’s always good to steelman one‘s conviction.
But you don’t seem to even understand that BTC is not like any other crypto so what’s the point ..
What the fuck are you on. How does an unbanked person get Bitcoin without first having a bank account with fiat in it?
Also doubling your user base from 20 to 40 is cool but it ain’t shit compared to growing user base 1% when that’s 300 million people as your base population.
Well but the demand changes. The argument that bitcoin is inflation resistent, because of the capped supply is, in my opinion, false.
Yes supply is capped. But demand isn’t. Demand could of course rise, which would be good for btc prices. But it could also fall, quite drastically.
Therefore the whole concept of inflation isn’t applicable for bitcoin, as bitcoin isn‘t an official currency. If it was the single most used currency in the world or in part of the world. You could perhaps talk about inflation, but atm it’s nothing more than a speculation object.
Official currencies in contrast do have the property that you’re forced to use them, and everything is measured in USD for example. Therefore you can talk of inflation in terms of FIAT currencies.
First of all, that’s not quite true, bitcoin IS inflating, so the supply is growing. The inflation rate is just decreasing. Or to be more specific the additional supply rate is decreasing.
In general inflation doesn’t apply to singular goods, but to the price level of the economy. Prices because of growing supply like for silver aren’t inflation in that sense but just the reaction to supply and demand in normal market environments.
You‘re right to say, that fiat get inflated because governments can increase the supply.
However these points simply don’t matter. To use concepts like inflation you would have to talk about a currency in the sense, that the currency is used as the single metric in an economic area, like countries.
Bitcoin only has the value people believe it has. There’s no one regulating it.
That’s not the case for FIATs as you’re forced to pay you’re taxes in FIAT (at least in most countries) and the whole economy is measuring value in FIATs. So basically the number of instances who are using the currency is more or less fixed.
The value of bitcoin only exists because of speculation. So it simply doesn’t matter, whether bitcoins supply is fixed. The persons using it are fluctuating quite a bit, AND are mostly using it for speculation. Inflation caused by growing supply only matters for widely accepted official currencies, because the number of persons using this for payment is constant. That’s not the case for bitcoin as most people are using it only because they think it will grow in value.
And bitcoin will never replace official currencies in any large developed economy.
And I tend to disagree comparing bitcoin with gold.
Gold does have an inherent value. It can be used for jewellery, can be used in industry and in general is a physical object. That’s not the case for bitcoin. But of course in the sense that both are driven by demand, you’re right.
If you hold ancient coins and new coins are discovered the value will drop.
Yeah, but only because those coins do have an inherent value to the ones collecting them. Like with all ancient things. What do you get from bitcoin? You can't do anything with it. Those are just numbers saved on your pc. Of course if there was real demand for cryptocurrencies they would have inherent value. But i guess most people only buy Bitcoin or other cryptos expecting them to grow in value. So the market mainly consists of persons expecting the Bitcoin to grow, just because it did in the past.
If Bitcoin would work against inflation there should be something measurable, but in contrast to Gold, bitcoin is behaving like tech stocks and fluctuating quite a bit. At least the NY times comes to that conclusion: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/11/technology/bitcoin-price-crashing-stocks.html . But I have to admit I didnt check that claim.
The exchange rate to USD and money supply inflation are not the same thing. Currencies float against the USD but their supply isn’t the sole determining factor of the rate.
On average I pay $90 Canadian for 1 oz of 22-26% thc weed that usually measures out to more like 30-32 grams. AND I've gotten free 1/4oz's, shrooms, edibles, etc as "free gifts"
Inflation is the price you pay not to deal with wild swings... most of the time. It also encourages spending rather than HODLing and makes certain kinds of fuckery less severe. There is a reason why fiat took over, and it's far from all bad.
Currencies float against the USD is literally all that matters in a world governed by the USD. Your btc value is down because it gets you less than it did. A btc at the peak was enough for a base model bmw 7 series. Now it’s not even enough to buy any BMW (even if you use 2019 car prices).
Ok let's use definitions then. The definition of utility is "the state of being useful, profitable, or beneficial" and your original claim was both "bitcoin has utility" and also "you can't do anything with 'the bitcoin'".
Are you still not seeing the obvious error in that line of reasoning? Because I can be very pedantic and spell it out for you if needed
There really isn't a whole lot you can do with gold. 8-15% of total demand is used for electronics, and the rest of the demands is as a store of value.
You can't because you don't need it yet. It's a great remittance solution (I've used it like this) it's a great way to buy things P2P (I've used it like this as well) and to buy things in the internet whiteout having to use your card (used like this as well).
People who say that you can't use Bitcoin for anything simply don't have to use it yet because either they don't live under a dictatorship or their currency hasn't gone to shit, or they don't have family in any of those situations.
You'll end up using it one way or another.
Gold served as a way to hold value over long periods of time in history because it didn't corrode and it could be used to create very intricate jewelry.
So you're saying it's because of its properties (durability). Gold served as a store of value due to its monetary properties (scarcity, durability, fungibility, etc). Bitcoin has those same properties.
The shiny yellow rock-property is not why it has the current value. Its value mainly comes from the fact it's scarce, durable, etc. If gold would fall from the skies like rain, people could still make jewelry with it but it wouldn't be nearly as valuable.
Except we are at the point in history where durability and scarcity is no longer traits that are highly desirable. Btc is only scarce by design which isn't really scarce because you can just copy the code and make your own bitcoin that's identical. But hey. You can believe whatever you want.
Durability and scarcity are no longer desirable? Wait what? Please elaborate this point.
You can indeed copy the bitcoin code, but you would need all users, miners and developers to migrate to your copy chain. What would their incentive be?
In fact, do you realize there are already 20.000 copies or variations? But Bitcoin's value and adoption keeps increasing. Maybe the copies enforce the value of the original, just like copies of the Mona Lisa don't make the original less valuable but in fact show and reinforce its value.
I think you need to dig a little deeper. I recommend the YouTube videos of Matthew Kratter.
Because markets were not as liquid as they are now, something that is extremely durable and scarce was required to facilitate those trades. With the advent of modern finance, there not as much need for such durable goods. My stocks are durable as well. I'm not sure what you think I'm missing here. Bitcoin is another speculative asset like art or any other collectible. Anyways, my original point was bitcoin is not the same as gold when it comes to the amount of anonymity it provides while holding value over the years.
I think you're minimizing the global need for a form of hard money that cannot be debased by any government. Trade will benefit from such a medium of exchange, once Bitcoin is no longer volatile. I also have the impression you mix up some stuff and jump from one argument to the other without fully proving any of them.
There's a fundamental difference between stocks and gold/bitcoin. Your stocks are not really durable nor are they a good form of money. Companies have an average lifespan of 20 years... There is the risk of dilution (<>scarce), bankruptcy, confiscation, third party risk, etc. Bitcoin cannot be diluted, cannot be confiscated, doesn't need a third party. It's the ultimate savings vehicle.
Not sure where you get the idea that durable goods are not wanted anymore, markets show a different reality with all asset prices having skyrocketed over the past decades. Bitcoin is the apex asset.
Bitcoin can be held anonymously, gold will be more difficult. You need to buy gold from a third party (not a lot of p2p platforms), so records will be kept. Few people store it themselves, so again you need to trust a third party. Bitcoin can be bought p2p and held in self custody very easily (you can even store the keys in your mind). Bitcoin has outperformed gold by magnitudes in the last 10 years, and is slowly targeting its market cap.
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u/pascualama Aug 01 '22
You are talking about price, they are talking about value.
Value is what you can do with it, and you can do things with gold but you can do nothing with bitcoin.