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You say 21M "cryptocoins" but you couldn't, however, create 21M BTC arbitrarily. As long as that number stays the same (it isn't completely immutable) then BTC
by ErikAugust 9y ago
You say 21M "cryptocoins" but you couldn't, however, create 21M BTC arbitrarily.
As long as that number stays the same (it isn't completely immutable) then BTC has real scarcity - making it a store of value, like gold. Throw in some additional properties that BTC has that gold does not, and an argument can be made that BTC is at least a decent value store.
Even at $100,000/BTC, Bitcoin would still have a ~1/5th of the market cap of all gold mined.
And in a truly universal sense - gold is made by stars. There are 100 billion stars. There's only one Satoshi in the known universe ;)
- empath75 9y agoBut there have been multiple bitcoin forks— bitcoin cash essentially doubled the amount of bitcoins in circulation.
- ErikAugust 9y agoBitcoin Cash is BCH. Bitcoin is BTC. There will only be 21M BTC. As far as I know, there will also be 21M BCH. But BCH != BTC.
- mrhappyunhappy 9y agoOnly if people use it.
- keymone 9y agoGood luck buying some BCH and spending them as BTC.
- bb88 9y agoWhat exactly is a BTC? BTC is man made, and depends upon computers and software. And the people who control the software can change their minds, if they so choose. So what a BTC is now, may not be what it is later, including its scarcity. See also the ETH and BTC forks. Gold on the other hand exists naturally in nature, and doesn't change based upon someone else's whim. So no, BTC is not like gold.
- keymone 9y agoBTC is what the distributed consensus says BTC is. You can’t fake that without pouring billions into building up mining infrastructure to organize a 51% attack and even then the distributed consensus will simply fork around your amazing achievement of successfully doing a single double spend? So yeah, BTC is definitely not like gold, it’s way better.
- pellucide 9y agohow exactly does this happen. This has to involve protocol change or is there something in bitcoin protocol that forks around a chain when a double spend is detected. And how exactly is a double spend detected ?
- keymone 9y agoDiuble spend is detected when a longer chain is published to contest the currently accepted chain with orphan depth of more than 5-6. This is huge deal and will decimate butcoin valuation for sure, but just as with acceptance of segwit and hardforks around protocol bugs in the past - there can be agreement made to deploy a version of bitcoin software to hardcode which chain is valid. Not saying this is easy but when the project is attacked like that, there will be some action.
- coolspot 9y agoBy "distributed consensus" you mean couple chinese guys who own all bitcoin mining?
- keymone 9y agoBitcoin mining is fairly diversified, with new players about to enter hardware business.
- orcasauce 9y agoHow is BTC better than gold? What can I do with a bitcoin? It's just data. It's still a fiat currency. Gold is specifically not a fiat currency because it has real world applications. I will agree cryptocurrencies are better than other forms of fiat currency in that there is a definitive quantity, similar to a non-fiat currency, but it's intrinsic value is in the trust others will accept it in exchange for something that has real value. Suppose a solar flare destroyed all existing digital equipment. What would a physical printout of a wallet be worth?