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There are a lot of scams and swindles of the last few decades. Student loans and medical billing are outright scams in the United States. Purchasing a used ca

There are a lot of scams and swindles of the last few decades. Student loans and medical billing are outright scams in the United States. Purchasing a used car and many types of home financing are quite scammy as well. Bitcoin is an asset with a wildly fluctuating price as people attempt to find a viable use case for it. It benefits from a strong network effect, not from its particular strength in storing or transfering wealth.

jbob2000 8y ago
You can do stuff with a university degree, people recognize it. And you can do stuff with a car and money from a home finance. These might have predatory aspects to how you acquire them, but they aren't scams and nobody is being swindled. You distinctly cannot do anything with bitcoin. There are a few dinky companies that will accept bitcoin as payment for unimportant knick-knacks and electronics, but that's about it. It will just sit, taking up space on a hard disk, until society decides to fully take it up as a currency (which won't happen in its current state). An asset that has no use is not an asset, it's a liability.
- anoncoward111 8y ago
  A used car has no value when the engine blows up the next day. A university degree has questionable utility when you spend $30,000 a year to make $30,000 a year, doing a job that previously didn't require a degree (sales). I sent Bitcoin to someone in Uzbekistan. Foreign currency and even gold importe are banned there.
  - jbob2000 8y ago
    > A used car has no value when the engine blows up the next day. Sure it does, you can sell it for scrap or repair/replace the engine. > A university degree has questionable utility when you spend $30,000 a year to make $30,000 a year, doing a job that previously didn't require a degree (sales) This isn't the case for everyone. Many people find utility in their degrees. Just because a few people don't doesn't mean there is no utility to be had. > I sent Bitcoin to someone in Uzbekistan. Foreign currency and even gold importe are banned there. So is bitcoin an asset or a method for transferring money? The person you sent those bitcoins to didn't keep them as bitcoins, they converted them to a local currency. If it's just a method for transferring money, then there are better ways (some don't see them as "better", though, because there are restrictions on them that prevent criminals from transferring their ill-gotten gains).
    - anoncoward111 8y ago
      Spare me. If you've paid $3,000 for the car and sell it for $150 in scrap the next day, that's not a win win transaction.

jbob2000 8y ago

You can do stuff with a university degree, people recognize it. And you can do stuff with a car and money from a home finance. These might have predatory aspects to how you acquire them, but they aren't scams and nobody is being swindled. You distinctly cannot do anything with bitcoin. There are a few dinky companies that will accept bitcoin as payment for unimportant knick-knacks and electronics, but that's about it. It will just sit, taking up space on a hard disk, until society decides to fully take it up as a currency (which won't happen in its current state). An asset that has no use is not an asset, it's a liability.

anoncoward111 8y ago
A used car has no value when the engine blows up the next day. A university degree has questionable utility when you spend $30,000 a year to make $30,000 a year, doing a job that previously didn't require a degree (sales). I sent Bitcoin to someone in Uzbekistan. Foreign currency and even gold importe are banned there.
- jbob2000 8y ago
  > A used car has no value when the engine blows up the next day. Sure it does, you can sell it for scrap or repair/replace the engine. > A university degree has questionable utility when you spend $30,000 a year to make $30,000 a year, doing a job that previously didn't require a degree (sales) This isn't the case for everyone. Many people find utility in their degrees. Just because a few people don't doesn't mean there is no utility to be had. > I sent Bitcoin to someone in Uzbekistan. Foreign currency and even gold importe are banned there. So is bitcoin an asset or a method for transferring money? The person you sent those bitcoins to didn't keep them as bitcoins, they converted them to a local currency. If it's just a method for transferring money, then there are better ways (some don't see them as "better", though, because there are restrictions on them that prevent criminals from transferring their ill-gotten gains).
  - anoncoward111 8y ago
    Spare me. If you've paid $3,000 for the car and sell it for $150 in scrap the next day, that's not a win win transaction.