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Any currency that a: 1. strong entity circulates and 2. wants back is fundamentally valuable. > American dollars have value because the US Government taxes
by simonsarris 9y ago
Any currency that a:
1. strong entity circulates and
2. wants back
is fundamentally valuable.
> American dollars have value because the US Government taxes things, like land, and if you do not pay those taxes they will send you mean letters (trust me) before resorting to other means (trust Al Capone). You pay these taxes in US dollars. You just having dollars does not make them valuable. And dollars are not valuable because they are backed by gold or silver or sea shells. What makes dollars valuable is that the government wants them back.
https://hackernoon.com/the-guns-of-bitcoin-1f779309a718 https://hackernoon.com/the-guns-of-bitcoin-1f779309a718
Ways to destroy the US dollar value: Destroy the US tax collecting power, or have the US ask for taxes in a different currency. If the US started collecting taxes in Euros, the value of the US dollar would disappear instantly.
The US is a strong entity and has no incentive to ruin the value of the dollar. It will not start collecting taxes in Euros. Or Bitcoin. Why would it give all that power away? More likely is that Bitcoin gets made illegal or very difficult to use. At the end of the day, if you have US-protected assets, you will have to pay US dollars to the US gov and this will continue to give USD value.
Bitcoin has no such strong-entity backing, so it has no fundamental value. Bitcoin people are obsessed with the idea that mere possession is important. It's not. Ask people with loads of marks or Zimbabwe dollars.
- chii 9y agoBitcoins' value is the inherent mathematical properties that makes it hard to forge. things that are hard to forge can be used as tokens for other, easier to forge (but valuable) objects. hard to forge tokens can be used to denote things that are otherwise used to denote (such as ownership, and chain of custody). being electronic, this makes Bitcoin quite useful.
- wheelie_boy 9y agoYeah, being hard to forge is necessary, but not sufficient. There are a ton of electronic currencies that are difficult to forge, for example Flooz, Beenz, and the gems in clash of clans.