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That's not really the question though, a better question would be "you need to buy a computer today, do you pay in bitcoin or fiat?" If you believe that bitcoi

by simias 9y ago

That's not really the question though, a better question would be "you need to buy a computer today, do you pay in bitcoin or fiat?" If you believe that bitcoin is going to be successful then you should absolutely pay in fiat. There's also a bigger question, I may need a computer today so I'll buy one instead of waiting. But what about the money that I don't need to spend, my retirement fund or something like that? With inflationary currency I have an incentive to invest that money, fueling the economy. With bitcoin I can just let the money sleep in my cold wallet and I know that it'll keep getting more and more valuable by virtue of being in ever more limited supply. The rich get richer and the poor can't get a loan. Of course you might say that if the economy is unhealthy it'll cause a recession which will end up devaluing my bitcoins, but then you have a prisoner's dilemma: you want people to invest bitcoins into the economy but you sure as hell don't want to be the one doing it. But remember kids, bitcoin is about killing the greedy banks and helping the poor farmers in Africa or something so fight the good fight and buy those coins. It's amusing to me how the bitcoin community rejoices every time a business starts accepting bitcoin but at the same time the rallying cry is always "HOLD", as in do not ever spend your bitcoins because they're going to increase in value. There's an amusing dissonance here.

rothbardrand 9y ago
Well, the thing about bitcoin is that anyone can buy bitcoin. If you're poor, you can have coinbase buy $10 in bitcoin a week automatically. It's an investment of a quality that isn't really available in other forms, and accessible to poor people and middle class who are excluded from things like venture capital and other things by securities regulations. HODL doesn't mean never sell nothing, it means don't try to trade in and out of bitcoin to time the market. Nothing wrong with spending some bitcoin, that's not opposed to holding, just better to spend less bitcoin than you're earning from your salary each month.
- simias 9y ago
  Saving money is a luxury. That's where the huge inequality lies. Just google the issue to find tons of links, here's one at random: https://www.forbes.com/sites/maggiemcgrath/2016/01/06/63-of-americans-dont-have-enough-savings-to-cover-a-500-emergency/#4c6e93384e0d https://www.forbes.com/sites/maggiemcgrath/2016/01/06/63-of-... >63% Of Americans Don't Have Enough Savings To Cover A $500 Emergency Most people simply can't afford to invest a significant amount of money in bitcoin, especially with the high volatility we're having at the moment. That's actually the point the parent was trying to make, except it backfires here. People won't stop buying food, clothes and paying rent to invest in bitcoin for later returns. They have to spend that money. Rich people on the other hand can do whatever they want. If poor people want to become rich they'll probably need some initial investment, but bitcoin's deflation removes some of the incentives for rich people to invest money. One way to solve this issue would be to tax bitcoins savings to force the rich to "spend" their money by paying taxes, but at the same time bitcoin makes it easier than ever to hide and launder your money and even if the state manages to track your account they can't cease it without having access to your private key. Forget the panama papers, forget the lux-leaks. All you need is a computer running the bitcoin client and you can move millions anonymously without any intermediary.
  - rothbardrand 9y ago
    I don't understand the comment "especially with the high volatility we are seeing at the moment". Volatility doesn't change your ability to have coinbase buy $10 in bitcoin every week... in fact because of volatility you can dollar cost average that way. Even you could have them do $10 a day if you want to put in $300 a month. There are millions of people who can afford that... but they don't save, as you have pointed out. The not saving part is a cultural and habitual issue. People were addicted to credit in the past 20 years and this is due to a lot of forces, mostly government driven that benefit a fiat currency system. Bitcoin not being fiat is quite different and it will take decades for habits to change, this is true. That said, my facebook is overrun with non-technical, random people who are buying Bitcoin and Ethereum. I don't see how bitcoins very low inflation rate (which produces price appreciation as adoption increases) disincentives investment.... instead it's an incentive because you can see the change month to month. Taxing bitcoin and making the rich spend their bitcoins makes no sense... there are bitcoin whales with 100 times as many bitcoin as I have... doesn't affect me. IT's not a disincentive in the least.
    - simias 9y ago
      By the high volatility I meant that poor people can't invest money they can't afford to lose because it's too risky at the moment. You can't invest $500 to take them out two months for now because you don't know if they'll be worth $1000 or $50 by then. >Taxing bitcoin and making the rich spend their bitcoins makes no sense... there are bitcoin whales with 100 times as many bitcoin as I have... doesn't affect me. IT's not a disincentive in the least. That's the kind of short sightedness that worries me about the bitcoin ecosystem. It does affect you if you ever need a loan to buy a house or start a business because those "whales" which will be the new 1percenters won't have any incentive to lend you money. The rich gets richer, the poor remains where they are. We end up with all the problems and inequalities we have today, except worse. We killed the banks and replaced them with other banks except these new banks are even more opaque and will be even more stingy about lending you money. And on top of that we waste an ungodly amount of energy securing the blockchain. How is that an improvement again?

by simias 9y ago

rothbardrand 9y ago

Well, the thing about bitcoin is that anyone can buy bitcoin. If you're poor, you can have coinbase buy $10 in bitcoin a week automatically. It's an investment of a quality that isn't really available in other forms, and accessible to poor people and middle class who are excluded from things like venture capital and other things by securities regulations. HODL doesn't mean never sell nothing, it means don't try to trade in and out of bitcoin to time the market. Nothing wrong with spending some bitcoin, that's not opposed to holding, just better to spend less bitcoin than you're earning from your salary each month.

simias 9y ago
Saving money is a luxury. That's where the huge inequality lies. Just google the issue to find tons of links, here's one at random: https://www.forbes.com/sites/maggiemcgrath/2016/01/06/63-of-americans-dont-have-enough-savings-to-cover-a-500-emergency/#4c6e93384e0d https://www.forbes.com/sites/maggiemcgrath/2016/01/06/63-of-... >63% Of Americans Don't Have Enough Savings To Cover A $500 Emergency Most people simply can't afford to invest a significant amount of money in bitcoin, especially with the high volatility we're having at the moment. That's actually the point the parent was trying to make, except it backfires here. People won't stop buying food, clothes and paying rent to invest in bitcoin for later returns. They have to spend that money. Rich people on the other hand can do whatever they want. If poor people want to become rich they'll probably need some initial investment, but bitcoin's deflation removes some of the incentives for rich people to invest money. One way to solve this issue would be to tax bitcoins savings to force the rich to "spend" their money by paying taxes, but at the same time bitcoin makes it easier than ever to hide and launder your money and even if the state manages to track your account they can't cease it without having access to your private key. Forget the panama papers, forget the lux-leaks. All you need is a computer running the bitcoin client and you can move millions anonymously without any intermediary.
- rothbardrand 9y ago
  I don't understand the comment "especially with the high volatility we are seeing at the moment". Volatility doesn't change your ability to have coinbase buy $10 in bitcoin every week... in fact because of volatility you can dollar cost average that way. Even you could have them do $10 a day if you want to put in $300 a month. There are millions of people who can afford that... but they don't save, as you have pointed out. The not saving part is a cultural and habitual issue. People were addicted to credit in the past 20 years and this is due to a lot of forces, mostly government driven that benefit a fiat currency system. Bitcoin not being fiat is quite different and it will take decades for habits to change, this is true. That said, my facebook is overrun with non-technical, random people who are buying Bitcoin and Ethereum. I don't see how bitcoins very low inflation rate (which produces price appreciation as adoption increases) disincentives investment.... instead it's an incentive because you can see the change month to month. Taxing bitcoin and making the rich spend their bitcoins makes no sense... there are bitcoin whales with 100 times as many bitcoin as I have... doesn't affect me. IT's not a disincentive in the least.
  - simias 9y ago
    By the high volatility I meant that poor people can't invest money they can't afford to lose because it's too risky at the moment. You can't invest $500 to take them out two months for now because you don't know if they'll be worth $1000 or $50 by then. >Taxing bitcoin and making the rich spend their bitcoins makes no sense... there are bitcoin whales with 100 times as many bitcoin as I have... doesn't affect me. IT's not a disincentive in the least. That's the kind of short sightedness that worries me about the bitcoin ecosystem. It does affect you if you ever need a loan to buy a house or start a business because those "whales" which will be the new 1percenters won't have any incentive to lend you money. The rich gets richer, the poor remains where they are. We end up with all the problems and inequalities we have today, except worse. We killed the banks and replaced them with other banks except these new banks are even more opaque and will be even more stingy about lending you money. And on top of that we waste an ungodly amount of energy securing the blockchain. How is that an improvement again?