3 ms·

what backs bitcoin though?

• throwayEngineer 7y ago
  Worldwide trust.
  • fargo 7y ago
    Trust in what? Every currency is backed by worldwide trust in what the currency is backed from.
    • benj111 7y ago
      Trust 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 ago
  Trust 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 ago
  The 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...