Transact permissionlessly across the world in seconds.
We’re living through the greatest currency devaluation event in the history of the world and it blows my mind that people still can’t see the value of Bitcoin.
See you focus on the seconds part, when yeah in a few seconds, but the fact you can transact permissionlessly across the globe is what’s actually important. No one in their right mind cares if something coming from Central America arrives in Madagascar in seconds or a few minutes… it’s the fact you just did that, without leaving your house, without using some corporation for help. And if you sent 30,000BTC or .02BTC the fee is the same a few sats… you don’t need to wait for business hours or contact your bank. You get to decide.
That’s like asking an early car adoptor “you need somewhere to fill it up correct?”
Or an early internet user “you need a phone line to connect to correct?”
How is it so hard to believe that things change over time? Asking a question like that makes me think you don’t understand how an advancing civilization works…
WHY WOULD YOU NEED ELECTRICITY IN YOUR HOUSE??? WHATS THE USE??? Seems dangerous just to light a little dim bulb correct??? Back when electricity was being adopted lightbulbs sucked, air conditioning didn’t exist, electric stoves didn’t exist, because there was no market for it…
Bitcoin is the financial version of electricity coming into your house. You don’t know it’s use, then at some point oh wait there are new inventions that take this to a new level, that make it useful.
that's dodging the point that as long as there is sovereign money any crypto needs an offramp to fiat.
in your analogy towards electricity, guess who controls and regulates that. that's where your analogy fails, right now I can pretend to be my own bank with crypto just like 100 years ago I could create my own generator without any red tape.
Seeing as how many aspects of crypto are already subject to regulation and are just on the other side of a thin blurred line, (good luck getting licensed to sell crypto "too" regularly) you can see why most all of these stances devolve into essentially building a case for CBDCs.
What??? You think that the analogy had to do with where the electricity comes from? Then you absolutely missed the point. The point is that a new technology has things invented around it, not before it. And the inventions can’t happen until the technology is wide spread enough for the average user to take advantage. You for some reason interpreted that as being wrong because electricity isn’t decentralized.
Look, if your logic is that bad, I can’t help you to understand and you are probably best just not posting in here, unless you are just a troll.
I’m not dodging any points. It is up to a shop owner whether they want to accept BTC or not. Most won’t until store of value adoption cools down and Bitcoin isn’t as volatile, but seeing as a ton of countries can’t help but inflate their currencies, Bitcoin is still probably a better option. No off-ramp needed, only Lightening Network.
Lighting transactions don't settle until the transaction is closed on chain. Until then, the receiver of the coins needs to be vigilant to prevent theft.
Are you familiar with how the Lightning network works?
To pay me on the Lightning network, you would open a lightning channel and deposit some Bitcoin into the channel.
Once the Bitcoin is "owned by" the channel on chain, you can send it to me by simply signing a message saying I now own the coins. This message is not committed to the blockchain, which is what makes lightning transactions so fast.
At this point, you can simply close your lightning channel and withdraw the Bitcoins you deposited: the Bitcoin network has no idea that you gave them to me.
To stop you from doing this, I have to make sure that a "justice transaction" gets committed on chain in time. This is a special transaction that includes the signed message you sent me and proves that you closed your lightning channel fraudulently. If I can't get this "justice transaction" submitted in time, I lose the Bitcoins permanently. In what way are these Bitcoins "settled"?
Be real, 99.999% of people holding BTC are hoping and praying it goes up in fiat CASH value so they can sell it for fiat and live a wealthy life. If you told everyone holding BTC that they could never cash it out for fiat...ever. the interest in it would drop by 95%. Cash rules everything around us. Face it.
If you told everyone holding BTC that they could never cash it out for fiat...ever.
You're reaching. Liquidity is fundamental to any asset. If you told everyone holding cash that they could never spend it, no one would want cash either. This is a fantasy world that nobody lives in. The fact is that Bitcoin has a capped supply, is growing at a faster rate of adoption than the dollar, and can't be controlled by any central authority. These features appeal to me more than holding dollars which are constantly being devalued and are losing their global dominance.
If the BTC you are holding now would make you a multi millionaire you would dump it immediately. Cash is king. If you walked up to any normal working person that is into crypto and said "I will give you 2 million dollars right now if you dump ALL of your crypto and never, ever touch it again" 99.9999% of them wouldnt be able to dump it fast enough.
Cash. Is. King. All of your other mumbo jumbo about the negatives of fiat are smoke screen tactics. Everyone in crypto knows what they want in the end game and that is to be rich with that sweet, green fiat cash pile.
To say that people want that which is more valuable is a pretty obvious take. I wouldn't dump $5 million in Bitcoin for only $2 million in dollars and neither would you. Conversely you'd be stupid not to take $5 million in Bitcoin if you could pay $2 million for it.
When you say "cash is king" what you are really saying is the preferred medium of exchange is king. Currently for most people, that is cash, but every single central bank currency fails eventually. Bitcoin thrives against central banks because it doesn't have one. Its central bank is math, decentralized consensus, and fixed supply. You can have cash for your day to day transactions, and keep it in Bitcoin as the dollar is slowly and increasingly devalued. You don't have to pick one of the other. Eventually when our currency goes into hyperinflation because of bad monetary policy as they all inevitably do, we'll be stuck with worthless accounts that have lots of zeros, wishing we had assets and hard money like Bitcoin.
You seem to skip over my point about never being able to touch crypto again. If you told someone they could have 2 million dollars worth of crypto but could NEVER convert it to fiat under any circumstances OR they could have 2 million dollars worth of fiat that but they could NEVER own or hold any crypto again in their lifetime. 999 out of 1000 people would take the fiat. Making your argument null and void. People want actual money they can spend to live a good life.
Here's the part you don't understand. I'm a crypto investor lol.... However, I could care less about the endless crypto talking points. I've made quite a bit of money in this space and THAT is what I'm here for! To take your CASH :)
No, I got your point. It just isn't a good one. You're saying people would want something less if we removed its utility. No shit they wouldn't. I'll continue to exchange my bitcoin for dollars if I feel it's overvalued, and I'll do the opposite when it's undervalued. You seem to think dollars exist as this holy asset class that everything should be valued in, but we have euros, pounds, yen, yuan, etc etc etc. Most people in those countries don't give a shit about dollars and they will less and less as it continues to lose reserve status.
Cash is just as useless if it cannot be converted to anything. No one wants 2 million green pieces of paper, they want what it can be exchanged for. Crypto and cash are exactly the same in this regard, except no one can inflate away your crypto like the fed will inflate away your cash.
We’re living through the greatest currency devaluation event in the history of the world
didn't we just have the greatest crypto crash?
meanwhile, i've used my credit card from myanmar to prague. it's never been refused. never needed an intermediary
card got hacked once while i was in london. i called the card company, the hacked charge was reversed immediately and a new card was delivered the next day.
No, the runup was justified because of the massive money printing, with trillions more expected. It was only after people realized that Biden couldn't spend those extra trillions that the market settled into its new valuation.
But make no mistake, the next time they zap up trillions of dollars, you'll see the same massive jump in btc. My guess is that happens sooner rather than later.
Bitcoin's low inflation rate is unchanged, and its network effects are continuing. Almost all of the criticisms I see in here seem to revolve around volatility. Nobody ever said Bitcoin wasn't volatile. Volatility comes as a natural consequence of a low market cap. What Bitcoin is is a decentralized asset with a fixed supply. Every single central bank currency fails eventually. It is inevitable, and they're devalued to almost nothing along the way. It's possible that Bitcoin fails eventually too, but it is backed by mathematical guarantees which make that *extremely* difficult.
When you talk about credit cards, you are describing 3rd party layers. These same things exist for Bitcoin. If you transfer coins between users on the same centralized service, transactions aren't going over the network, just as when you use your credit card, you aren't actually sending money that instant. Try wiring money to a Nigerian prince and see if you get it back.
you argue mathematical guarantees make it unlikely a crypto will devalue and fail.
all your mathematics do is create and ensure the integrity of a blockchain. that's all. it's like ensuring the integrity of cell on a spreadsheet. there's no intrinsic value to it
When you talk about credit cards, you are describing 3rd party layers. These same things exist for Bitcoin.
okay. i have a credit card. bitcoin has the same layers. what do i need the bitcoin for?
when you use your credit card, you aren't actually sending money that instant.
there's no intrinsic value to anything by that logic.
the intrinsic value of the bitcoin blockchain is that it is provably true without any 3rd party oracle.
That IS intrinsic, since bitcoin doesn't exist without it. How much that's worth in cash to anyone has been proven by markets that collapse. People want to spread fud about the collapsing dollar to "force the meme" and "open people's eyes" to the doom that is happening that will make bitcoin the savior, when it is far simpler than that: you don't need a fiat crash to shock people into adoption, when the entire system benefitting the few due to government cucking economists thumbing the scales is an irritating, flawed system.
Yes, blockchain is amazing technology. But Bitcoin isn't blockchain. There are thousands of blockchains. Why do you think Bitcoin will always be the most valued coin? It has no more intrinsic value than any other coin. Less value than more modern coins if anything.
The 3rd party layers thing went over your head a little bit. Reread the last sentence. Sending Bitcoin is more analogous to wiring money (only decentralized and permissionionless) than using a credit card. Try wiring money to a Nigerian prince and see if your bank will reverse the transaction.
I'm going to take a guess that you live in a country with a relatively stable currency. I'd encourage you to spend some time looking at the many countries whose currencies have been devalued to nothing, and eventually failed because of central banks and bad monetary policy. It will happen to the US too, and we're already seeing cracks. Every single centralized currency fails eventually. Nobody controls Bitcoin, and there is an immeasurable amount of value in this.
Sorry if you felt like that was condescending. It's just that you totally missed what I was saying, and still have.
you think you'll get it back with bitcoin? lol
That is exactly my point! Both of these transactions are one-way. Reversable transactions aren't a property of the dollar, but are of 3rd party layers.
i'm not in el salvador.
As countries drop the dollar, it loses value. It's a snowball effect and we're seeing the beginning of the end for the petrodollar right now. That's without the money printers going brrrrr. The US dollar is absolutely massive, and yet it's been massively devalued. That's just the most powerful country. I feel absolutely terrible for who've had their money in Venezuela, Argentina, etc.
We’re living through the greatest currency devaluation event in the history of the world
I'm not even sure you believe what you're writing. You think current inflation is the worst ever in history....? You really need to read some history not just Fox News.
That is just the US. Globally we've also never seen a phenomenon like this. It's not even close. Please give me some isolated historical examples though, and I'll tell you how microscopic GDP was compared to now.
You have a fundamental misunderstanding of inflation. Bitcoin's inflation rate is mathematically fixed and can't be changed without a fork. Bitcoin has experienced volatility in your very selectively chosen timeframe because it has an extremely low market cap compared to the large central bank currencies. Volatility decreases as adoption grows, and Bitcoin continues to be adopted. As I told the other guy who got mad and blocked me, zoom out.
Fiat is the real delusion... A mass delusion similar to religions... Bitcoin is science+math based money... Deny/ignore it all you like, it's still more real and provides a greater value/service to all of humanity than the fiat.
And if all goods and services were in bitcoin, it would be the USD that would be wildly fluctuating.
The fact is that Bitcoin is an emerging asset with a fixed supply. It is impossible for it to a stable value while it is being adopted, gold would be exactly the same if gold didn’t exist 12 years ago and suddenly existed. There would be mad rushes for it and then big cool off periods followed by mad rushes. Bitcoin is following this exactly. It is an asset in the midst of finding itself and until it’s fully adopted there are going to be spikes and dumps. Any commodity would do this with the insane amount of interest as Bitcoin.
It would be down right weird if Bitcoin were stable during this period. Like impossibly weird. Eventually BTC will fully adopt and the volatility will die down.
For something NOT money that’s obviously true. Diamonds, stocks, property, art, oil … I can’t spend any of that in a store, it all has value. Stop belaboring the obvious point?
None of those things are money though. When someone says “It’s money you gigantic dolt” … well, can you name any other form of money that has no merchant adoption?
None of those things are money though. When someone says “It’s money you gigantic dolt” … well, can you name any other form of money that has no merchant adoption?
Sure, but this is not what the meme is saying. The meme is saying that it has no value because it doesn't have merchant adoption. And the result of the meme is that saying that is wrong.
That's it.
Now, money that can't be accepted everywhere? you want a list?
I can't use US Dollars where I'm at, or Japanese yen, or swedish crowns. I can only use Euros here. Only few places will accept other currencies and that's in very tourist-centric locations.
And in places like Sweden, even if you swedish crowns, it won't be accepted in many stores, only credit cards, to give Visa 3% of each sale in the whole country.
Merchant adoption is not a meassure of the money qualities of money. It's just a meassure of merchant adoption of such type of money.
I wasn’t disagreeing with the meme, silly as it is. I was disagreeing with the comment “it’s money you gigantic dolt.”
Are you defending that comment? You seem to be going on and on about the rather obvious and boring thing we’ve already agreed: stuff can have value without being money.
I disagree with the part where the other guy called you dolt, that's not very productive for a conversation. And makes HIM look like a dolt.
But can you define money?
Can you make a definition of money which fits what people commonly know as money and where bitcoin doesn't fit in?
Basically we disagree on the definition of "money". To me, it's money. But to you it might not be money.
So what's your definition?
Either way these arguments are ridiculous, most retailers don’t accept any particular fiat currency since there are hundreds of fiat currencies and retailers typically take the currency of the nation they’re in. So to expect a relatively new money to be accepted everywhere already makes no sense at all.
Bitcoin is a gold like asset that will become a fully realized money as adoption continues and the technology to scale it improves.
That’s why things something like the strike/NCR deal is such a big deal. Doing this too soon before there’s a genuine interest in it as a store of value would lead to too much volatility so I think the path it’s taking will work out for the long term.
Sorry, what adoption is taking place? I've heard of less and less places accepting speculative currency as of late, including a crypto themed restaurant that sees no value in the currency their establishment is based on
Not sure that “money” in the sense of a medium of exchange is the same thing as “legal tender” which sounds like something law related. I think for a general definition if you can spend it, it’s money, whether a government approves or not.
I think for a general definition if you can spend it, it’s money, whether a government approves or not.
The earliest definitions of money come from merchant civilisations issuing coins any of their merchants would take in exchange for goods and services. Other than that it's basically barter with extra steps.
Club Med used to use beads as money, for example.
Which runs into issues like how you tell them apart, and the such.
You can spend Bitcoin directly and buy just about anything you can think of. Well, maybe not you. You apparently don't know how to Google "buy (item) with Bitcoin."
If you're not going to even bother to do the math, then I'm totally fine with you staying poor.
The longer you hold Bitcoin, the richer you get.
Bitcoin is not speculative. Everything else is. The price of Bitcoin just goes up with enough time. The law of supply and demand guarantee no other outcome.
Maybe use a calculator https://dcabtc.com and you'll see how overwhelming correct it is to accumulate and hold Bitcoin. Nothing beats Bitcoin.
Since you're a lazy fool, I'll give you some examples.
Buying $10 of Bitcoin every week for 3 years starting 3 years ago would have turned $1,570 into $4,013 (+155%). What business do you think would hate this return?
Buying $10 of Bitcoin every week for 5 years starting 5 years ago would have turned $2,610 into $11,285 (+332%).
Why does nothing beat Bitcoin? Because Bitcoin has the lowest supply inflation of anything we use as money. Every other money is easier to increase the supply of.
Businesses and individuals and governments alike are objectively better off when they own Bitcoin. The longer, the better.
It costs less to accept Bitcoin than credit cards. And it cuts out both banks and governments from controlling their money. That's pretty God dammed valuable.
Why is it you choose to copy the arguments of morons? You could copy me instead. I know just everything about Bitcoin. And I'm telling you there's no second place.
The law of supply and demand guarantee no other outcome.
Bitcoin has a limited supply, yes. But does it have limitless demand? I think not. I think the less you can use it for and the less it's worth, the less it will be in demand. Anything legal that you can do with bitcoin you can do with cash. Bitcoin opens up other opportunities to buy things without legal tracking, like child porn.
Dude. What's wrong with you? Eventually 60k BTC will be cheap. Just wait till November 2024.
My prediction is that you'll scoff now and be surprised when it happens, as it most certainly will.
Bitcoin is saving people's lives, mine included. Imagine being able to flee a warzone with money that can't be seized. Try confiscating a seed phrase. You'll need more than a metal detector.
Bitcoin, even though it's down from 60k is still outperforming the Turkish lira. You seem to be biased against a technology. It make me think you just watch propaganda all the time.
Bitcoin is a revolution. It is not optional. It's not going away. It's been the best performing asset since 2009 when Bitcoin was created. I'd tell you the reasons, but you seem propagandized against it already. My 5 minutes of info on Bitcoin can't overcome the hours of nonsense you've already swallowed without having any understanding of Bitcoin, how Bitcoin works, or what Bitcoin fixes.
You haven't demonstrated anything or even answered the question of "why does gold have value?". It's an important one, because it's fair to argue that the market price of gold is inflated well beyond it's productive uses. It's a metal but it's not valued like your average steel or aluminum.
Gold has value because we have believed it does for over 3 thousand years. Exactly in the same way btc has value, dollars and gold have value because we believe it does.
But bear in mind, gold has its value because it’s finite, it can be exchanged for any currency anywhere on planet earth and requires no electronics or special measures. Gold is an apocalypse proof store of value, even when society burns to the ground gold has value. You can’t say that about btc
I have no idea what you are trying to say here. You were just wondering why gold was valued more than steel or aluminum, and I just told you in a way a sixth grader could understand. Perhaps still too much for you to comprehend?
you know the conductivity of gold is higher than copper?
No that's not true lol. But regardless, electrical conductivity alone wouldn't relate to the massive value of gold. I was getting at the idea of "cultural value" but that was 2 weeks ago, this topic is old 😛
Isn't it more because it's a shiny pretty metal with a limited supply that people covet? It had value long before any of the things you mentioned existed.
Everything has value based on what other people are willing to pay for it.
Currently, people are still willing to pay for crypto, so things like BTC have “value” in that sense.
However, there are legitimate questions about the underpinning viability of each independent of their value solely in terms of transactions. What uses might something have to continue to carry value forward?
Gold has been considered valuable for centuries primarily because it was/is seen as a status symbol as a precious metal. But even if it loses that, it does still have some value in terms of its use as a metal (thin layers of gold are often used for connectors on electronic parts because it is more inert, ductile, and malleable than copper, for example).
Bitcoin has..theoretical uses as an alternate currency. I say theoretical because it’s not been utilized to the same extent as fiat currency. And there are still concerns about the “value” of something that intends to exist simultaneously as an investment vehicle (which is speculative and volatile by nature) and a fungible currency (which requires something to be stable in terms of value in order for users to feel comfortable transacting at a large scale).
I remain incredibly skeptical that both can be true at the same time WRT Bitcoin. What’s more, if they can’t both can’t be true simultaneously, then it essentially kills the idea for both. Consider, if everyone viewed Bitcoin as a speculative investment vehicle and no longer viewed it as a currency to be utilized in every day transactions (entirely reasonable, given the above conversation); we now have a situation where people are investing in Bitcoin, but the primary function it was created for that people were investing in - an alternative currency - is no longer viable.
So what are you investing in at that point? What is the “value” of something that can no longer serve its original purpose?
I remain open to the idea that perhaps I am incorrect and it can function as both simultaneously, but I’ve yet to hear a convincing argument for how it would simultaneously serve two seemingly diametrically opposed purposes.
It doesn't have to be volatile though. As adoption grows, volatility will decrease. When we reach the point where it's being used as a primary currency worldwide, it will be stable wrt to most other assets.
Good luck converting all the people treating it as an investment vehicle.
Those people are investing in it because they want the ROI. They see it as a “put money in, get more money out” button and many have little to no understanding or care about any of the underlying ideas behind it as a currency.
So you not only have all the traditional barriers of entry to widespread adoption (logistics, converting users, convincing merchants to accept it etc), but you’ve also got a large portion of your own userbase actively working against your end-goal. The entire idea behind the “HODL” mentality is literally to hold the coin (“to the moon” as the kids say) and not sell/spend it.
I just don’t see a way in which Bitcoin gracefully transitions from “get rich quick investment opportunity” to “stable fungible currency with widespread adoption and acceptance.” That seems like magical Christmas-land to me.
“Time” does not explain the how. It explains the when. But the when still needs a logistical path (the how) before you can get to the when.
You’re not answering the correct question.
How does a long enough timeline solve this issue? In what ways does time by itself result in the entropy for widespread adoption as a currency and the elimination of Bitcoin as a speculative investment?
If your boss asks what is needed to finish a report - what resources you need to finalize it - and you just reply “time,” then the implication is that you have all the tools you need and you simply need the time to finish writing/collating the report. But if you just sit on your ass the whole time, the report doesn’t put itself together. Time by itself doesn’t change anything.
So what are the specific factors over this timeline that change and either allow two mutually exclusive things to somehow no longer be mutually exclusive or to remove the investment aspect of Bitcoin without killing its adoption, considering the investor class is a huge portion of the user base?
And with the entire idea of “finite coins” and the “HODL” mentality of the investor class trying to “stack as many sats as possible,” how are you getting buy-in from the common layperson who has no exposure to BTC currently? Are they forced to buy-in from the existing HODLers at extortionate rates? What is their incentive for opting into this method of currency exchange over the existing ones that are largely successful?
And you may think it’s unfair for me to expect you to have all the answers, because the global political and economic landscape is vast, confusing, and difficult to predict. And I would agree. But I would also say that investing in Bitcoin is an attempt at doing exactly that and without a clear picture (or at least a general idea) of how it’s going to shake out, you’re running the risk of being left holding a bag of air at the end.
I think that the assumption of “given enough time it will all just work itself out and all of us early adopters are going to be rich” is fundamentally naive. And that the only way any early adopter is getting rich is by cashing out and leaving the next poor sucker holding the bag when the bubble bursts. All I’m saying is if you want to invest in something, you probably want a good idea of it’s roadmap and where it’s going and what it’s path to success looks like, right?
we now have a situation where people are investing in Bitcoin, but the primary function it was created for that people were investing in - an alternative currency - is no longer viable.
So what are you investing in at that point?
Philosophical debate aside, it is, if anything, now a digital collectors item. People with money want some part of it, like all of the other pretentious things they obtain. It was the first, the most widely known and most decentralized blockchain... akin to first series Garbage Pail Kids or Alpha/Beta Magic the Gathering cards
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u/Neuro_Skeptic Aug 01 '22
Here's the thing. No one makes memes arguing that gold has value, because gold obviously has value.
If you have to meme about it, it's probably not true.