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my response is admittedly whataboutism, but it's worth comparing to say, the dollar. The cheeky answer to "what backs the dollar?" is "guns, missiles, and airc
by jraines 7y ago
my response is admittedly whataboutism, but it's worth comparing to say, the dollar. The cheeky answer to "what backs the dollar?" is "guns, missiles, and aircraft carriers" but in reality it's "growth". The cost of the extant financial system isn't, say, the sum of bank branch construction & bank employees' gas commuting to work, etc -- it's the sum of all economic activity driving growth, which as of now is still inextricable from dirty resource extraction, conversion, and movement.
Which isn't to say it's OK to throw bitcoin mining on top of that, or that bitcoin can fix it. Just that we're on an unsustainable trajectory with or without it, barring an energy revolution or a very painful collapse -- at which point I suppose we can just plug the miners into the local fusion plant (or trade in ammunition and the chit of the local warlord).
- fargo 7y agowhat backs bitcoin though?
- throwayEngineer 7y agoWorldwide trust.
- fargo 7y agoTrust in what? Every currency is backed by worldwide trust in what the currency is backed from.
- benj111 7y agoTrust in bitcoin. Theres nothing to back it, if we go all Mad Max you'd have a hard drive with some 1s and 0s. I suppose if we went Mad Max there wouldn't be anything backing the other currencies either. You might be able to pay the barter town entry fees with hard currency, it being a convenient token and all.
- jraines 7y agoTrust that it's accurate and immutable. Which is backed in turn by economic incentives for miners (more accurately -- economic disincentives to trying to cheat). The former is denominated in bitcoin, and so represents the paradox of bootstrapping this system, but here we are (and this is why early adopters are rich now -- it was a seemingly insane risk to bet that those (positive) incentives would be effective)
- nosuchthing 7y agoThe spot price on unregulated exchanges which are presumably operating fractional reserves, wash trading, front running, and spoofing the order book. And don't forget 3 billion Tethers, likely being used to manipulate margin trades. (see "the bart" pattern, which is likely an indication of either Bitmex or Bitfinex wiping out margin traders with temporary price manipulation) https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3195066 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3195066 https://amycastor.com/2019/01/17/the-curious-case-of-tether-a-complete-timeline-of-events/ https://amycastor.com/2019/01/17/the-curious-case-of-tether-... https://omniexplorer.info/address/1NTMakcgVwQpMdGxRQnFKyb3G1FAJysSfz https://omniexplorer.info/address/1NTMakcgVwQpMdGxRQnFKyb3G1...
- throwayEngineer 7y agoI imagine people outside the United States have lots of reasons to avoid the United States government currency (or their own corrupt countries). Given the atrocities governments commit, I don't see anything morally wrong with using a currency run on Electricity.