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> In that sense, it's sort of like gold. Unlike gold, Bitcoin doesn't have millennia of heritage grandfathering in an informal consensus [1]. Yep. Exactly. Bit

> In that sense, it's sort of like gold. Unlike gold, Bitcoin doesn't have millennia of heritage grandfathering in an informal consensus [1]. Yep. Exactly. Bitcoin doesn't have the history of other currencies and assets, by the simple fact that it has only existed for about ten years. Something that can't be changed because we don't have time machines to go back thousands of years and tell everyone how to build computers and create cryptocurrencies. So instead of people saying that Bitcoin is inherently worthless all the time, maybe we can just agree that it's going to take a lot longer than ten years and a lot of swings both up and down in the price before we start creating enough of a "heritage" to come to an informal consensus on how much they are worth. A lot of people come across as "This is something new and I don't want to spend any effort trying to understand it. Worthless! Everyone putting money into it are nothing but tulip heads!" and it'd be more annoying if my paying attention to it and taking small risks with it didn't just help me turn a small amount of USD into a downpayment on a house in 12 months, something I most likely wouldn't have been able to do putting that money literally anywhere else.

JumpCrisscross 9y ago
> So instead of people saying that Bitcoin is inherently worthless all the time, maybe we can just agree that it's going to take a lot longer than ten years and a lot of swings both up and down in the price before we start creating enough of a "heritage" to come to an informal consensus on how much they are worth The history of non-fiat money (like gold) is that of candidates being knocked off, practically never added to, the list. Over time, new financial technologies (e.g. better refining, bimetallism, paper money, central banks, deposit insurance, et cetera) were demonstrated to be superior to gold (and its subsequents) in the context of a growing modern economy. People debated--extensively--each shift. Rational arguments were put forward, tested (and rejected), refined and, when fruitful, propagated. Each of gold --> bimetallism, commodity money --> redeemable paper money, redeemable money --> "backed" money and backed money --> fiat had a rational argument (and demonstration) for their transition. Those arguments are one way; they don't work going backwards. Gold remains as a legacy, a memory of where we came from. It's here, and has been replaced. (Analogous to old programming languages which remain in light use because of legacy code. You wouldn't clone their obsolete elements, justifying said clone with the legacy language's use.) There is no argument for "neue gold" because the same arguments that worked, cumulatively, over the centuries as society progressed, against gold work against the new thing. The comparison to gold is one of false equivalence; hence the fallback to "whatever we feel it's worth."
- ThomPete 9y ago
  There is only one bitcoin and that bitcoin has a unique history that no other can have. It doesent need to be neue gold it just need to be bitcoin.

JumpCrisscross 9y ago

> So instead of people saying that Bitcoin is inherently worthless all the time, maybe we can just agree that it's going to take a lot longer than ten years and a lot of swings both up and down in the price before we start creating enough of a "heritage" to come to an informal consensus on how much they are worth The history of non-fiat money (like gold) is that of candidates being knocked off, practically never added to, the list. Over time, new financial technologies (e.g. better refining, bimetallism, paper money, central banks, deposit insurance, et cetera) were demonstrated to be superior to gold (and its subsequents) in the context of a growing modern economy. People debated--extensively--each shift. Rational arguments were put forward, tested (and rejected), refined and, when fruitful, propagated. Each of gold --> bimetallism, commodity money --> redeemable paper money, redeemable money --> "backed" money and backed money --> fiat had a rational argument (and demonstration) for their transition. Those arguments are one way; they don't work going backwards. Gold remains as a legacy, a memory of where we came from. It's here, and has been replaced. (Analogous to old programming languages which remain in light use because of legacy code. You wouldn't clone their obsolete elements, justifying said clone with the legacy language's use.) There is no argument for "neue gold" because the same arguments that worked, cumulatively, over the centuries as society progressed, against gold work against the new thing. The comparison to gold is one of false equivalence; hence the fallback to "whatever we feel it's worth."

ThomPete 9y ago
There is only one bitcoin and that bitcoin has a unique history that no other can have. It doesent need to be neue gold it just need to be bitcoin.