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> And I could make thousands of kinds of physical coins next month No, you couldn't, not without literally tons of raw material, heavy machinery and infrastruc

> And I could make thousands of kinds of physical coins next month No, you couldn't, not without literally tons of raw material, heavy machinery and infrastructure to mint the coins, laborers to run the operation, time to process the raw materials, and a practical mechanism to circulate the coins. These are serious barriers to the creation of physical money, unlike cryptocurrency which can be instantly and effortlessly minted in unlimited quantities by a single individual and easily distributed over the internet. There is no comparison. > A toyota isn't worth less because I can make a new car company next week This analogy makes no sense. A Toyota is valuable because it has an inherent utility in its ability to provide its owner with an effective method of transportation, crypo-tokens (as opposed to the network itself) have no inherent utility because they are not actually a thing and do not exist independently of the ledger that qualifies their distribution. Certainly, if any single individual could generate an unlimited supply of "effective transportation" instantly at near zero cost, the value of toyota's would very quickly decline. > Facebook isn't worth less because I could make a clone of it tomorrow First of all, no you couldn't. You could create a much crappier version of Facebook with an unmaintainable code-base that doesn't scale and supports a minuscule fraction of Facebook's feature set, and even that would cost you time, money, and effort. Even if you could just git clone Facebook's code, you still wouldn't be able to get it running and keep it running without a team of senior dev, ops, and network engineers, plus an annual server bill in the hundreds of thousands at the absolute minimum. > A company stock shouldn't be consitered "worthless" just because I can create a new company tomorrow... The point is that you can't just "create a new company" tomorrow that is in any way comparable to a successful business, otherwise everyone would do it... not to say that some don't try, but the ash heap of history is littered with the remains of companies that thought they could replicate a successful company's business model only to find out that its actually not that simple.

Klathmon 9y ago
>The point is that you can't just "create a new company" tomorrow that is in any way comparable to a successful business That's my point exactly! Just because you can replicate the "class" of thing, doesn't mean you can replicate the thing... Just like how a company stock isn't just a piece of paper that anyone can photocopy, a cryptocurrency isn't just the code that runs it. It's the users, the track record of security, the amount of vendors and exchanges that use it, the amount of centralization/decentralization to it's development team, the amount and maturity of implementations of the software, and any number of other intangible things. Simply making a new cryptocurrency is exactly the same as making a new company, or a new facebook, or a new toyota, or a new anything. It doesn't make you a direct competitor any more than my "klathmonbook.com" is a direct competitor to facebook just because I replicated some (or even all) of the functionality. >the ash heap of history is littered with the remains of companies that thought they could replicate a successful company's business model only to find out that its actually not that simple. So is the pile of scamcoins and poorly thought out implementations that have already collapsed within months of their creation. Give the space some more time, and I bet you'll see a lot more of them fail, because just like how creating a company isn't just clicking a button, creating a successful cryptocurrency isn't a simple thing either. But I still don't think that it means that all cryptocurrencies are worthless because anyone can enter the space.
- root_axis 9y ago
  > Simply making a new cryptocurrency is exactly the same as making a new company, or a new facebook, or a new toyota, or a new anything. No, it isn't at all similar, because business are specialized entities with specific properties that cannot be easily replicated, unlike a crypto-token ledger which can be instantly and effortlessly replicated with identical qualities and capabilities at near zero cost. > So is the pile of scamcoins and poorly thought out implementations that have already collapsed within months of their creation The critical distinction that you're not seeing is the fact that it costs nothing to create a scamcoin unlike a business which can cost the creator everything if it fails. You're also ignoring the fact that a business has to effectively serve the market for it to even be comparable to a competitor, you can't just incorporate a business, buy a bunch of ads and start pulling in money, you need to actually do something that generates wealth, unlike crypto-token ledgers which require nothing except for people to run the code.
  - Klathmon 9y ago
    Why do you think it "costs nothing" to create a successful crypto-token? I can create a business with a hundred dollars and a trip to the local government building, but that doesn't mean i'll be successful, or that i'm a competitor to facebook. Just like how anyone can fork a cryptocurrency, that doesn't make them successful or a competitor to bitcoin. And I disagree about how creating a business can cost the creator everything, isn't limiting liability one of the biggest reasons to start a company? So that you don't lose everything if it doesn't work. But I think you need to really look at what it takes to build a cryptocurrency, let alone a successful one. You seem to be ignoring my point that a currency isn't just the code, but the network, the users, the trust, the amount of hardware and software written for it, the number of implementations, the amount of acceptance at vendors, the number of reputable exchanges, and the amount of decentralization. Replicating all of that isn't going to be any easier than getting everyone to switch from facebook to "klathmonbook" would be. The fact that there are hundreds of cryptocurrencies created all the damn time that aren't overtaking bitcoin proves my point. If you replace the word "business" with "cryptocurrency" in your last paragraph, it still holds true. A good cryptocurrency needs to provide a benefit, and in bitcoin's case (at least to me) that benefit is decentralization, "push based" payments, the ability to be your own bank, a network of users and vendors that trust and use it, and not needing to trust anyone to transact with them using it.

Klathmon 9y ago

>The point is that you can't just "create a new company" tomorrow that is in any way comparable to a successful business That's my point exactly! Just because you can replicate the "class" of thing, doesn't mean you can replicate the thing... Just like how a company stock isn't just a piece of paper that anyone can photocopy, a cryptocurrency isn't just the code that runs it. It's the users, the track record of security, the amount of vendors and exchanges that use it, the amount of centralization/decentralization to it's development team, the amount and maturity of implementations of the software, and any number of other intangible things. Simply making a new cryptocurrency is exactly the same as making a new company, or a new facebook, or a new toyota, or a new anything. It doesn't make you a direct competitor any more than my "klathmonbook.com" is a direct competitor to facebook just because I replicated some (or even all) of the functionality. >the ash heap of history is littered with the remains of companies that thought they could replicate a successful company's business model only to find out that its actually not that simple. So is the pile of scamcoins and poorly thought out implementations that have already collapsed within months of their creation. Give the space some more time, and I bet you'll see a lot more of them fail, because just like how creating a company isn't just clicking a button, creating a successful cryptocurrency isn't a simple thing either. But I still don't think that it means that all cryptocurrencies are worthless because anyone can enter the space.

root_axis 9y ago
> Simply making a new cryptocurrency is exactly the same as making a new company, or a new facebook, or a new toyota, or a new anything. No, it isn't at all similar, because business are specialized entities with specific properties that cannot be easily replicated, unlike a crypto-token ledger which can be instantly and effortlessly replicated with identical qualities and capabilities at near zero cost. > So is the pile of scamcoins and poorly thought out implementations that have already collapsed within months of their creation The critical distinction that you're not seeing is the fact that it costs nothing to create a scamcoin unlike a business which can cost the creator everything if it fails. You're also ignoring the fact that a business has to effectively serve the market for it to even be comparable to a competitor, you can't just incorporate a business, buy a bunch of ads and start pulling in money, you need to actually do something that generates wealth, unlike crypto-token ledgers which require nothing except for people to run the code.
- Klathmon 9y ago
  Why do you think it "costs nothing" to create a successful crypto-token? I can create a business with a hundred dollars and a trip to the local government building, but that doesn't mean i'll be successful, or that i'm a competitor to facebook. Just like how anyone can fork a cryptocurrency, that doesn't make them successful or a competitor to bitcoin. And I disagree about how creating a business can cost the creator everything, isn't limiting liability one of the biggest reasons to start a company? So that you don't lose everything if it doesn't work. But I think you need to really look at what it takes to build a cryptocurrency, let alone a successful one. You seem to be ignoring my point that a currency isn't just the code, but the network, the users, the trust, the amount of hardware and software written for it, the number of implementations, the amount of acceptance at vendors, the number of reputable exchanges, and the amount of decentralization. Replicating all of that isn't going to be any easier than getting everyone to switch from facebook to "klathmonbook" would be. The fact that there are hundreds of cryptocurrencies created all the damn time that aren't overtaking bitcoin proves my point. If you replace the word "business" with "cryptocurrency" in your last paragraph, it still holds true. A good cryptocurrency needs to provide a benefit, and in bitcoin's case (at least to me) that benefit is decentralization, "push based" payments, the ability to be your own bank, a network of users and vendors that trust and use it, and not needing to trust anyone to transact with them using it.