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Bitcoin's value is given by the trust people put in it. Just like with the fiat currencies as a matter of fact, because I don't know of any of them to be backed

Bitcoin's value is given by the trust people put in it. Just like with the fiat currencies as a matter of fact, because I don't know of any of them to be backed by anything else than trust. Of course, the US dollar has the whole US economy and the biggest army in the world as its plus, but it also has its minuses: the US treasury can and does print as many as it wants, in the detriment of ALL USD holders. Bitcoin's pluses when comparing it to other crypto currencies are: - the first to market advantage - almost 9 years of virtually 0 hacks of the protocol or concept - no sudden moves - the whole ecosystem that formed around it - etc. Let's not forget - ETH is less than 3 years old, Ripple is centralized, Litecoin, zCash, Monero and most of the others are bitcoin forks.

LyndsySimon 9y ago
> Litecoin, zCash, Monero and most of the others are bitcoin forks. Nope. All of these are derivatives of Bitcoin, but none of them are forks. A fork, by definition, shares a genesis block with the parent currency. This is in contrast to a "client fork", where the Bitcoin codebase was modified to create a new blockchain with or without changes in protocol. Most forks of Bitcoin have been intentional, and the "lesser" chain has died on purpose. Off the top of my head, existing forks are: BitcoinXT: created in late 2014, it allowed 8MB blocks instead of the 1MB limit for Bitcoin. As of mid-2016, it died due to lack of miner support. Bitcoin Classic: created in early 2016, it allowed 2MB blocks. It was effectively dead as of early 2017. Bitcoin Cash (a/k/a BCash, BCH): created in August 2017. It eschewed SegWit, and increased block size to 8MB. It's not dead yet and seems to have a base level of support both in terms of miners and in terms of price. I expect that it will die eventually... but who knows. It is by far the best-supported Bitcoin fork, and there are many who believe that it's the "real Bitcoin" in the sense that it conforms more closely to the original whitepaper. There are a couple of other forks planned in the near future as well.
- eigenvalue 9y ago
  I believe the parent poster meant fork in the sense of forking the codebase, not a currency fork. And in the case of Litecoin at least, that is true.
  - icahnvalyou 9y ago
    YOU. Fucking hell. You took my go-to username.
    - sctb 9y ago
      Wow, please don't post like this ever again. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
      - icahnvalyou 9y ago
        I'm a little confused about which guideline I broke. Is it the all caps "you"? edit: is this account a bot that I triggered?
  - john_alan 9y ago
    Monero is a novel codebase. Not a fork of Bitcoin
onion2k 9y ago
Bitcoin's value is given by the trust people put in it. Currency speculators don't give a damn about trust. They're not in it for the long term value that derives from the usefulness of Bitcoin, and that's the only thing you need trust for. They'll cash out when the price gets to a point where they're happy with their return. At that point either new speculators will get on board and keep the price high or the price will fall back to real value of Bitcoin. Neither really changes the usefulness of Bitcoin or it's long term value as a currency.
- dumbfounder 9y ago
  They increase the volatility which decreases its value as a currency. If prices are volatile it makes it hard to price items tied to Bitcoin.
  - IncRnd 9y ago
    Even if Bitcoin's price were stable, it would still be difficult to tie items to Bitcoin when it takes at least an hour per transaction.
    - figgis 9y ago
      Most of my recent bitcoin transactions were all confirmed multiple times within 15 minutes?
slg 9y ago
>Bitcoin's value is given by the trust people put in it. Just like with the fiat currencies as a matter of fact Except fiat currencies also have that fiat behind them that gives them value. If you want to do business with the US government, you do it in USD. If you are one of the millions employed by the US government, you are paid in USD. If you manipulate USD, you have to answer to the US government. Those things add tremendous value and they are something that Bitcoin does not have. With Bitcoin you only have trust in value of Bitcoin. Fiat currency is given added value by having trust in the power, reach, and stability of the nation that issued it.
- tudorconstantin 9y ago
  It might not be just the trust in value. BTC started at less than 1$ in value. The trust built over the last almost 9 years. It might be trust that you can't double spend BTCs, trust in the issuing algorithm, trust that you can only lose your bitcoins if you do something stupid with your wallet, etc. Of course, we can't compare right now bitcoin's ecosystem with the ecosystem of the fiat currency, but who knows what will happen in the future if more and more people and businesses choose to adopt it.
  - baddox 9y ago
    I think that’s what is meant by “trust in value.” The “real” value of Bitcoin is as a trustworthy ledger.
- mcv 9y ago
  > With Bitcoin you only have trust in value of Bitcoin. More specifically, you have trust in the continued trust that others have in it. It's a self-fulfilling prophesy: as long as people continue to trust it, it continues to be valuable, but as soon as people start to doubt that others will continue to trust it, it's instantly worthless. There's no real value backing it up. This makes it very vulnerable to hype and hysteria.
  - cloudhead 9y ago
    What currency doesn't operate this way?
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
john_alan 9y ago
Monero is not a bitcoin fork. This place is worse than Reddit. It’s a completely different codebase based on Cryptonote.
lr4444lr 9y ago
And let's not understate the value of the dollar that goes beyond economic fluctuations and military might: it's legal tender for paying your taxes if you're a US citizen. That's not to say I suggest investing in treasuries, but strictly as a comparison with Bitcoin.
- mywittyname 9y ago
  Yup, if you work or do business in the US, then you need USD. No trust necessary.
branchless 9y ago
No this isn't correct. The government imbues value in their fiat currency by insisting you pay your taxes in it. You may think bitcoin is the best thing ever for many reasons. But if you live in the USA you gotta get USD to pay your taxes or they are going to put you in jail. We see this globally with the huge effort the USA puts into keeping oil priced / settled in USD. It matters. USD has a store of value because if I hold USD I know the US govt is going to make people hand over a portion of their labour in taxes which keeps USD demand up.

LyndsySimon 9y ago

> Litecoin, zCash, Monero and most of the others are bitcoin forks. Nope. All of these are derivatives of Bitcoin, but none of them are forks. A fork, by definition, shares a genesis block with the parent currency. This is in contrast to a "client fork", where the Bitcoin codebase was modified to create a new blockchain with or without changes in protocol. Most forks of Bitcoin have been intentional, and the "lesser" chain has died on purpose. Off the top of my head, existing forks are: BitcoinXT: created in late 2014, it allowed 8MB blocks instead of the 1MB limit for Bitcoin. As of mid-2016, it died due to lack of miner support. Bitcoin Classic: created in early 2016, it allowed 2MB blocks. It was effectively dead as of early 2017. Bitcoin Cash (a/k/a BCash, BCH): created in August 2017. It eschewed SegWit, and increased block size to 8MB. It's not dead yet and seems to have a base level of support both in terms of miners and in terms of price. I expect that it will die eventually... but who knows. It is by far the best-supported Bitcoin fork, and there are many who believe that it's the "real Bitcoin" in the sense that it conforms more closely to the original whitepaper. There are a couple of other forks planned in the near future as well.

eigenvalue 9y ago
I believe the parent poster meant fork in the sense of forking the codebase, not a currency fork. And in the case of Litecoin at least, that is true.
- icahnvalyou 9y ago
  YOU. Fucking hell. You took my go-to username.
  - sctb 9y ago
    Wow, please don't post like this ever again. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
    - icahnvalyou 9y ago
      I'm a little confused about which guideline I broke. Is it the all caps "you"? edit: is this account a bot that I triggered?
- john_alan 9y ago
  Monero is a novel codebase. Not a fork of Bitcoin

onion2k 9y ago

Bitcoin's value is given by the trust people put in it. Currency speculators don't give a damn about trust. They're not in it for the long term value that derives from the usefulness of Bitcoin, and that's the only thing you need trust for. They'll cash out when the price gets to a point where they're happy with their return. At that point either new speculators will get on board and keep the price high or the price will fall back to real value of Bitcoin. Neither really changes the usefulness of Bitcoin or it's long term value as a currency.

dumbfounder 9y ago
They increase the volatility which decreases its value as a currency. If prices are volatile it makes it hard to price items tied to Bitcoin.
- IncRnd 9y ago
  Even if Bitcoin's price were stable, it would still be difficult to tie items to Bitcoin when it takes at least an hour per transaction.
  - figgis 9y ago
    Most of my recent bitcoin transactions were all confirmed multiple times within 15 minutes?

slg 9y ago

>Bitcoin's value is given by the trust people put in it. Just like with the fiat currencies as a matter of fact Except fiat currencies also have that fiat behind them that gives them value. If you want to do business with the US government, you do it in USD. If you are one of the millions employed by the US government, you are paid in USD. If you manipulate USD, you have to answer to the US government. Those things add tremendous value and they are something that Bitcoin does not have. With Bitcoin you only have trust in value of Bitcoin. Fiat currency is given added value by having trust in the power, reach, and stability of the nation that issued it.

tudorconstantin 9y ago
It might not be just the trust in value. BTC started at less than 1$ in value. The trust built over the last almost 9 years. It might be trust that you can't double spend BTCs, trust in the issuing algorithm, trust that you can only lose your bitcoins if you do something stupid with your wallet, etc. Of course, we can't compare right now bitcoin's ecosystem with the ecosystem of the fiat currency, but who knows what will happen in the future if more and more people and businesses choose to adopt it.
- baddox 9y ago
  I think that’s what is meant by “trust in value.” The “real” value of Bitcoin is as a trustworthy ledger.
mcv 9y ago
> With Bitcoin you only have trust in value of Bitcoin. More specifically, you have trust in the continued trust that others have in it. It's a self-fulfilling prophesy: as long as people continue to trust it, it continues to be valuable, but as soon as people start to doubt that others will continue to trust it, it's instantly worthless. There's no real value backing it up. This makes it very vulnerable to hype and hysteria.
- cloudhead 9y ago
  What currency doesn't operate this way?

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

john_alan 9y ago

Monero is not a bitcoin fork. This place is worse than Reddit. It’s a completely different codebase based on Cryptonote.

lr4444lr 9y ago

And let's not understate the value of the dollar that goes beyond economic fluctuations and military might: it's legal tender for paying your taxes if you're a US citizen. That's not to say I suggest investing in treasuries, but strictly as a comparison with Bitcoin.

mywittyname 9y ago
Yup, if you work or do business in the US, then you need USD. No trust necessary.

branchless 9y ago

No this isn't correct. The government imbues value in their fiat currency by insisting you pay your taxes in it. You may think bitcoin is the best thing ever for many reasons. But if you live in the USA you gotta get USD to pay your taxes or they are going to put you in jail. We see this globally with the huge effort the USA puts into keeping oil priced / settled in USD. It matters. USD has a store of value because if I hold USD I know the US govt is going to make people hand over a portion of their labour in taxes which keeps USD demand up.