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you can say the same thing about gold - it’s just a shiny rock. it’s an inflation protected asset, perhaps even more so than gold since there’s a known quantit

by tempsy 6y ago

you can say the same thing about gold - it’s just a shiny rock. it’s an inflation protected asset, perhaps even more so than gold since there’s a known quantity of it that will never change.

iforgottherest 6y ago
When the price of gold crashes, at least you have a piece of gold. When bitcoin crashes, what do you have?
- JxLS-cpgbe0 6y ago
  You store all the gold you're using for a long-term store of value at your house?
itsdsmurrell 6y ago
You can't actually. Gold holds a unique spot on the periodic table. Another element isn't going to come into existence and compete with it here. Bitcoin on the other hand is in the fight for its life with the rest of the cryptocurrencies. I think that the one that's most useful will win out in the end... not the one that was most popular first (think myspace).
- cwkoss 6y ago
  Asteroid mining will likely destroy the scarcity of gold, but I expect we're 50-100 years away from that happening.
mrlala 6y ago
(I tried to post this response hours ago but HN is so annoying with how often you can comment sometimes...) I don't understand why you make this comparison? Gold is a physical item with real-world use cases. Gold is rare and has physical applications which is why it's valuable. We can't magically create more gold. Now you are going to say bitcoin is fixed as well. Fine, but it has basically no use case. Also, it can be replicated a billion times over with any other cryptocurrency. So I would even say it's debatable to call it 'rare' or 'fixed', even though I know what you mean. The amount of gold which has been mined in the entire human history is about a 20m cube. That's it. Gold is used in very useful in many industries around the world and is visually appealing. THAT is why it has value. If Gold was "rare" but looked like garbage and had no physical application then it would NOT be valuable. I don't get how you are trying to make this argument.

by tempsy 6y ago

you can say the same thing about gold - it’s just a shiny rock. it’s an inflation protected asset, perhaps even more so than gold since there’s a known quantity of it that will never change.

iforgottherest 6y ago

When the price of gold crashes, at least you have a piece of gold. When bitcoin crashes, what do you have?

JxLS-cpgbe0 6y ago
You store all the gold you're using for a long-term store of value at your house?

itsdsmurrell 6y ago

You can't actually. Gold holds a unique spot on the periodic table. Another element isn't going to come into existence and compete with it here. Bitcoin on the other hand is in the fight for its life with the rest of the cryptocurrencies. I think that the one that's most useful will win out in the end... not the one that was most popular first (think myspace).

cwkoss 6y ago
Asteroid mining will likely destroy the scarcity of gold, but I expect we're 50-100 years away from that happening.

mrlala 6y ago

(I tried to post this response hours ago but HN is so annoying with how often you can comment sometimes...) I don't understand why you make this comparison? Gold is a physical item with real-world use cases. Gold is rare and has physical applications which is why it's valuable. We can't magically create more gold. Now you are going to say bitcoin is fixed as well. Fine, but it has basically no use case. Also, it can be replicated a billion times over with any other cryptocurrency. So I would even say it's debatable to call it 'rare' or 'fixed', even though I know what you mean. The amount of gold which has been mined in the entire human history is about a 20m cube. That's it. Gold is used in very useful in many industries around the world and is visually appealing. THAT is why it has value. If Gold was "rare" but looked like garbage and had no physical application then it would NOT be valuable. I don't get how you are trying to make this argument.