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The only input of wealth is people buying tokens on the market. The only output is people selling tokens on the market. There is a constant drain of this wealth
by DagAgren 7y ago
The only input of wealth is people buying tokens on the market. The only output is people selling tokens on the market. There is a constant drain of this wealth from both market fees and from miners minting new coins and cashing them out.
There is no wealth creation anywhere else in this system. There are only these factors, and they are negative-sum, except for market operators and miners.
If you are producing widgets on the side, that is entirely unrelated to the token market. You can do that with any currency, and it is entirely orthogonal to the tokens. You are not creating wealth within that market, you are creating it outside that market, and possibly transferring it into as a separate step, to be siphoned off by market operators and miners.
- thebean11 7y agoMaybe I misunderstood what you meant by "the economic system built around bitcoin", I thought you meant "the economy if bitcoin were adopted would be negative sum". Now that I understand your point: how is this different from any currency? Currencies are a medium of exchange, by definition they don't have intrinsic value. The value is defined by what you can buy. They are simply a convenient accounting system for value, not the source of value. How does your argument not apply to every other currency?
- DagAgren 7y agoCurrencies do not exist in a vacuum, like bitcoin, it is an instrument of an entire country's economy. There is wealth created inside that economy, unlike bitcoin.
- thebean11 7y agoRight that's exactly my point, you're critiquing bitcoin as an alternative to the "economy" part, but that's not something it has ever claimed to be. It's an alternative for the "currency" part.
- DagAgren 7y agoThose are not two different things. They are one and the same, in a regular currency. Bitcoin implements only half of it, and pretends this is just as good. It is not. It is just gambling.
- thebean11 7y ago> Bitcoin implements only half of it What does that mean? That the dollar implements the entirety of the economy? No currency "creates value" I understand what you mean by saying bitcoin is zero sum, but I'm asking for an explanation of how that's any different (for example how is the dollar NOT zero sum)? I don't think you've explained what, in your opinion, is the differentiating characteristic here.
- DagAgren 7y agoThe dollar does not exist on its own. It is an integral part of the US economy. The two can not be separated. The dollar represents, in some sense, a unit of the US economy. Bitcoin has nothing like this.
- thebean11 7y agoBitcoin could theoretically become an integral part of some economy (or a smaller part of every economy). Then by your standards it would no longer have a problem? It seems like a catch 22 you're presenting. It's a bad currency because nobody uses it, and nobody uses it because it's a bad currency. To me that's kind of a circular argument, and the same argument could be made about any early-stage network (the internet, facebook, etc.)
- DagAgren 7y agoNo, this can not be changed. It doesn't matter how many people use it or not. It very deliberately, by design and implementation, does not represent anything at all. This would not change even if an entire country used it (putting aside that it is not technically capable of doing so).