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I'm going to take the time to respond to you because you were the first reply to my comment. Beanie Babies are collectibles, cryptocurrencies are money. Both h

I'm going to take the time to respond to you because you were the first reply to my comment. Beanie Babies are collectibles, cryptocurrencies are money. Both have had bubbles but only one of them is tied to a brand name and there have been plenty of great new collectibles that have taken its place since. Cryptocurrencies on the other hand are a new solution to a new problem (digital native representation of value) and even if the current offer isn't perfect their development hasn't stoped or even slowed down in any considerable way and there's no reason to believe we won't continue to grow and make better products and solutions. Money isn't going away anytime soon.

lkrubner 8y ago
"Beanie Babies are collectibles, cryptocurrencies are money." It's been established over and over again that cryptocurrencies are not money. They are a collectible like Beanie Babies. Cryptocurrencies vary too much in value to be used as money. Would you go into a Starbucks and spend $4 USD dollars to buy a coffee, if there was a chance that the $4 might gain 10,000% in value over the next year? Of course not. There have been dozens of good articles over the last two years comparing money to cryptocurrencies and detailing all of the differences. If you still don't understand the differences, at the end of 2018, then you are keeping yourself willfully misinformed, and I suspect no comment on Hacker News will be able to change your mind.
- decentralised 8y ago
  >t's been established over and over again that cryptocurrencies are not money. Sorry but that's not true. You may be confusing "money" with "currency" though. There's at least one US state that allows paying taxes in cryptocurrencies and there are a few countries here in Europe where cryptos are legal tender.
  - robin_reala 8y ago
    [citation needed]
    - decentralised 8y ago
      https://medium.com/ab-chain/market-news-germany-officially-recognized-bitcoin-as-a-legal-tender-5f1a45189a92 https://medium.com/ab-chain/market-news-germany-officially-r... https://cointelegraph.com/news/ohio-appears-to-be-first-us-state-to-accept-bitcoin-for-taxes-wsj-report https://cointelegraph.com/news/ohio-appears-to-be-first-us-s... https://cointelegraph.com/news/us-georgia-next-state-in-line-to-accept-crypto-for-taxes-licenses https://cointelegraph.com/news/us-georgia-next-state-in-line... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legality_of_bitcoin_by_country_or_territory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legality_of_bitcoin_by_country... Some reading required. ;-)
      - robin_reala 8y ago
        Thanks!
      - cromulent 8y ago
        Do you have any references to support the claim that bitcoin is legal tender? Legal tender must be accepted to extinguish a debt, by any party. Just because bitcoin is not illegal doesn't make it legal tender. It may be used if all parties agree. I understand the first link you gave says that Germany accepts Bitcoin as legal tender, but that is from a misunderstanding of what legal tender is. German vendors are within their rights to refuse it and insist upon real legal tender.
        tialaramex 8y ago
        You're just going to run into loads of people who don't understand what "legal tender" is and, when you explain it, will insist that you must be wrong because they've heard that phrase and attached a different meaning (generally: a vaguely positive aura plus "it's money") For those reading along, a useful baseline to get you straight on legal tender is in countries where fiat currencies are just broadly assumed to be valuable any legal tender laws are basically just ornamentation. Scotland, for example, doesn't have any bank notes as legal tender, just some old coins. Nobody in Scotland doubts that the notes they have are valuable, but its laws don't bother explicitly privileging this as "legal tender". Nevertheless if you get on a bus in Edinburgh with a goose and some shiny rocks and try to barter, well, you'll be lucky if the other passengers let you back off in one piece, let alone to get an actual ride. "Exact cash fare only".
throwawaymath 8y ago
> Cryptocurrencies on the other hand are a new solution to a new problem (digital native representation of value) I'll bite. "Digital native representation of value" isn't a problem, it's a solution. Cryptocurrencies are a medium of facilitating that solution. No one would think to themselves, "I have a problem: I need a digital-first store of value or currency, now how can I do this?" Instead they might think to themselves, "I have a problem: I need to do <thing>; this can probably be accomplished if I use a digital-first store of value." I don't see why you would care about how your money or asset is being represented unless you have another problem that forces you think about it. With that out of the way, this leads me to my actual point - what is an actual problem you see being solved by a "digital native representation of value"? For example, a common one I see a lot is distrust of governments due to control or censorship.
- decentralised 8y ago
  >'ll bite. "Digital native representation of value" isn't a problem, it's a solution. Cryptocurrencies are a medium of facilitating that solution. No one would think to themselves, "I have a problem: I need a digital-first store of value or currency, now how can I do this?" How about HTTP 402? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_HTTP_status_codes#4xx_Server_Error https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_HTTP_status_codes#4xx_...
  - shkkmo 8y ago
    How is a status code that almost nobody uses a problem. Randomly posting a quote and a link is not discussion, nor is it an argument.
    - decentralised 8y ago
      Well no one actually uses that status code... because there was no solution to guarantee that a digital payment is ever truly "done" until Bitcoin was invented. I posted a link that people who are familiar with the development of the internet and HTTP will remember that there was a big problem back then.. we didn't have a digital native representation of value and all digital data structures can easily be copied so the fear of double-spends is what caused Digicash, Bitgold and a few other earlier digital currencies fail.
betterunix2 8y ago
"Cryptocurrencies on the other hand are a new solution to a new problem" The solution may be new but the problem is not at all new. The first solution to that problem was proposed in the 1980s and there is a large body of academic work on cryptographic approaches that preceded Bitcoin.

lkrubner 8y ago

"Beanie Babies are collectibles, cryptocurrencies are money." It's been established over and over again that cryptocurrencies are not money. They are a collectible like Beanie Babies. Cryptocurrencies vary too much in value to be used as money. Would you go into a Starbucks and spend $4 USD dollars to buy a coffee, if there was a chance that the $4 might gain 10,000% in value over the next year? Of course not. There have been dozens of good articles over the last two years comparing money to cryptocurrencies and detailing all of the differences. If you still don't understand the differences, at the end of 2018, then you are keeping yourself willfully misinformed, and I suspect no comment on Hacker News will be able to change your mind.

decentralised 8y ago
>t's been established over and over again that cryptocurrencies are not money. Sorry but that's not true. You may be confusing "money" with "currency" though. There's at least one US state that allows paying taxes in cryptocurrencies and there are a few countries here in Europe where cryptos are legal tender.
- robin_reala 8y ago
  [citation needed]
  - decentralised 8y ago
    https://medium.com/ab-chain/market-news-germany-officially-recognized-bitcoin-as-a-legal-tender-5f1a45189a92 https://medium.com/ab-chain/market-news-germany-officially-r... https://cointelegraph.com/news/ohio-appears-to-be-first-us-state-to-accept-bitcoin-for-taxes-wsj-report https://cointelegraph.com/news/ohio-appears-to-be-first-us-s... https://cointelegraph.com/news/us-georgia-next-state-in-line-to-accept-crypto-for-taxes-licenses https://cointelegraph.com/news/us-georgia-next-state-in-line... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legality_of_bitcoin_by_country_or_territory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legality_of_bitcoin_by_country... Some reading required. ;-)
    - robin_reala 8y ago
      Thanks!
    - cromulent 8y ago
      Do you have any references to support the claim that bitcoin is legal tender? Legal tender must be accepted to extinguish a debt, by any party. Just because bitcoin is not illegal doesn't make it legal tender. It may be used if all parties agree. I understand the first link you gave says that Germany accepts Bitcoin as legal tender, but that is from a misunderstanding of what legal tender is. German vendors are within their rights to refuse it and insist upon real legal tender.
      - tialaramex 8y ago
        You're just going to run into loads of people who don't understand what "legal tender" is and, when you explain it, will insist that you must be wrong because they've heard that phrase and attached a different meaning (generally: a vaguely positive aura plus "it's money") For those reading along, a useful baseline to get you straight on legal tender is in countries where fiat currencies are just broadly assumed to be valuable any legal tender laws are basically just ornamentation. Scotland, for example, doesn't have any bank notes as legal tender, just some old coins. Nobody in Scotland doubts that the notes they have are valuable, but its laws don't bother explicitly privileging this as "legal tender". Nevertheless if you get on a bus in Edinburgh with a goose and some shiny rocks and try to barter, well, you'll be lucky if the other passengers let you back off in one piece, let alone to get an actual ride. "Exact cash fare only".

throwawaymath 8y ago

> Cryptocurrencies on the other hand are a new solution to a new problem (digital native representation of value) I'll bite. "Digital native representation of value" isn't a problem, it's a solution. Cryptocurrencies are a medium of facilitating that solution. No one would think to themselves, "I have a problem: I need a digital-first store of value or currency, now how can I do this?" Instead they might think to themselves, "I have a problem: I need to do <thing>; this can probably be accomplished if I use a digital-first store of value." I don't see why you would care about how your money or asset is being represented unless you have another problem that forces you think about it. With that out of the way, this leads me to my actual point - what is an actual problem you see being solved by a "digital native representation of value"? For example, a common one I see a lot is distrust of governments due to control or censorship.

decentralised 8y ago
>'ll bite. "Digital native representation of value" isn't a problem, it's a solution. Cryptocurrencies are a medium of facilitating that solution. No one would think to themselves, "I have a problem: I need a digital-first store of value or currency, now how can I do this?" How about HTTP 402? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_HTTP_status_codes#4xx_Server_Error https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_HTTP_status_codes#4xx_...
- shkkmo 8y ago
  How is a status code that almost nobody uses a problem. Randomly posting a quote and a link is not discussion, nor is it an argument.
  - decentralised 8y ago
    Well no one actually uses that status code... because there was no solution to guarantee that a digital payment is ever truly "done" until Bitcoin was invented. I posted a link that people who are familiar with the development of the internet and HTTP will remember that there was a big problem back then.. we didn't have a digital native representation of value and all digital data structures can easily be copied so the fear of double-spends is what caused Digicash, Bitgold and a few other earlier digital currencies fail.

betterunix2 8y ago

"Cryptocurrencies on the other hand are a new solution to a new problem" The solution may be new but the problem is not at all new. The first solution to that problem was proposed in the 1980s and there is a large body of academic work on cryptographic approaches that preceded Bitcoin.