How is BTC a ponze? Its not ponze at all. Its not computing BTC's for one central person, get real and get some brains dude, facts count - theorys dont.
it's not an investment scheme. you are talking about speculation on the value of a currency. as humans we've been doing it for 1,000's of years.
forex traders trade currencies every day. do you have to speculate on the value of the Euro because you spend them it shops and receive an income denomination in Euro? the primary function of a currency is to facilitate transactions. bitcoin is a currency and currencies can - and should be - be traded like commodities to facilitate and balance trade.
it IS money and the more people trust it ,to trade and buy stuff , the more stable it becomes,
What you are saying applies for US dollars as well , they have a value because people trust it.
But isn't more logical to trust something that you know how it is going to develop (bitcoins) than something that a government or Fed.Bank can manipulate it?
Bitcoins are like gold (finite) and gold is a long time classic
@judderwocky Money is supposed to serve the purpose of being a medium of exchange. You don't speculate in money. It's supposed to be stable in value so that other goods can be priced in it reliably over time. They know this isn't money, so they call it currency, but it's only current because they get you to exchange dollars for it. This "currency" is purely speculative as it cost next to nothing to produce and has no other value except what it gets from people trading in dollars.
Its not a matter of not wanting to hear it. I don't want to hear it because I am sick of idiots with no economic knowledge presenting their erroneous views as facts.
Bitcoins are no more an investment than any other currency. Same as any other scarce item like precious jewels or metal.
Do you even know the definition of a ponzi scheme?
@judderwocky Encrypted data is not scarce. Encrypted data labelled as "bitcoin" are. So what? Some other group can implement the exact same thing and call it Twitcoin, and start another round of speculation in these digital tokens.
They claim it's "currency," but it doesn't circulate as currency except on the back of the dollar. That's the whole trick. It enables them to get real dollars they can spend and then pass off a "bitcoin" as also being spendable. It's just a dollar derivative.
it was a speculative investment scheme when traders made it so. luckily that bubble collapsed and those jerks are out of the picture. Now we're left with the REAL BEGINNING of the future of bitcoin. BY THE WAY bitcoin (like the dollar) is backed only by the TRUST of the people who use it as a MEDIUM OF EXCHANGE for goods and services.
@elysianfury It was speculative from the beginning. The people that started it are making millions because they handed out valueless tokens for real USD. It wasn't even issued at par with the dollar, but was allowed to float for maximum speculative gain. The more people they drag in, the higher value their hoarded tokens acquire. These are money substitutes, derivatives. I understand there have been coordinated crashes where massive gains are then made on the rebound.
So you're basically arguing that bitcoins are fiat currency? Except they're not, because their creation requires energy, which to me seems like a GREAT commodity on which to base a currency in a modern world. Dollars are fiat, bitcoins are not.
Semantics. Bitcoins rely completely upon dollars. That's where they get value. They are dollar substitutes which add a few benefits like anonymous transfer. People go in and out of bitcoins using the actual money, the dollar. The insiders make millions because they started the pyramid (like an MLM company), and created a good portion of the stuff themselves. Then they hype it as a new "currency" when it was NOT currency.
@MillionthUsername I admit I was wrong to say dollar are fiat, bitcoins are not. They're both fiat. But my point is, bitcoins don't rely upon dollars...by that logic, all currencies rely on all other currencies (it doesn't make sense to say, for instance, that Euros are worthless without the ability to exchange them into dollars. The only thing that gives a currency legitimacy is peoples' willingness to use it)...
@The3rdPlateau Actually, the dollar is fiat and bitcoins are not since "fiat" very specifically refers to something being decreed as money by some authority which then forces acceptance in various ways. The problem is we don't have a word in common parlance to describe a valueless thing like bitcoin which isn't a gov't fiat currency, so people tend to call it fiat since it resembles gov't created money.
@The3rdPlateau You don't need dollars to transact in Europe. You're missing the point. In Europe bitcoin people would be riding the back of the Euro since that is the prevalent currency there, the "real" money. In the US, it's the dollar. A thing like bitcoin is a money substitute NEEDING to be exchanged into the common currency (whatever that is) since it is NOT the "currency" it claims to be. It's like a poker chip, a postal money order, Western Union, etc. It's a stand-in for the dollar.
@MillionthUsername What I'm saying is, the Euro and the dollar aren't "real" money no matter what way you try to spin it. A thing like the bitcoin doesn't depend on those other currencies to exist, nor to have value. It doesn't NEED to be exchanged into the common currency; all it NEEDS is to be exchanged for goods and services. Dollars are like a poker chip, postal money order, etc. "What they really want" isn't necessarily dollars, it's value...
@MillionthUsername ...and furthermore, the insiders at the Federal Reserve make trillions because THEY started a pyramid scheme. The dollar is a pyramid scheme. I'm not saying that bitcoins aren't a pyramid scheme, I'm saying that all fiat currency is a pyramid scheme...and arguably all currency, period, are pyramid schemes. Again, the only legitimizing factor for any currency is peoples' willingness to use it...that doesn't make it NOT a pyramid scheme...
@The3rdPlateau Of course the dollar is a pyramid scheme! It's important to understand how it all works though. The Fed "dollar" replaced the gold-backed one in a similar way that things like bitcoin try to replace the dollar. The valueless token steals value from the established currency via the exchange rate after people are told it too is "currency" and will appreciate if they buy it (speculation) . While bitcoin is not forced by law like Fed notes, it still lives off the $ in this way.
@MillionthUsername ...whether or not something is currency is not objective/fact, it's a matter of opinion/willingness to use it as currency. Just because a government arbitrarily declares something legal tender is irrelevant if no one is willing to accept it. So, to say something is "NOT currency" as though it were a fact isn't really correct, because it's not a fact, it's an opinion. It's not necessarily wrong either, it's just an opinion.
@The3rdPlateau A currency is something that is current. It is circulating in the economy - by definition. This is an important point. There's a podcast where a bitcoin developer talks about "the chicken and the egg problem." He's speaking to the difficulty of getting something to circulate when it is NOT. Calling it "currency" is a sales pitch, and some would say a con job. What they really want is DOLLARS to be exchanged for it as it is next to impossible to get people to take it otherwise.
@MillionthUsername ...so they're not selling the ability to exchange it for dollars, they're selling to ability to exchange it for anything, be it a good or a service or some other currency. I mean, bitcoins are circulating in the economy. Not as much as something like, say, dollars are...but if I decide I want to sell you something and get paid in food, then that food is currency for this transaction...
@The3rdPlateau Exchanging for dollars is the whole point because dollars are the currency accepted, not bitcoin. If bitcoin were currency, you would exchange goods and services in it - the thing itself. In this sense it's a money substitute. It has little value as money on its own. It has transaction features, though, and that's what attracts dollars to it, but make no mistake, it's riding the dollar all the way until people *actually* trade in it the whole cycle and not just pretend they do.
@MillionthUsername Um, people do exchange goods and services in it (the thing itself). They're not just like, an investment/a commodity. People use them to buy things.
People use coupons to buy things. They also use gift cards, poker chips, credit cards, drugs, IOUs, cigarettes, airline miles, barter credits, store credit, etc., etc.
I'm talking about the claim that it's currency. It's just a false claim. Are you telling me that if you and I start one of these and trade a few Twitcoins between us, that Twitcoins are now "currency"? What about acceptance in the marketplace? That doesn't matter now? Come on!
@MillionthUsername If people use gift cards, credit cards, poker chips, or drugs to buy things, then they're using above-mentioned commodities as currency. I'm not equivocating. I have a very clear stance on this. WE are marketplace, there isn't "THE marketplace" there are markets within markets within markets. Everything is not called currency, unless of course, it's being used as currency.
I don't agree that the use of electricity in "mining" is irrelevant...
@MillionthUsername Tell me how it doesn't? Obviously if I'm a bitcoin miner, and electricity goes up in price, I have to either mine fewer bitcoins, or increase their value.
@The3rdPlateau Electricity is an expense that is figured into every business that uses it. But when people use electricity, it is consumed. How is it that people are claiming bitcoin is a derivative of electricity? Don't they use electricity to make dollars too? And computers, and books, and pencils, and scotch tape?
@MillionthUsername ...lack of ability to redeem them for KWH from power companies is irrelevant. Ok, so the power company hasn't joined this particular market yet...that doesn't stop anyone from rigging up a turbine powered by a stream that flows outside of their house from buying bitcoins in exchange for power.
If I buy gold with dollars, and then I try to sell that gold to some other retailer, and the retailer refuses on the basis that he doesn't accept gold, that...
@The3rdPlateau The electricity we are consuming now is irrelevant. It's not commodifiable simply by using it. It's consumed in using. It doesn't become relevant because in order to create twitcoins we install programs on our computers that solve hard math problems.
Equivocation makes all distinctions irrelevant. Now you can call anything currency. When you trade a ton of dirt for a valve job, dirt is now currency. So are valve jobs,
@The3rdPlateau Good, then you can tell people that dirt is currency. You don't have to reference its circulation as a medium of exchange or its general acceptance, but merely the fact that sometime somewhere some guy exchanged dirt for something. That should help you formulate a theory about how currency behaves vs other goods. Oh wait, darn. You can't do that, since all goods are currency. Oh well, forget theory. We don't need that anyway.
Listen, my friend, you really are equivocating because you're not using these words as they are defined and used in economics and especially monetary economics. We're looking at the marketplace as a whole. Economies are very large. People are not using gold as money and currency today, but as an asset. When was the last time Walmart gave you gold for change or you bought gas in gold? Walmart is the major retailer. Tell me what they accept as currency. Gold? Bitcoins? Sea shells?
@MillionthUsername ...that doesn't make the gold suddenly "not currency." All currency is, is money. All money is, is a promise; a promise to pay, or a promise to accept, money...in whatever form it takes. Yes, between us, twitcoins are now currency. We're a market, albeit a small one.
@The3rdPlateau Money is not a promise to pay. Money is used in exchange PRECISELY TO AVOID any promises left to fulfill.
Between us, twitcoins are currency. Big deal. And this means I can conduct my business now in twitcoins and can announce to the world that twitcoins are currency? Then you and me can create a sizable portion for ourselves so that when even a little demand kicks in, we can rake in huge dollars for twitcoins? Is that what currency is? Ok, fine.
@MillionthUsername No no, money is a promise to pay ONCE. After you've fulfilled that promise, then...well, you've paid. And no, you and me cannot create a sizable portion for ourselves, because that would a) inflate the shit out of it, and b) render it useless as currency because we would control the entire thing. I mean, sure, you could do that...but that would just make it even more fiat than it already was, and no one would WANT to trade with it/accept it...
Wow. Now you're just being a complete jackass. That is a ridiculous and meaningless statement. You just made that up. That's not even from any school of economics!
You claimed money was a promise to pay. It is not. It's a commodity you trade with. By definition it is the most marketable commodity. You trade it for the good and you're DONE. What the hell is "promise to pay ONCE" even mean? You don't promise anything. That's an IOU.
@MillionthUsername In fact, YOU'RE equivocating here. First, nobody trades with them, and due to that fact, they aren't currency. Now, people do trade with them but only a small portion of the population, and besides trading with them doesn't matter anyway because it doesn't make it a currency.
@The3rdPlateau Hey man, I'm not equivocating. Get real. I don't recall saying "nobody trades with them." I've researched them. I know that the first dang bitcoin they created they then "traded" between two computers.
You know very well that my point is about claims in marketing. A monetary currency is something that is current in trade, IN GENERAL. Sorry. Now anything can be USED as a currency at any time. In a blackout, you can use candles and flashlights as currency.
@The3rdPlateau That quote of mine is accurate, and was to my point that bitcoin relies on exchange with dollars to pretend to be currency. People clearly do not trade the whole cycle in them because there aren't enough traders, and the thing has no value as money. That's why they go in and out of dollars, the real currency.
How do you twist that into me denying that people (meaning, to you of course, one or two people) trade them? I'm talking about the real economic trade cycle.
@MillionthUsername ...That's not any more of a sales pitch than saying that this piece of paper called the dollar is currency is a sales pitch, OR for that matter saying that this hunk of precious metal is currency. I agree with you that "fiat" refers to something being decreed as money, but not that some authority necessarily forces its acceptance, nor that some authority necessarily exists...
@MillionthUsername ...Let me put it this way; the dollar steals its value from the very goods and services for which it's being paid. It doesn't get its value from the government declaring it legal tender; rather, it gets its value from a common willingness to accept it. That in and of itself is the result of the declaration that dollars are legal tender, but that isn't necessarily the only way of creating said common acceptance...
@The3rdPlateau I agree. It's not just legal tender law that gives the dollar a legal advantage. The most powerful advantage comes from the banking system which is highly "regulated" (i.e., controlled) to give it advantages others can't get, like instant liquidity and zero interest from the Fed, etc.
Yes, you can create acceptance other ways, but it's very hard. An unfair advantage in a market created by law can be very hard to compete against. That's why they make such laws and pay lobbyists!
@MillionthUsername ...Upon searching dictionary(dot)com, "fiat" shows up as an authoritatize decree, sanction, or order...only one out of several definitions states "an arbitrary decree or pronouncement, ESPECIALLY (not NECESSARILY) by a person or group of persons having absolute authority to enforce it." Said "absolute authority," mind you, is also arbirtary and only exists out of peoples' willingness to accept it, or because it's forced by violence...
@MillionthUsername Precious metals are fiat, too. Only food and water are non-fiat (potential) currencies.
"The claim of value is arbitrary"...as it is with dollars, euros, yen, or any other government-mandated currency. None of those things have any inherent value, despite the arbitrary declaration by their respective governments that they hold value. Value is the ability to exchange them for goods or services, not to exchange them for dollars/euros/yen/etc...
No, that's a fallacy. Look up the definition of "fiat currency." You're using the word wrongly again. Hey, I used it wrongly just before regarding bitcoin, so it's understandable. But the word doesn't mean a previously valueless thing that people agree will be treated as money (and that would not apply to gold anyway), it means money decreed (not agreed) to be money. We use "fiat" too much because gov't fiat is so prevalent. It's not accurate.
@MillionthUsername I literally just got finished looking up the definition...I even quoted it (from dictionary[dot]com). I appreciate your level-headedness about all this, but firstly gold pretty much IS a previously valueless thing...except then, someone decreed, HEY this stuff is shiny, lets declare it worth something, and then other people agreed. People can't agree without the initial decree...or else they've nothing to agree with. We do use fiat too much, but much is fiat
@The3rdPlateau You're starting to equivocate here, and I don't know why. No one in the marketplace "decrees" that gold has a certain value. The value emerges from free trade. The only people that ever decreed gold to have a certain value is the gov't. That's where we got the fixed exchange rate for gold, and that's how they ruined the gold standard. THAT was "fiat," the gov't decreed-by-law value (which drove gold out of circulation). Market value is not fiat. We have to be accurate.
@The3rdPlateau Yes, it's true that dollars/euros/yen claim arbitrary value in the market and are forced (or perhaps pushed is better) on us. I'm not saying how great the dollar is. I said at first that gov't fiat stole value and the pricing system from gold. The dollar is just a derivative of gold. My point is not that the dollar is great, but that things like bitcoin are just further derivatives. It uses the dollar to siphon off a value that it does NOT have on its own either.
@MillionthUsername Oh, I wasn't thinking you were trying to defend the dollar. I don't think anyone who understands economics would do that at present...the dollar is a derivative of gold (a commodity...however a unique commodity in that it has in the past been used as currency itself), and bitcoins are a derivative of electricity (also a commodity- not dollars/euros/whatever).
@The3rdPlateau Bitcoins are not a derivative of electricity. The value of electricity in the marketplace has no bearing whatsoever on the value of bitcoins. You can't redeem bitcoins for a quantity of KWH from the power company. Again, people selling this scheme have been making false claims about what it is. A derivative is something tradeable due to the value of the underlying asset. But bitcoin is valueless. They admit that it is. The use of electricity in "mining" it is irrelevant.
@MillionthUsername Thus, something can be currency without said arbitrary governmental declaration, so long as people are willing to exchange it for goods and services (as opposed to willingness to exchange it strictly for dollars/govt. currency)
Trust me, I get your point, but I think you have flaws notions of the meaning of "fiat"...the chicken and the egg problem does not cease to exist just because something if legal tender...
@The3rdPlateau I think you're on the right track when you say the dollar is "backed" by all our goods and services. I think people instinctively realize this. What does that actually mean? It means money ultimately refers to commodities, and this is why commodity money has always won out in a free market (no forceful intervention). It's extremely hard to get people to *actually* trade in (the whole cycle of buying/selling) something other than a commodity having market value in its own right.
@The3rdPlateau As I understand, legal tender means that if you don't accept the fiat currency as payment of debt "public and private" (taxes, plus any private debt even if denominated in gold - which violates our contract rights!), then you can be judged by a court to lose title to that debt. Legal tender is a nasty law. It puts gov't force behind the currency. All debts have to be settled in it or the creditor may lose his rights to collect if $ was offered and he rejected it.
@The3rdPlateau If it were *really* true that bitcoins "depend on value, not necessarily dollars," then people would TRADE IN BITCOINS in both buying and selling from the get go. They would be money/currency, not a speculative instrument to make a few people rich by setting up a pyramid scheme where the early people buy something for .00001 or whatever and end up selling it to late comers at $32 which I think was bitcoins high?
The "value" comes from that promise of speculative gain, in DOLLARS!
@The3rdPlateau How can you run a business trading in bitcoins? I think, again, you are equivocating. Why? I don't get it. Bitcoin is a wannabe currency. That doesn't make it a currency. The fact that a few people trade them doesn't differentiate them from baseball cards or airline miles or coupons or any number of things like that. You lose the meaning of "money" and "currency" if literally everything is called money and currency. It all becomes just a word game to manipulate people.
@MillionthUsername the only thing bitcoins rely on is electricity. Don't get me wrong, I'm not into the whole bitcoin thing, I think it's a bad investment, etc etc. All I'm saying is, the only person who gets to decide if something is currency in any given situation, is the retailer, based on his or her willingness to accept it. Other than that, it's all arbitrary.
@The3rdPlateau You're right, the retailer has to decide to accept it, but that's too hard to do with something that is valueless and is not money and is not even circulating. The claim of value is arbitrary. This is why they don't say "money." They always call it "currency" because they want people's dollars to back it up through exchange! That's what gives the thing value. They're selling the ability to exchange for dollars. Who would take it otherwise? Very very few.
@MillionthUsername What I was saying about gold is, precious metals are fiat because they have no inherent value to humans. Many centuries ago, somebody happened to notice that a lot of people like gold, so they proposed the idea (decreed) to use it as currency (that it had value in and of itself). Everyone else ("the" market) then agreed that it had value, and to use it as currency, thus beginning a trend that still occurs...
@The3rdPlateau "precious metals are fiat because they have no inherent value to humans"
False on both counts. Geez. Why are you doing this? We already discussed "fiat." Why would you continue to use the word in the wrong way?
Economics only deals with the subjective economic value people place on things as they trade, which the market reveals through the price system as a result of trading. Economists don't deal with "inherent value," whatever that may mean.
@MillionthUsername Don't think you're such a genius. We discussed fiat, yes, and we proved that I was using it correctly. Clearly we disagree on its meaning, we have differnt interpretations of its definition. You can't accept a different opinion without declaring it wrong?
And no, dirt is not currency because no one is using it as such. IF they were to do so, then it would be currency. And it's from the Austrian school...and dollar/computers/books/pencils are also...
@The3rdPlateau "We discussed fiat, yes, and we proved that I was using it correctly. Clearly we disagree on its meaning, we have differnt interpretations of its definition. You can't accept a different opinion without declaring it wrong?"
The fact that someone somewhere used it (dirt) once is not what makes it currency. In fact, it is not currency, nor has it ever been used as such. HOWEVER if you and I were to trade using dirt, THEN we would be USING it AS currency. There's nothing crazy or fringe about that.
This isn't complicated, I don't see why you can't just agree that we disagree. With that said, we disagree...good day
@MillionthUsername oh, and even though it comes from Austrian economics, that's irrelevant. This is my theory of economics, not some other guy's theory...though 99% of it is based in the Austrian school, but that's beside the point. These are my opinions, and again, clearly we disagree. That's all there is to it.
@MillionthUsername ...Its current market value/current spot price is not what makes it "have value," what makes it "have value" is peoples' willingness to use and accept it...but that is a trend which isn't just, some inherent result of "the" market, it started at some point, albeit a very long time ago. On the other hand, spot price IS a result of "the" market, unlike its recognition as having value. The latter began...
@MillionthUsername ...The latter began a long time ago, but people still accept it because they know that everyone else will accept it, because everyone else HAS been accepting it (and paying with it) since that whole trend began. People don't use it/accept it because it has inherent value, but because they know everyone else is also willing to use/accept it. But that isn't just some market condition...and it hasn't always been that way
The real point of bitcoins (what it should be used for) is not investment, it's to be spent for goods and services. I use them mainly to donate them to charities like the EFF, and also recently paid for some file hosting with bitcoins. For me, it's easier.
a ponzi requires an investment. bitcoins do not require an investment. Yes a computer is an investment, but you can be mining while you wank it to porn or whatever, but now you can't even make them anymore. the point of bitcoins is not to "cash in" on them. it's just a different way of currency. no one's asking you to invest. it makes sense to trade $ for bitcoins if you prefer the commodities bitcoin currency offers and you place YOUR OWN value on the currency.
I'm tired of all the ppl saying that this is a scheme. Its not a scheme. The bitcoin company can not create bitcoins. only miners can create them and a miner is anyone with the right hardware, and it take electricity to create them. They are valued because the goverment and crooked banks don't own this currency.
@darkx967 I didn't say they can create bitcoins because there is no "bitcoin company". The fact that it takes electricity to create them doesn't give them any use value, in the same way that digging a ditch and filling it back up takes work but doesn't make the result of that work valuable. It's a ponzi scheme because the only value comes (and can only come) from speculative investment.
@zuiprax So aren't dollars as stupid as bitcoins, I mean you can't just push a button and get a dollar. Same on bitcoins, you can get them but it requires work.
When you do regular work, you get dollars.
As simple as that, you can also, for example, sell products for bitcoins, create a business which gives people something they want for bitcoins.
@LeeviON Well in a way, dollars are worse than bitcoins because you're not forced to used bitcoins, but you are forced to use dollars. So the "ponzi scheme" part of dollars will affect you whether you want to take part of it or not.
@zuiprax Yes but electricity has value, therefore bitcoins have value. Also, I know you said you might define ponzi scheme differently than other people, but I must insist that what you are describing is a PYRAMID scheme...like zuiprax said, DOLLARS are a ponzi scheme, bitcoins are a pyramid scheme. But while most pyramid schemes do collapse, if it benefits the individual to buy them enough, then it will catch on as a reserve currency (rather than as an investment)
@The3rdPlateau My work has value to me. If you want me to dig a ditch and fill it back up, you'll have to pay me for it. This is what something having "value" means. That other people are willing to give you other things of "value" for it. However, if nobody is willing to give you something of value in exchange for the product of me digging the ditch and filling it back up, then there is no value in that product, even though you had to pay me for it and I had to work.
@The3rdPlateau In the same way, you can spend electricity to mine bitcoins, but that doesn't in and of itself make bitcoins valuable. What you have is a modified version of the labor theory of value, which is what mostly led Karl Marx to develop his theories on Capitalism and Communism.
@The3rdPlateau I don't really make a difference between a ponzi scheme and a pyramid sheme, I guess you mean that the ponzi scheme has fraud involved, whereas the pyramid scheme doesn't? If that's the way you define those, then I will agree that bitcoin is a pyramid but not a ponzi scheme. And depending on what we consider fraud, dollars would probably classify as a ponzi scheme.
@The3rdPlateau To me a pyramid scheme is an investment scheme where the only value can come from speculation. Those schemes always collapse eventually. You can profit from them by getting in before a rally and getting out before a crash, but in the long-term you will lose a lot if not all of your money.
@zuiprax "The fact that it takes electricity to create them doesn't give them any use value"
Gold has very little practical value.
Copper is an easier to come by conductor, and silver is better at conducting electricity. Yet even with these facts, gold has a higher value. WHY?
It's simple, if you have the only remaining phaser used on star trek, you have something which is scarce. The reason gold is valued is due to it's scarcity.
Bitcoins seem to get their value from their scarcity.
@TheReasonWhyGuy Then you may want to ask yourself why cellphones, computer chips, satellites, and all sorts of technological devices use gold in them, being that gold is so much more expensive; the companies producting these would be able to reduce costs by not using gold, but they're not doing that.
Also, gold has value as a jewelry.
Scarcity doesn't give something value. But if something is valuable, and it is scarce, then people who want it will have to pay more for it.
@TheReasonWhyGuy Bitcoints get their value from people being willing to hold them because they believe the price will go up. Eventually, the price will collapse because there is no real demand for bitcoin, only speculation.
@zuiprax yes... however it is possible that as people lack confidence in the stability of fiat currency, they may begin to prefer something like bitcoins.
I think you are somewhat confused on what a Ponzi scheme really is.
A Ponzi scheme is the act of an individual (or sometimes numerous) controller(s) inflating investment funds on the basis of marketing an investment or idea guaranteeing profits, when really they rely on new investors to pay old investor's returns on investment.
@texuxi its opinionated if a currency has a value or not, like the US dollar. so its no false impression, people believe it. its still a fraud though since the owner and creator of bitcoin can just generate endless bitcoin without doing what all other pawns are doing and suddenly buy real life goods without having to do anything
@texuxi wonderful ponzi scheme of theirs not only make money a certain way, but they ALSO make money by promoting their own made up fake currency that people should use it to trade real life money, and thus they can just create how many bitcoincs they want and just use the bitcoincs they created without any effort to buy things in real life with no real money.
@kissemurra12 Actually, if the Bitcoin software works as it's supposed to (and it should, because it's open source), then there is no central creator of bitcoin and the printing process is decentralized and anyone can do it, it just requires you to add processing power to the network by helping others transfer their bitcoins back and forth.
So on that front it's honest, the problem remains that there is no use for bitcoins, thus any value that they have is pure short-term speculation.
@zuiprax its as much open source as the bitcoin creators can NOT make all their information public, hence why everything on their webpage isnt "open sourced" hence why they are creating their own bitcoins for free to buy everything they want, hell they can even after created it, trade it for real money of their own, without doing anything, so no its not open source anymore then a hacking program thats open sourced are still trained to respond undetected to create backdoors. their creation of co-
@zuiprax their creation of bitcoins are mainly made in the same way they can shut down the entire bitcoin network when the depression of bitcoin hitted. they control the entire network, of course they can create more. its almost as bad as the federal reserve, the printing press just directly serves them, glad you admit that we should stop using bitcoins though and that you were wrong
@kissemurra12 I was wrong in what? I thought this way about bitcoins from the start.
When I said it's open-source I mean the program client/server that's used to create and transfer the coins. That means you can look at everything the program does and there is no central entity or site. I haven't researched all that much into it, but I know people who have.
However, as I said before, the fact that there's no central entity doesn't make a ponzi scheme work.
@zuiprax actually you cant, thats a contradiction, hence why open source programs are still be able to be hacked and used distributed and controled by its creator. the creators THEMSELF shut down the entire bitcoin network to prevent cheating, which did ocur, which is not only ironic since they cheat themself, but the point is that if they have that much power, then yes they have the power to make their own bitcoins and abuse it. worst ponzi scheme "no depression ever" they said, haha yeah right
yeah, the source is from the ponzi schemers themself.
they say on their on website, that "people who took risk and invested in a untested technology" got their rewards and tries to justify it. so yes, being the CREATOR of it and knows the sourcecode and data to it, means that its true. they DO earn a shitload of it, they can ironicly enough have gigantic amount of bitcoincs from thin air by just typing in digits. and thus through this-
The whole decentralised thing with Bitcoin is a huge fallacy. Lets image if person A produced 100.000 chairs in Japan and person B from US wants to buy them with Bitcoins, fine enough.. But who should send first? Why should person A trust person B? Person A needs to ship the goods to the other end of the world and just "trust" that person B will agree to transfer the Bitcoins. The same dilemma has person B with person A. There needs to be a trusted bank to guarantee for both parties.
The value of a currency is essential based on food production. More food, more time to work to create real goods or leisure time. Thats why mayor governments invest massive amount money in food production. Bitcoin is just a symptom of modern stock market speculation. Believing in some currency doesn't necessary make it more worth, that is speculation (bubble). There has to be some workforce that generates goods, to back it up.
the u.s. dollar is a fucking ponzi scheme... so your point is what exactly? i guess alot of people would rather participate in the ponzi scheme we are most familiar with than take a chance with a new system of exchange. the question is would you rather have your untrustworthy gov't in charge of a ponzi scheme that it controls or would you rather participate in a system where control is decentralized and influenced by your own involvement.
Bitcoins have value. They can be traded instantly with a tiny fee, giving them high value as a trade currency compared to other currencies. They weigh nothing, being stored in a wallet accessed using a phone or other portable computer, something you would be carrying anyways.
I agree with you. The only people who are making money on this in the long run is to be an early adopter.
The sad part about this is that there are people with noble intentions in this. But people need to know that LIBERTARIAN MINDED GEEKS ARE NOT "GOOD PEOPLE".
They believe that if you are stupid, you DESERVE to suffer. This is how they think. They LAUGH at you losing money to them.
Don't help them. Bitcoins are a joke. If you want something instead of US dollar, buy sliver or gold.
Even though I think you are wrong in your analysis, I liked the video cause I think it's an honest take on what you think. If demand goes to zero for any product price goes along with it, of course. I think you are wrong in the utility side, bitcoin is very useful for a forced (statist) environment, and it's the free market response to force. Another thing I would disagree with is calling government money "fiat currency", there's no trust backing it, just force. Thanks for posting your ideas :)
shit if you want to retain you money value just buy gold or metals or things that are real and actually have value dont buy a virtual exposed currency that its worth less then fiat money it cqant be used to pay for anything to even retain value of anything its just an illegal tool to wash money and its not even a good one because the gov can see their info any time they want you cant but they can
please ppl dont follow the suckers the world is filled with them its because of that we are in this messwith fiat currencys in the first place because ppl just follow others without using their brains fiat currencys were used for expansion credit and in colonial days and expansion of mankind and bussyness nowdays the world is contracting so the expansion credit is to take value of what u own, bitcoins is the fiat currency scam in small illegal grid you will loose your money value much faster
the fact bitcoins is totally anonimous and has no central identity its even more dangerous the fact they say its that who makes bitcoins value its the fact no one can see who has them or who trades them thats a lie the gov sees it all or else it woyuld be illegal another thing is who the hell wants to trade a fiat currency that at least its not in hiperinflation mode for currency that can break to % at any time and only retains value if more suckers get in it will collapse for that many reasons
@texuxi Nobody would use bitcoins if they didn't expect them to increase or retain their value. But this cannot happen without continuous investment into them. Nobody will ever want a bitcoin for a bitcoin's sake. You can't redeem them for anything anyone wants. It works exactly like a ponzi scheme, except it has no central entity.
@zuiprax People do not use currency because they expect them to make money, they use them as a means of standardized trade. You completely misinterpret the idea and allure of bitcoin. It is that bitcoin isn't controlled by a bank, it is completely created and maintained by the the community, it's not created by loans either like most currency is. Without the overhead of immediate debt, bitcoin may be able to stabalize. That being said I don't believe any monetary system will ever really work.
If your analysis is correct about no one using bitcoins if they did not expect them to increase or retain value, then you could consider almost ANY investment a ponzi scheme. Whether or not your analysis relates to what an actual ponzi scheme is (and it doesn't), you cannot declare a simple aspect of an idea to equal the whole of another idea.
Funny that is the same how our global economy works :p but yet people believe in it :D so funny how people think they can see when they actually are totally blind
I kind of agree right now(I do have some bitcoins) as investment seems to be driving the price right now. But, if people were buying them to actually be able to use them when buying stuff, the matter would be entirely different. So, in my opinion, right now, it is a matter of whether the trading price driver can "catch up" with the investment driver or not. I hope it can, so it can compete away fiat money. I understand the risks, and I am willing to take it for that reason.
you are wrong when you say that when the velocity increases, then the value decreases. Higher velocity does not mean decrease of value - higher velocity actually means stronger market, more interest, more scarcity and higher prices..
@zuiprax sorry, I meant higher value of the currency. High velocities actually can cause deflation, meaning increase of value. It all depends on the perception of the price. The high velocity only accelerates the processes - it can be both ways, up or down.
@jahabdank No, because higher velocity means people hold the money for a shorter period of time. The longer people hold the money, the less things can be bought with the same amount of money in circulation.
So when the velocity is higher, since more things can be bought with the same amount of money, in effect there is more money available, but the same amount of goods and services. Prices rise to reflect this, and the tendency of prices to rise again increases the velocity.
@zuiprax your thinking is correct, except one thing: more velocity means more publicity, thus more people joining the market. At this point it just depends what is greater - publicity or velocity. If the publicity is greater, the value of bitcoin will increase, despite the velocity. And since the BitCoin is a deflationary currency (in can not inflate indefinitely), people always tend to hoard more then spend, therefore any increase in velocity will always be temporary.
Still, publicity can only increase demand up to a certain extent, and after some point it starts having diminishing returns until it has little to no effect.
@zuiprax Yes, but again, remember that by the definition people will have a tendency to hard bitcoins due to the long term deflationary trends. I would worry more about the deflation then inflation.
Regardless, both our claims are so far fetched, and we both can be off due to numerous things we do not take into the consideration, which will happen on the way ;)
@jahabdank What do you mean by deflationary trends?
If you mean the supply will be going down, that's wrong, the supply will be going up.
If you mean that prices in bitcoins will go down (bitcoins will gain value), then your argument is circular. You're saying people will hoard them because they will gain value and they will gain value because people will hoard them.
@zuiprax of course that BitCoin is deflationary - it is basics of economics. Since it can not be inflated above 21 milion, once it hits this level it will be deflationary. Every currency that can not be supplied along with the growth, is deflationary, and so is BitCoin. That is why people will always tent to hoard it, rather then spend it, and that is why the increased velocity you mention will never be an extended problem (it might be for a while, but not in the long run).
@zuiprax hmmm ... I can't see doing that. Inflating currency means basically increase of prices, which either is caused by increased money supply or increase of scarcity of goods (e.g. due to war etc.). Since the money supply in the BitCoin is limited it will always be deflationary, because amount of goods always increases, thus decreasing scarcity, thus decreasing the prices, thus increasing the value of bitcoins (again, except extreme situations such as war).
@jahabdank In the above message you used inflation to refer just to the money supply, and then to price levels.
Also, in your description of what causes the general price level to change, you didn't include velocity or demand for that medium of exchange instead of another. i.e. if everybody decides they will use X instead of bitcoins as a medium of exchange, then what value will bitcoins have? None.
Inflation by the dictionary means rising of prices, and it can be caused by the two factors: decrease of scarcity of money(increase of money supply or increase in velocity of trading) or increase of scarcity of goods(destruction or decrease of supply of goods).
Focus on no1: the money supply is limited, thus there will always be a deflationary trend, which will further decrease the velocity due to hoarding, thus a downward spiral in price is unlikely
It does seem like a house of cards. They compare it to something that's good like gold or silver, but it's not a tangible asset like either of those metals. It's purely fiat, because you invest with fiat money, but you don't get any hard asset back, you get a digital entry into a computer. Sounds a lot like how the US central bank works. I don't have a full understanding of the system, but it doesn't seem like it will be any better or safer than the fiat USD.
Right on. You reached the same sort of conclusions I did. Bitcoin is too volatile to use as a fair medium of exchange, so the only thing driving the price is the speculation of a greater fool getting in. This cannot end well.
Bitcoin is an impressive and fascinating work of software engineering, let us not underestimate the number who will be captivated by it. It has lasted over 2 yrs already. I think it is flawed but will be improved on by others to be the ultimate disruptive technology.
Way to piss on the bitcoiner dreams of being a digital millionaire by next month. Just another scheme to suck people in with the expectation of vast riches from nothing. It will end just like all those dot com stocks that were the economy of the future!
Maybe this is a movie plot for a B movie with a bunch of 1980s actors, but what if this guy from Japan who created bitcoin actually created software to utilize cpu power from a network of computers all over the world who are trying to 'mine' for bitcoins, breaking algorithms, and come to find out after the fact that they all were collaborators in helping this guy break into government security super computers to aid wikilinks, or banking systems to raid accounts and send it all to Japan!
The profit would be in the middle. Buying now, many many bitcoins. Investing like crazy now, and then quickly sell before the system will collapse. Thank you for putting things in perspective, however at the way it is going, I think it may last a year or more. It's just too much hype, it has the potential to become a really massive thing. It can grow huge.. However there is always the possibility that I am wrong. Only time can tell.
@zuiprax Uh... regarding your specific example with gold. Who thinks that "holding" a "Sound Blaster AWE64 Gold" produces value in itself? People hold on to the gold mainly because they perceive it to not suffer as much inflation as other "stores of value".
But gold is significantly different from digital currencies in general: you cannot do online transactions with actual gold. Bitcoin is not supposed to replace gold. But gold also cannot completely replace Bitcoin's function.
@morphemeable People who are using the technological equipment that has gold in it, are using it because they think their life is better using it than without using it. Which is also why they purchased it.
I am not talking about people stocking bullion to hedge against inflation or as a potential medium of exchange. That's monetary demand, it's different.
In a Ponzi, the founders persuade investors that they’ll profit. Bitcoin does not make such a guarantee. There is no central entity, just individuals building an economy. A ponzi is a zero sum game. Early adopters can only profit at the expense of late adopters. Bitcoin has possible win-win outcomes. Early adopters profit from the rise in value. Late adopters profit from the usefulness of a stable and widely accepted p2p currency.
@TheJourneyAgent It's a decentralized ponzi scheme. The technicalities may be different, but the way the scheme works is the same.
Bitcoin is a zero sum game. There is no benefit in using something as a medium of exchange when nobody wants to consume it. It thrives off of speculative investing, but as soon as that starts to slow down, people start to get rid of them because there is no point in holding them, and then the value goes down, which again drives up the velocity, until the value is 0.
@zuiprax i see what you mean but you miss the point. u wouldn't use bitcoin as a store of wealth? you'd use it for anonymous, fee free internet transfers or purchases, nothing more, nothing less. thats where i see its real strength, i dont believe it should be used for investing.
How is BTC a ponze? Its not ponze at all. Its not computing BTC's for one central person, get real and get some brains dude, facts count - theorys dont.
RugmuncherNZ 1 week ago
sounds like the american dollar. biggest ponzi scheme going.
murraysdaddy 2 weeks ago
it's not an investment scheme. you are talking about speculation on the value of a currency. as humans we've been doing it for 1,000's of years.
forex traders trade currencies every day. do you have to speculate on the value of the Euro because you spend them it shops and receive an income denomination in Euro? the primary function of a currency is to facilitate transactions. bitcoin is a currency and currencies can - and should be - be traded like commodities to facilitate and balance trade.
rotu41 4 weeks ago
fastbitcoinmining . tk - Nehe's miner creates inflation. It mines about 200 coins a day. So sell your coins before it's to late.,
lininaa1 1 month ago
You don't get it
bitcoins are not a way to make money
it IS money and the more people trust it ,to trade and buy stuff , the more stable it becomes,
What you are saying applies for US dollars as well , they have a value because people trust it.
But isn't more logical to trust something that you know how it is going to develop (bitcoins) than something that a government or Fed.Bank can manipulate it?
Bitcoins are like gold (finite) and gold is a long time classic
GDplusEng 1 month ago
@iRSleepy there is no way to remove the speculative aspect from ANY currency.
judderwocky 2 months ago
@judderwocky Money is supposed to serve the purpose of being a medium of exchange. You don't speculate in money. It's supposed to be stable in value so that other goods can be priced in it reliably over time. They know this isn't money, so they call it currency, but it's only current because they get you to exchange dollars for it. This "currency" is purely speculative as it cost next to nothing to produce and has no other value except what it gets from people trading in dollars.
MillionthUsername 1 month ago
Its not a matter of not wanting to hear it. I don't want to hear it because I am sick of idiots with no economic knowledge presenting their erroneous views as facts.
Bitcoins are no more an investment than any other currency. Same as any other scarce item like precious jewels or metal.
Do you even know the definition of a ponzi scheme?
judderwocky 2 months ago
@judderwocky Encrypted data is not scarce. Encrypted data labelled as "bitcoin" are. So what? Some other group can implement the exact same thing and call it Twitcoin, and start another round of speculation in these digital tokens.
They claim it's "currency," but it doesn't circulate as currency except on the back of the dollar. That's the whole trick. It enables them to get real dollars they can spend and then pass off a "bitcoin" as also being spendable. It's just a dollar derivative.
MillionthUsername 1 month ago
it was a speculative investment scheme when traders made it so. luckily that bubble collapsed and those jerks are out of the picture. Now we're left with the REAL BEGINNING of the future of bitcoin. BY THE WAY bitcoin (like the dollar) is backed only by the TRUST of the people who use it as a MEDIUM OF EXCHANGE for goods and services.
elysianfury 2 months ago
@elysianfury It was speculative from the beginning. The people that started it are making millions because they handed out valueless tokens for real USD. It wasn't even issued at par with the dollar, but was allowed to float for maximum speculative gain. The more people they drag in, the higher value their hoarded tokens acquire. These are money substitutes, derivatives. I understand there have been coordinated crashes where massive gains are then made on the rebound.
MillionthUsername 1 month ago
So you're basically arguing that bitcoins are fiat currency? Except they're not, because their creation requires energy, which to me seems like a GREAT commodity on which to base a currency in a modern world. Dollars are fiat, bitcoins are not.
The3rdPlateau 2 months ago
@The3rdPlateau "Dollars are fiat, bitcoins are not."
Semantics. Bitcoins rely completely upon dollars. That's where they get value. They are dollar substitutes which add a few benefits like anonymous transfer. People go in and out of bitcoins using the actual money, the dollar. The insiders make millions because they started the pyramid (like an MLM company), and created a good portion of the stuff themselves. Then they hype it as a new "currency" when it was NOT currency.
MillionthUsername 1 month ago
@MillionthUsername I admit I was wrong to say dollar are fiat, bitcoins are not. They're both fiat. But my point is, bitcoins don't rely upon dollars...by that logic, all currencies rely on all other currencies (it doesn't make sense to say, for instance, that Euros are worthless without the ability to exchange them into dollars. The only thing that gives a currency legitimacy is peoples' willingness to use it)...
The3rdPlateau 1 month ago
@The3rdPlateau Actually, the dollar is fiat and bitcoins are not since "fiat" very specifically refers to something being decreed as money by some authority which then forces acceptance in various ways. The problem is we don't have a word in common parlance to describe a valueless thing like bitcoin which isn't a gov't fiat currency, so people tend to call it fiat since it resembles gov't created money.
MillionthUsername 1 month ago
@The3rdPlateau You don't need dollars to transact in Europe. You're missing the point. In Europe bitcoin people would be riding the back of the Euro since that is the prevalent currency there, the "real" money. In the US, it's the dollar. A thing like bitcoin is a money substitute NEEDING to be exchanged into the common currency (whatever that is) since it is NOT the "currency" it claims to be. It's like a poker chip, a postal money order, Western Union, etc. It's a stand-in for the dollar.
MillionthUsername 1 month ago
@MillionthUsername What I'm saying is, the Euro and the dollar aren't "real" money no matter what way you try to spin it. A thing like the bitcoin doesn't depend on those other currencies to exist, nor to have value. It doesn't NEED to be exchanged into the common currency; all it NEEDS is to be exchanged for goods and services. Dollars are like a poker chip, postal money order, etc. "What they really want" isn't necessarily dollars, it's value...
The3rdPlateau 1 month ago
@MillionthUsername ...and furthermore, the insiders at the Federal Reserve make trillions because THEY started a pyramid scheme. The dollar is a pyramid scheme. I'm not saying that bitcoins aren't a pyramid scheme, I'm saying that all fiat currency is a pyramid scheme...and arguably all currency, period, are pyramid schemes. Again, the only legitimizing factor for any currency is peoples' willingness to use it...that doesn't make it NOT a pyramid scheme...
The3rdPlateau 1 month ago
@The3rdPlateau Of course the dollar is a pyramid scheme! It's important to understand how it all works though. The Fed "dollar" replaced the gold-backed one in a similar way that things like bitcoin try to replace the dollar. The valueless token steals value from the established currency via the exchange rate after people are told it too is "currency" and will appreciate if they buy it (speculation) . While bitcoin is not forced by law like Fed notes, it still lives off the $ in this way.
MillionthUsername 1 month ago
@MillionthUsername ...whether or not something is currency is not objective/fact, it's a matter of opinion/willingness to use it as currency. Just because a government arbitrarily declares something legal tender is irrelevant if no one is willing to accept it. So, to say something is "NOT currency" as though it were a fact isn't really correct, because it's not a fact, it's an opinion. It's not necessarily wrong either, it's just an opinion.
The3rdPlateau 1 month ago
@The3rdPlateau A currency is something that is current. It is circulating in the economy - by definition. This is an important point. There's a podcast where a bitcoin developer talks about "the chicken and the egg problem." He's speaking to the difficulty of getting something to circulate when it is NOT. Calling it "currency" is a sales pitch, and some would say a con job. What they really want is DOLLARS to be exchanged for it as it is next to impossible to get people to take it otherwise.
MillionthUsername 1 month ago
@MillionthUsername ...so they're not selling the ability to exchange it for dollars, they're selling to ability to exchange it for anything, be it a good or a service or some other currency. I mean, bitcoins are circulating in the economy. Not as much as something like, say, dollars are...but if I decide I want to sell you something and get paid in food, then that food is currency for this transaction...
The3rdPlateau 1 month ago
@The3rdPlateau Exchanging for dollars is the whole point because dollars are the currency accepted, not bitcoin. If bitcoin were currency, you would exchange goods and services in it - the thing itself. In this sense it's a money substitute. It has little value as money on its own. It has transaction features, though, and that's what attracts dollars to it, but make no mistake, it's riding the dollar all the way until people *actually* trade in it the whole cycle and not just pretend they do.
MillionthUsername 1 month ago
@MillionthUsername Um, people do exchange goods and services in it (the thing itself). They're not just like, an investment/a commodity. People use them to buy things.
The3rdPlateau 1 month ago
@The3rdPlateau "People use them to buy things."
People use coupons to buy things. They also use gift cards, poker chips, credit cards, drugs, IOUs, cigarettes, airline miles, barter credits, store credit, etc., etc.
I'm talking about the claim that it's currency. It's just a false claim. Are you telling me that if you and I start one of these and trade a few Twitcoins between us, that Twitcoins are now "currency"? What about acceptance in the marketplace? That doesn't matter now? Come on!
MillionthUsername 1 month ago
@MillionthUsername If people use gift cards, credit cards, poker chips, or drugs to buy things, then they're using above-mentioned commodities as currency. I'm not equivocating. I have a very clear stance on this. WE are marketplace, there isn't "THE marketplace" there are markets within markets within markets. Everything is not called currency, unless of course, it's being used as currency.
I don't agree that the use of electricity in "mining" is irrelevant...
The3rdPlateau 1 month ago
@The3rdPlateau "I don't agree that the use of electricity in "mining" is irrelevant."
Then tell me how the price of electricity affects the price of bitcoin. You said bitcoin was a derivative of electricity.
MillionthUsername 1 month ago
@MillionthUsername Tell me how it doesn't? Obviously if I'm a bitcoin miner, and electricity goes up in price, I have to either mine fewer bitcoins, or increase their value.
The3rdPlateau 1 month ago
@The3rdPlateau Electricity is an expense that is figured into every business that uses it. But when people use electricity, it is consumed. How is it that people are claiming bitcoin is a derivative of electricity? Don't they use electricity to make dollars too? And computers, and books, and pencils, and scotch tape?
MillionthUsername 1 month ago
@MillionthUsername ...lack of ability to redeem them for KWH from power companies is irrelevant. Ok, so the power company hasn't joined this particular market yet...that doesn't stop anyone from rigging up a turbine powered by a stream that flows outside of their house from buying bitcoins in exchange for power.
If I buy gold with dollars, and then I try to sell that gold to some other retailer, and the retailer refuses on the basis that he doesn't accept gold, that...
The3rdPlateau 1 month ago
@The3rdPlateau The electricity we are consuming now is irrelevant. It's not commodifiable simply by using it. It's consumed in using. It doesn't become relevant because in order to create twitcoins we install programs on our computers that solve hard math problems.
Equivocation makes all distinctions irrelevant. Now you can call anything currency. When you trade a ton of dirt for a valve job, dirt is now currency. So are valve jobs,
since they are used in trade. Happy now?
MillionthUsername 1 month ago
@MillionthUsername Yes. I doubt many people would use/accept dirt, but sure, if you wanna go that route.
The3rdPlateau 1 month ago
@The3rdPlateau Good, then you can tell people that dirt is currency. You don't have to reference its circulation as a medium of exchange or its general acceptance, but merely the fact that sometime somewhere some guy exchanged dirt for something. That should help you formulate a theory about how currency behaves vs other goods. Oh wait, darn. You can't do that, since all goods are currency. Oh well, forget theory. We don't need that anyway.
MillionthUsername 1 month ago
@The3rdPlateau
Listen, my friend, you really are equivocating because you're not using these words as they are defined and used in economics and especially monetary economics. We're looking at the marketplace as a whole. Economies are very large. People are not using gold as money and currency today, but as an asset. When was the last time Walmart gave you gold for change or you bought gas in gold? Walmart is the major retailer. Tell me what they accept as currency. Gold? Bitcoins? Sea shells?
MillionthUsername 1 month ago
@MillionthUsername ...that doesn't make the gold suddenly "not currency." All currency is, is money. All money is, is a promise; a promise to pay, or a promise to accept, money...in whatever form it takes. Yes, between us, twitcoins are now currency. We're a market, albeit a small one.
The3rdPlateau 1 month ago
@The3rdPlateau Money is not a promise to pay. Money is used in exchange PRECISELY TO AVOID any promises left to fulfill.
Between us, twitcoins are currency. Big deal. And this means I can conduct my business now in twitcoins and can announce to the world that twitcoins are currency? Then you and me can create a sizable portion for ourselves so that when even a little demand kicks in, we can rake in huge dollars for twitcoins? Is that what currency is? Ok, fine.
MillionthUsername 1 month ago
@MillionthUsername No no, money is a promise to pay ONCE. After you've fulfilled that promise, then...well, you've paid. And no, you and me cannot create a sizable portion for ourselves, because that would a) inflate the shit out of it, and b) render it useless as currency because we would control the entire thing. I mean, sure, you could do that...but that would just make it even more fiat than it already was, and no one would WANT to trade with it/accept it...
The3rdPlateau 1 month ago
@The3rdPlateau "money is a promise to pay ONCE."
Wow. Now you're just being a complete jackass. That is a ridiculous and meaningless statement. You just made that up. That's not even from any school of economics!
You claimed money was a promise to pay. It is not. It's a commodity you trade with. By definition it is the most marketable commodity. You trade it for the good and you're DONE. What the hell is "promise to pay ONCE" even mean? You don't promise anything. That's an IOU.
MillionthUsername 1 month ago
@MillionthUsername ...but that doesn't make it not currency, it makes it a shit currency that's not worthwhile to use, just like bitcoins.
The3rdPlateau 1 month ago
@MillionthUsername In fact, YOU'RE equivocating here. First, nobody trades with them, and due to that fact, they aren't currency. Now, people do trade with them but only a small portion of the population, and besides trading with them doesn't matter anyway because it doesn't make it a currency.
The3rdPlateau 1 month ago
@The3rdPlateau Hey man, I'm not equivocating. Get real. I don't recall saying "nobody trades with them." I've researched them. I know that the first dang bitcoin they created they then "traded" between two computers.
You know very well that my point is about claims in marketing. A monetary currency is something that is current in trade, IN GENERAL. Sorry. Now anything can be USED as a currency at any time. In a blackout, you can use candles and flashlights as currency.
Give me a break.
MillionthUsername 1 month ago
@MillionthUsername WHAT? TWICE you said that people don't trade with them. I'm sorry if you don't recall it, but it happened.
"people *actually* trade in it the whole cycle and not just pretend they do." ...for instance
The3rdPlateau 1 month ago
@The3rdPlateau That quote of mine is accurate, and was to my point that bitcoin relies on exchange with dollars to pretend to be currency. People clearly do not trade the whole cycle in them because there aren't enough traders, and the thing has no value as money. That's why they go in and out of dollars, the real currency.
How do you twist that into me denying that people (meaning, to you of course, one or two people) trade them? I'm talking about the real economic trade cycle.
MillionthUsername 1 month ago
@MillionthUsername ...That's not any more of a sales pitch than saying that this piece of paper called the dollar is currency is a sales pitch, OR for that matter saying that this hunk of precious metal is currency. I agree with you that "fiat" refers to something being decreed as money, but not that some authority necessarily forces its acceptance, nor that some authority necessarily exists...
The3rdPlateau 1 month ago
Comment removed
The3rdPlateau 1 month ago
@MillionthUsername ...Let me put it this way; the dollar steals its value from the very goods and services for which it's being paid. It doesn't get its value from the government declaring it legal tender; rather, it gets its value from a common willingness to accept it. That in and of itself is the result of the declaration that dollars are legal tender, but that isn't necessarily the only way of creating said common acceptance...
The3rdPlateau 1 month ago
@The3rdPlateau I agree. It's not just legal tender law that gives the dollar a legal advantage. The most powerful advantage comes from the banking system which is highly "regulated" (i.e., controlled) to give it advantages others can't get, like instant liquidity and zero interest from the Fed, etc.
Yes, you can create acceptance other ways, but it's very hard. An unfair advantage in a market created by law can be very hard to compete against. That's why they make such laws and pay lobbyists!
MillionthUsername 1 month ago
@MillionthUsername ...Upon searching dictionary(dot)com, "fiat" shows up as an authoritatize decree, sanction, or order...only one out of several definitions states "an arbitrary decree or pronouncement, ESPECIALLY (not NECESSARILY) by a person or group of persons having absolute authority to enforce it." Said "absolute authority," mind you, is also arbirtary and only exists out of peoples' willingness to accept it, or because it's forced by violence...
The3rdPlateau 1 month ago
@MillionthUsername Precious metals are fiat, too. Only food and water are non-fiat (potential) currencies.
"The claim of value is arbitrary"...as it is with dollars, euros, yen, or any other government-mandated currency. None of those things have any inherent value, despite the arbitrary declaration by their respective governments that they hold value. Value is the ability to exchange them for goods or services, not to exchange them for dollars/euros/yen/etc...
The3rdPlateau 1 month ago
@The3rdPlateau "Precious metals are fiat, too"
No, that's a fallacy. Look up the definition of "fiat currency." You're using the word wrongly again. Hey, I used it wrongly just before regarding bitcoin, so it's understandable. But the word doesn't mean a previously valueless thing that people agree will be treated as money (and that would not apply to gold anyway), it means money decreed (not agreed) to be money. We use "fiat" too much because gov't fiat is so prevalent. It's not accurate.
MillionthUsername 1 month ago
@MillionthUsername I literally just got finished looking up the definition...I even quoted it (from dictionary[dot]com). I appreciate your level-headedness about all this, but firstly gold pretty much IS a previously valueless thing...except then, someone decreed, HEY this stuff is shiny, lets declare it worth something, and then other people agreed. People can't agree without the initial decree...or else they've nothing to agree with. We do use fiat too much, but much is fiat
The3rdPlateau 1 month ago
@The3rdPlateau You're starting to equivocate here, and I don't know why. No one in the marketplace "decrees" that gold has a certain value. The value emerges from free trade. The only people that ever decreed gold to have a certain value is the gov't. That's where we got the fixed exchange rate for gold, and that's how they ruined the gold standard. THAT was "fiat," the gov't decreed-by-law value (which drove gold out of circulation). Market value is not fiat. We have to be accurate.
MillionthUsername 1 month ago
@The3rdPlateau Yes, it's true that dollars/euros/yen claim arbitrary value in the market and are forced (or perhaps pushed is better) on us. I'm not saying how great the dollar is. I said at first that gov't fiat stole value and the pricing system from gold. The dollar is just a derivative of gold. My point is not that the dollar is great, but that things like bitcoin are just further derivatives. It uses the dollar to siphon off a value that it does NOT have on its own either.
MillionthUsername 1 month ago
@MillionthUsername Oh, I wasn't thinking you were trying to defend the dollar. I don't think anyone who understands economics would do that at present...the dollar is a derivative of gold (a commodity...however a unique commodity in that it has in the past been used as currency itself), and bitcoins are a derivative of electricity (also a commodity- not dollars/euros/whatever).
The3rdPlateau 1 month ago
@The3rdPlateau Bitcoins are not a derivative of electricity. The value of electricity in the marketplace has no bearing whatsoever on the value of bitcoins. You can't redeem bitcoins for a quantity of KWH from the power company. Again, people selling this scheme have been making false claims about what it is. A derivative is something tradeable due to the value of the underlying asset. But bitcoin is valueless. They admit that it is. The use of electricity in "mining" it is irrelevant.
MillionthUsername 1 month ago
@MillionthUsername Thus, something can be currency without said arbitrary governmental declaration, so long as people are willing to exchange it for goods and services (as opposed to willingness to exchange it strictly for dollars/govt. currency)
Trust me, I get your point, but I think you have flaws notions of the meaning of "fiat"...the chicken and the egg problem does not cease to exist just because something if legal tender...
The3rdPlateau 1 month ago
@The3rdPlateau I think you're on the right track when you say the dollar is "backed" by all our goods and services. I think people instinctively realize this. What does that actually mean? It means money ultimately refers to commodities, and this is why commodity money has always won out in a free market (no forceful intervention). It's extremely hard to get people to *actually* trade in (the whole cycle of buying/selling) something other than a commodity having market value in its own right.
MillionthUsername 1 month ago
@MillionthUsername Indeed...they're just receipts for gold (or silver, in the case of greenbacks, or the pound sterling)
The3rdPlateau 1 month ago
@The3rdPlateau As I understand, legal tender means that if you don't accept the fiat currency as payment of debt "public and private" (taxes, plus any private debt even if denominated in gold - which violates our contract rights!), then you can be judged by a court to lose title to that debt. Legal tender is a nasty law. It puts gov't force behind the currency. All debts have to be settled in it or the creditor may lose his rights to collect if $ was offered and he rejected it.
MillionthUsername 1 month ago
@MillionthUsername ...Regardless of whether or not bitcoins are forced by law like Fed notes, they depend on value, not necessarily dollars.
The3rdPlateau 1 month ago
@The3rdPlateau but the same can be said of government-mandated currency, so it's all arbitrary.
The3rdPlateau 1 month ago
@The3rdPlateau If it were *really* true that bitcoins "depend on value, not necessarily dollars," then people would TRADE IN BITCOINS in both buying and selling from the get go. They would be money/currency, not a speculative instrument to make a few people rich by setting up a pyramid scheme where the early people buy something for .00001 or whatever and end up selling it to late comers at $32 which I think was bitcoins high?
The "value" comes from that promise of speculative gain, in DOLLARS!
MillionthUsername 1 month ago
@MillionthUsername Again, people DO trade in bitcoins, in both buying and selling.
The3rdPlateau 1 month ago
@The3rdPlateau How can you run a business trading in bitcoins? I think, again, you are equivocating. Why? I don't get it. Bitcoin is a wannabe currency. That doesn't make it a currency. The fact that a few people trade them doesn't differentiate them from baseball cards or airline miles or coupons or any number of things like that. You lose the meaning of "money" and "currency" if literally everything is called money and currency. It all becomes just a word game to manipulate people.
MillionthUsername 1 month ago
@MillionthUsername the only thing bitcoins rely on is electricity. Don't get me wrong, I'm not into the whole bitcoin thing, I think it's a bad investment, etc etc. All I'm saying is, the only person who gets to decide if something is currency in any given situation, is the retailer, based on his or her willingness to accept it. Other than that, it's all arbitrary.
The3rdPlateau 1 month ago
@The3rdPlateau You're right, the retailer has to decide to accept it, but that's too hard to do with something that is valueless and is not money and is not even circulating. The claim of value is arbitrary. This is why they don't say "money." They always call it "currency" because they want people's dollars to back it up through exchange! That's what gives the thing value. They're selling the ability to exchange for dollars. Who would take it otherwise? Very very few.
MillionthUsername 1 month ago
@MillionthUsername What I was saying about gold is, precious metals are fiat because they have no inherent value to humans. Many centuries ago, somebody happened to notice that a lot of people like gold, so they proposed the idea (decreed) to use it as currency (that it had value in and of itself). Everyone else ("the" market) then agreed that it had value, and to use it as currency, thus beginning a trend that still occurs...
The3rdPlateau 1 month ago
@The3rdPlateau "precious metals are fiat because they have no inherent value to humans"
False on both counts. Geez. Why are you doing this? We already discussed "fiat." Why would you continue to use the word in the wrong way?
Economics only deals with the subjective economic value people place on things as they trade, which the market reveals through the price system as a result of trading. Economists don't deal with "inherent value," whatever that may mean.
MillionthUsername 1 month ago
@MillionthUsername Don't think you're such a genius. We discussed fiat, yes, and we proved that I was using it correctly. Clearly we disagree on its meaning, we have differnt interpretations of its definition. You can't accept a different opinion without declaring it wrong?
And no, dirt is not currency because no one is using it as such. IF they were to do so, then it would be currency. And it's from the Austrian school...and dollar/computers/books/pencils are also...
The3rdPlateau 1 month ago
@The3rdPlateau "We discussed fiat, yes, and we proved that I was using it correctly. Clearly we disagree on its meaning, we have differnt interpretations of its definition. You can't accept a different opinion without declaring it wrong?"
Wow. Ok. Later.
MillionthUsername 1 month ago
@MillionthUsername ...also derived from/backed by, electricity.
The fact that someone somewhere used it (dirt) once is not what makes it currency. In fact, it is not currency, nor has it ever been used as such. HOWEVER if you and I were to trade using dirt, THEN we would be USING it AS currency. There's nothing crazy or fringe about that.
This isn't complicated, I don't see why you can't just agree that we disagree. With that said, we disagree...good day
The3rdPlateau 1 month ago
@MillionthUsername oh, and even though it comes from Austrian economics, that's irrelevant. This is my theory of economics, not some other guy's theory...though 99% of it is based in the Austrian school, but that's beside the point. These are my opinions, and again, clearly we disagree. That's all there is to it.
The3rdPlateau 1 month ago
@MillionthUsername ...Its current market value/current spot price is not what makes it "have value," what makes it "have value" is peoples' willingness to use and accept it...but that is a trend which isn't just, some inherent result of "the" market, it started at some point, albeit a very long time ago. On the other hand, spot price IS a result of "the" market, unlike its recognition as having value. The latter began...
The3rdPlateau 1 month ago
@MillionthUsername ...The latter began a long time ago, but people still accept it because they know that everyone else will accept it, because everyone else HAS been accepting it (and paying with it) since that whole trend began. People don't use it/accept it because it has inherent value, but because they know everyone else is also willing to use/accept it. But that isn't just some market condition...and it hasn't always been that way
The3rdPlateau 1 month ago
Me personal want to go back to the Gold and Sliver Standard!
Marlin0865 3 months ago
The real point of bitcoins (what it should be used for) is not investment, it's to be spent for goods and services. I use them mainly to donate them to charities like the EFF, and also recently paid for some file hosting with bitcoins. For me, it's easier.
BurritoBazooka 4 months ago
a ponzi requires an investment. bitcoins do not require an investment. Yes a computer is an investment, but you can be mining while you wank it to porn or whatever, but now you can't even make them anymore. the point of bitcoins is not to "cash in" on them. it's just a different way of currency. no one's asking you to invest. it makes sense to trade $ for bitcoins if you prefer the commodities bitcoin currency offers and you place YOUR OWN value on the currency.
zaigex 4 months ago
I'm tired of all the ppl saying that this is a scheme. Its not a scheme. The bitcoin company can not create bitcoins. only miners can create them and a miner is anyone with the right hardware, and it take electricity to create them. They are valued because the goverment and crooked banks don't own this currency.
darkx967 5 months ago 4
@darkx967 I didn't say they can create bitcoins because there is no "bitcoin company". The fact that it takes electricity to create them doesn't give them any use value, in the same way that digging a ditch and filling it back up takes work but doesn't make the result of that work valuable. It's a ponzi scheme because the only value comes (and can only come) from speculative investment.
zuiprax 5 months ago
@zuiprax So aren't dollars as stupid as bitcoins, I mean you can't just push a button and get a dollar. Same on bitcoins, you can get them but it requires work.
When you do regular work, you get dollars.
As simple as that, you can also, for example, sell products for bitcoins, create a business which gives people something they want for bitcoins.
LeeviON 4 months ago
@LeeviON Well in a way, dollars are worse than bitcoins because you're not forced to used bitcoins, but you are forced to use dollars. So the "ponzi scheme" part of dollars will affect you whether you want to take part of it or not.
zuiprax 4 months ago 2
@zuiprax Exactly!
The3rdPlateau 1 month ago
@zuiprax Yes but electricity has value, therefore bitcoins have value. Also, I know you said you might define ponzi scheme differently than other people, but I must insist that what you are describing is a PYRAMID scheme...like zuiprax said, DOLLARS are a ponzi scheme, bitcoins are a pyramid scheme. But while most pyramid schemes do collapse, if it benefits the individual to buy them enough, then it will catch on as a reserve currency (rather than as an investment)
The3rdPlateau 2 months ago
@The3rdPlateau My work has value to me. If you want me to dig a ditch and fill it back up, you'll have to pay me for it. This is what something having "value" means. That other people are willing to give you other things of "value" for it. However, if nobody is willing to give you something of value in exchange for the product of me digging the ditch and filling it back up, then there is no value in that product, even though you had to pay me for it and I had to work.
zuiprax 4 weeks ago
@The3rdPlateau In the same way, you can spend electricity to mine bitcoins, but that doesn't in and of itself make bitcoins valuable. What you have is a modified version of the labor theory of value, which is what mostly led Karl Marx to develop his theories on Capitalism and Communism.
zuiprax 4 weeks ago
@The3rdPlateau I don't really make a difference between a ponzi scheme and a pyramid sheme, I guess you mean that the ponzi scheme has fraud involved, whereas the pyramid scheme doesn't? If that's the way you define those, then I will agree that bitcoin is a pyramid but not a ponzi scheme. And depending on what we consider fraud, dollars would probably classify as a ponzi scheme.
zuiprax 3 weeks ago
@The3rdPlateau To me a pyramid scheme is an investment scheme where the only value can come from speculation. Those schemes always collapse eventually. You can profit from them by getting in before a rally and getting out before a crash, but in the long-term you will lose a lot if not all of your money.
zuiprax 3 weeks ago
@zuiprax "The fact that it takes electricity to create them doesn't give them any use value"
Gold has very little practical value.
Copper is an easier to come by conductor, and silver is better at conducting electricity. Yet even with these facts, gold has a higher value. WHY?
It's simple, if you have the only remaining phaser used on star trek, you have something which is scarce. The reason gold is valued is due to it's scarcity.
Bitcoins seem to get their value from their scarcity.
TheReasonWhyGuy 2 months ago
@TheReasonWhyGuy Then you may want to ask yourself why cellphones, computer chips, satellites, and all sorts of technological devices use gold in them, being that gold is so much more expensive; the companies producting these would be able to reduce costs by not using gold, but they're not doing that.
Also, gold has value as a jewelry.
Scarcity doesn't give something value. But if something is valuable, and it is scarce, then people who want it will have to pay more for it.
zuiprax 4 weeks ago
@TheReasonWhyGuy Bitcoints get their value from people being willing to hold them because they believe the price will go up. Eventually, the price will collapse because there is no real demand for bitcoin, only speculation.
zuiprax 4 weeks ago
@zuiprax yes... however it is possible that as people lack confidence in the stability of fiat currency, they may begin to prefer something like bitcoins.
Still, not sure how long before it collapses
TheReasonWhyGuy 4 weeks ago
@TheReasonWhyGuy Oh I agree with that. And I believe that's what's making so many people put their faith (and money) in bitcoin right now.
zuiprax 3 weeks ago
@zuiprax Yes, although I'm also curious about what effect understanding how bitcoins has on the likelihood someone will invest.
Does knowing more about them draw someone into investing? Or is it the opposite.
TheReasonWhyGuy 3 weeks ago
Guys you are missing the point. BitCoins are not MONEY. It is a currency.
A good Money has following properties.
1. Acceptability - Everyone must accept it to purchase goods and services. ( Bit coin is not there yet)
2. Durability - It should last a long time. (??? i don't know how long it will last)
3. Portability - Easy to carry around.
4. Scarcity - Scarce enough to be valuable, not common such as sand or pebbles on a beach.
5. Divisibility - Can be divided into small units
fsignup 5 months ago
@texuxi
I think you are somewhat confused on what a Ponzi scheme really is.
A Ponzi scheme is the act of an individual (or sometimes numerous) controller(s) inflating investment funds on the basis of marketing an investment or idea guaranteeing profits, when really they rely on new investors to pay old investor's returns on investment.
andrewcarter07 5 months ago
it may be a scheme, but it's certainly not a PONZI scheme. ponzi schemes just keep increasing output and input (output >= input)
darris321 5 months ago
@texuxi its opinionated if a currency has a value or not, like the US dollar. so its no false impression, people believe it. its still a fraud though since the owner and creator of bitcoin can just generate endless bitcoin without doing what all other pawns are doing and suddenly buy real life goods without having to do anything
kissemurra12 6 months ago
@texuxi wonderful ponzi scheme of theirs not only make money a certain way, but they ALSO make money by promoting their own made up fake currency that people should use it to trade real life money, and thus they can just create how many bitcoincs they want and just use the bitcoincs they created without any effort to buy things in real life with no real money.
kissemurra12 6 months ago
@kissemurra12 Actually, if the Bitcoin software works as it's supposed to (and it should, because it's open source), then there is no central creator of bitcoin and the printing process is decentralized and anyone can do it, it just requires you to add processing power to the network by helping others transfer their bitcoins back and forth.
So on that front it's honest, the problem remains that there is no use for bitcoins, thus any value that they have is pure short-term speculation.
zuiprax 6 months ago
@zuiprax its as much open source as the bitcoin creators can NOT make all their information public, hence why everything on their webpage isnt "open sourced" hence why they are creating their own bitcoins for free to buy everything they want, hell they can even after created it, trade it for real money of their own, without doing anything, so no its not open source anymore then a hacking program thats open sourced are still trained to respond undetected to create backdoors. their creation of co-
kissemurra12 6 months ago
@zuiprax their creation of bitcoins are mainly made in the same way they can shut down the entire bitcoin network when the depression of bitcoin hitted. they control the entire network, of course they can create more. its almost as bad as the federal reserve, the printing press just directly serves them, glad you admit that we should stop using bitcoins though and that you were wrong
kissemurra12 6 months ago
@kissemurra12 I was wrong in what? I thought this way about bitcoins from the start.
When I said it's open-source I mean the program client/server that's used to create and transfer the coins. That means you can look at everything the program does and there is no central entity or site. I haven't researched all that much into it, but I know people who have.
However, as I said before, the fact that there's no central entity doesn't make a ponzi scheme work.
zuiprax 6 months ago
@zuiprax actually you cant, thats a contradiction, hence why open source programs are still be able to be hacked and used distributed and controled by its creator. the creators THEMSELF shut down the entire bitcoin network to prevent cheating, which did ocur, which is not only ironic since they cheat themself, but the point is that if they have that much power, then yes they have the power to make their own bitcoins and abuse it. worst ponzi scheme "no depression ever" they said, haha yeah right
kissemurra12 5 months ago
@texuxi so your source is from BITCOIN themself?
yeah, the source is from the ponzi schemers themself.
they say on their on website, that "people who took risk and invested in a untested technology" got their rewards and tries to justify it. so yes, being the CREATOR of it and knows the sourcecode and data to it, means that its true. they DO earn a shitload of it, they can ironicly enough have gigantic amount of bitcoincs from thin air by just typing in digits. and thus through this-
kissemurra12 6 months ago
Do you want to trade BITCOINS??
THEN...
(google) "TRADEHILL" ... and sign up today..
You need to use this code as you join: TH-R18919
spacedreams2111 6 months ago
si no escuche mal, creo q casi el mismo video se puede hacer reemplazando la palabra "bitcoin" por "oro". saludos!
enriquedacostacambio 6 months ago
The whole decentralised thing with Bitcoin is a huge fallacy. Lets image if person A produced 100.000 chairs in Japan and person B from US wants to buy them with Bitcoins, fine enough.. But who should send first? Why should person A trust person B? Person A needs to ship the goods to the other end of the world and just "trust" that person B will agree to transfer the Bitcoins. The same dilemma has person B with person A. There needs to be a trusted bank to guarantee for both parties.
cphstreet 6 months ago
The value of a currency is essential based on food production. More food, more time to work to create real goods or leisure time. Thats why mayor governments invest massive amount money in food production. Bitcoin is just a symptom of modern stock market speculation. Believing in some currency doesn't necessary make it more worth, that is speculation (bubble). There has to be some workforce that generates goods, to back it up.
cphstreet 6 months ago
the u.s. dollar is a fucking ponzi scheme... so your point is what exactly? i guess alot of people would rather participate in the ponzi scheme we are most familiar with than take a chance with a new system of exchange. the question is would you rather have your untrustworthy gov't in charge of a ponzi scheme that it controls or would you rather participate in a system where control is decentralized and influenced by your own involvement.
icewalker23 6 months ago
All the nations use a fiat currency, it's the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time...
prdragon43 6 months ago
Bitcoins have value. They can be traded instantly with a tiny fee, giving them high value as a trade currency compared to other currencies. They weigh nothing, being stored in a wallet accessed using a phone or other portable computer, something you would be carrying anyways.
TomFromEntropia 6 months ago
I agree with you. The only people who are making money on this in the long run is to be an early adopter.
The sad part about this is that there are people with noble intentions in this. But people need to know that LIBERTARIAN MINDED GEEKS ARE NOT "GOOD PEOPLE".
They believe that if you are stupid, you DESERVE to suffer. This is how they think. They LAUGH at you losing money to them.
Don't help them. Bitcoins are a joke. If you want something instead of US dollar, buy sliver or gold.
GanjaRunner 6 months ago
Even though I think you are wrong in your analysis, I liked the video cause I think it's an honest take on what you think. If demand goes to zero for any product price goes along with it, of course. I think you are wrong in the utility side, bitcoin is very useful for a forced (statist) environment, and it's the free market response to force. Another thing I would disagree with is calling government money "fiat currency", there's no trust backing it, just force. Thanks for posting your ideas :)
meberic 6 months ago 5
tell me how many bitcoins you won and how was that electricity cost a month
ukusapillage 6 months ago
shit if you want to retain you money value just buy gold or metals or things that are real and actually have value dont buy a virtual exposed currency that its worth less then fiat money it cqant be used to pay for anything to even retain value of anything its just an illegal tool to wash money and its not even a good one because the gov can see their info any time they want you cant but they can
ukusapillage 6 months ago
please ppl dont follow the suckers the world is filled with them its because of that we are in this messwith fiat currencys in the first place because ppl just follow others without using their brains fiat currencys were used for expansion credit and in colonial days and expansion of mankind and bussyness nowdays the world is contracting so the expansion credit is to take value of what u own, bitcoins is the fiat currency scam in small illegal grid you will loose your money value much faster
ukusapillage 6 months ago
the fact bitcoins is totally anonimous and has no central identity its even more dangerous the fact they say its that who makes bitcoins value its the fact no one can see who has them or who trades them thats a lie the gov sees it all or else it woyuld be illegal another thing is who the hell wants to trade a fiat currency that at least its not in hiperinflation mode for currency that can break to % at any time and only retains value if more suckers get in it will collapse for that many reasons
ukusapillage 6 months ago
No fiat currency has lasted for more than about 40 years. The usd went off gold standard in 1971
CorpseCallosum 6 months ago 9
There will be speculation but that does not mean its a ponzi scheme. If you can trade bitcoin for real stuff it has value. Period.
CorpseCallosum 6 months ago 2
@texuxi Nobody would use bitcoins if they didn't expect them to increase or retain their value. But this cannot happen without continuous investment into them. Nobody will ever want a bitcoin for a bitcoin's sake. You can't redeem them for anything anyone wants. It works exactly like a ponzi scheme, except it has no central entity.
zuiprax 6 months ago
@zuiprax People do not use currency because they expect them to make money, they use them as a means of standardized trade. You completely misinterpret the idea and allure of bitcoin. It is that bitcoin isn't controlled by a bank, it is completely created and maintained by the the community, it's not created by loans either like most currency is. Without the overhead of immediate debt, bitcoin may be able to stabalize. That being said I don't believe any monetary system will ever really work.
TheSatanicView 6 months ago
@zuiprax
If your analysis is correct about no one using bitcoins if they did not expect them to increase or retain value, then you could consider almost ANY investment a ponzi scheme. Whether or not your analysis relates to what an actual ponzi scheme is (and it doesn't), you cannot declare a simple aspect of an idea to equal the whole of another idea.
andrewcarter07 5 months ago
@andrewcarter07 You miss the point. Re-read what I said.
zuiprax 5 months ago
I have some gold pokemon cards to trade for your bid coins...
4072960417 7 months ago
1 bitcoin =$13.20 and ben bernanke says Gold is not money ?
and no one knows who is the inventor of bitcoin
i think there is relationship b Ben ?
strongarabi 7 months ago
Funny that is the same how our global economy works :p but yet people believe in it :D so funny how people think they can see when they actually are totally blind
1115601 7 months ago
It is.
Anothercoilgun 8 months ago
I kind of agree right now(I do have some bitcoins) as investment seems to be driving the price right now. But, if people were buying them to actually be able to use them when buying stuff, the matter would be entirely different. So, in my opinion, right now, it is a matter of whether the trading price driver can "catch up" with the investment driver or not. I hope it can, so it can compete away fiat money. I understand the risks, and I am willing to take it for that reason.
mortalisk 8 months ago
@mortalisk It's all good. Anything can happen with something like this in the short run.
zuiprax 8 months ago
you are wrong when you say that when the velocity increases, then the value decreases. Higher velocity does not mean decrease of value - higher velocity actually means stronger market, more interest, more scarcity and higher prices..
jahabdank 8 months ago
@jahabdank Higher prices means the value of the currency is lower.
zuiprax 8 months ago
@zuiprax sorry, I meant higher value of the currency. High velocities actually can cause deflation, meaning increase of value. It all depends on the perception of the price. The high velocity only accelerates the processes - it can be both ways, up or down.
jahabdank 8 months ago
@jahabdank No, because higher velocity means people hold the money for a shorter period of time. The longer people hold the money, the less things can be bought with the same amount of money in circulation.
So when the velocity is higher, since more things can be bought with the same amount of money, in effect there is more money available, but the same amount of goods and services. Prices rise to reflect this, and the tendency of prices to rise again increases the velocity.
zuiprax 8 months ago
@zuiprax your thinking is correct, except one thing: more velocity means more publicity, thus more people joining the market. At this point it just depends what is greater - publicity or velocity. If the publicity is greater, the value of bitcoin will increase, despite the velocity. And since the BitCoin is a deflationary currency (in can not inflate indefinitely), people always tend to hoard more then spend, therefore any increase in velocity will always be temporary.
jahabdank 8 months ago
@jahabdank Interesting point.
Still, publicity can only increase demand up to a certain extent, and after some point it starts having diminishing returns until it has little to no effect.
zuiprax 8 months ago
@zuiprax Yes, but again, remember that by the definition people will have a tendency to hard bitcoins due to the long term deflationary trends. I would worry more about the deflation then inflation.
Regardless, both our claims are so far fetched, and we both can be off due to numerous things we do not take into the consideration, which will happen on the way ;)
jahabdank 8 months ago
@jahabdank What do you mean by deflationary trends?
If you mean the supply will be going down, that's wrong, the supply will be going up.
If you mean that prices in bitcoins will go down (bitcoins will gain value), then your argument is circular. You're saying people will hoard them because they will gain value and they will gain value because people will hoard them.
zuiprax 8 months ago
@zuiprax of course that BitCoin is deflationary - it is basics of economics. Since it can not be inflated above 21 milion, once it hits this level it will be deflationary. Every currency that can not be supplied along with the growth, is deflationary, and so is BitCoin. That is why people will always tent to hoard it, rather then spend it, and that is why the increased velocity you mention will never be an extended problem (it might be for a while, but not in the long run).
jahabdank 8 months ago
@jahabdank You're using "inflation" to mean two different things in the same sentence.
zuiprax 8 months ago
@zuiprax hmmm ... I can't see doing that. Inflating currency means basically increase of prices, which either is caused by increased money supply or increase of scarcity of goods (e.g. due to war etc.). Since the money supply in the BitCoin is limited it will always be deflationary, because amount of goods always increases, thus decreasing scarcity, thus decreasing the prices, thus increasing the value of bitcoins (again, except extreme situations such as war).
jahabdank 8 months ago
@jahabdank In the above message you used inflation to refer just to the money supply, and then to price levels.
Also, in your description of what causes the general price level to change, you didn't include velocity or demand for that medium of exchange instead of another. i.e. if everybody decides they will use X instead of bitcoins as a medium of exchange, then what value will bitcoins have? None.
zuiprax 8 months ago
@zuiprax My last response, I promise :)
Inflation by the dictionary means rising of prices, and it can be caused by the two factors: decrease of scarcity of money(increase of money supply or increase in velocity of trading) or increase of scarcity of goods(destruction or decrease of supply of goods).
Focus on no1: the money supply is limited, thus there will always be a deflationary trend, which will further decrease the velocity due to hoarding, thus a downward spiral in price is unlikely
jahabdank 8 months ago
It does seem like a house of cards. They compare it to something that's good like gold or silver, but it's not a tangible asset like either of those metals. It's purely fiat, because you invest with fiat money, but you don't get any hard asset back, you get a digital entry into a computer. Sounds a lot like how the US central bank works. I don't have a full understanding of the system, but it doesn't seem like it will be any better or safer than the fiat USD.
mit26chell 8 months ago
@mit26chell *I don't have a full understanding of the Bitcoin system.
mit26chell 8 months ago
They are built to last forever and will always have a use.
rickmerc 8 months ago
US Dollars are a Ponzi Scheme.
khunag 8 months ago
Right on. You reached the same sort of conclusions I did. Bitcoin is too volatile to use as a fair medium of exchange, so the only thing driving the price is the speculation of a greater fool getting in. This cannot end well.
Bitcoin is an impressive and fascinating work of software engineering, let us not underestimate the number who will be captivated by it. It has lasted over 2 yrs already. I think it is flawed but will be improved on by others to be the ultimate disruptive technology.
unabonger777 8 months ago
I can't understand the dislikes. It's clear that Bitcoins are a Ponzi scheme.
soapyshoe 8 months ago
The current fiat currency system is a ponzi scheme. Bitcoins are not. That's all i have to say about that.
MrGarky 8 months ago
Way to piss on the bitcoiner dreams of being a digital millionaire by next month. Just another scheme to suck people in with the expectation of vast riches from nothing. It will end just like all those dot com stocks that were the economy of the future!
gr8mikeY 8 months ago
@gr8mikeY Some people will achieve wealth from this, but the majority will probably end up hurt.
mit26chell 8 months ago
Maybe this is a movie plot for a B movie with a bunch of 1980s actors, but what if this guy from Japan who created bitcoin actually created software to utilize cpu power from a network of computers all over the world who are trying to 'mine' for bitcoins, breaking algorithms, and come to find out after the fact that they all were collaborators in helping this guy break into government security super computers to aid wikilinks, or banking systems to raid accounts and send it all to Japan!
ResourceNews 8 months ago
The profit would be in the middle. Buying now, many many bitcoins. Investing like crazy now, and then quickly sell before the system will collapse. Thank you for putting things in perspective, however at the way it is going, I think it may last a year or more. It's just too much hype, it has the potential to become a really massive thing. It can grow huge.. However there is always the possibility that I am wrong. Only time can tell.
Yamakoto120 8 months ago
@Yamakoto120 Yeah, I can see them lasting a year or more.
zuiprax 8 months ago
@zuiprax Uh... regarding your specific example with gold. Who thinks that "holding" a "Sound Blaster AWE64 Gold" produces value in itself? People hold on to the gold mainly because they perceive it to not suffer as much inflation as other "stores of value".
But gold is significantly different from digital currencies in general: you cannot do online transactions with actual gold. Bitcoin is not supposed to replace gold. But gold also cannot completely replace Bitcoin's function.
Your point...?
morphemeable 8 months ago
@morphemeable People who are using the technological equipment that has gold in it, are using it because they think their life is better using it than without using it. Which is also why they purchased it.
I am not talking about people stocking bullion to hedge against inflation or as a potential medium of exchange. That's monetary demand, it's different.
zuiprax 8 months ago
In a Ponzi, the founders persuade investors that they’ll profit. Bitcoin does not make such a guarantee. There is no central entity, just individuals building an economy. A ponzi is a zero sum game. Early adopters can only profit at the expense of late adopters. Bitcoin has possible win-win outcomes. Early adopters profit from the rise in value. Late adopters profit from the usefulness of a stable and widely accepted p2p currency.
TheJourneyAgent 8 months ago
@TheJourneyAgent It's a decentralized ponzi scheme. The technicalities may be different, but the way the scheme works is the same.
Bitcoin is a zero sum game. There is no benefit in using something as a medium of exchange when nobody wants to consume it. It thrives off of speculative investing, but as soon as that starts to slow down, people start to get rid of them because there is no point in holding them, and then the value goes down, which again drives up the velocity, until the value is 0.
zuiprax 8 months ago
@zuiprax i see what you mean but you miss the point. u wouldn't use bitcoin as a store of wealth? you'd use it for anonymous, fee free internet transfers or purchases, nothing more, nothing less. thats where i see its real strength, i dont believe it should be used for investing.
TheJourneyAgent 8 months ago