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To clarify my position: I 100% agree that bitcoin is the first digital commodity. I disagree that it's appropriate to call it "money" (based on the fact that, b

To clarify my position: I 100% agree that bitcoin is the first digital commodity. I disagree that it's appropriate to call it "money" (based on the fact that, by design, it has low acceptability - if enough people would use it for their daily transactions, the entire network would break down). I'm also really uncertain that it's an appropriate store of value, and lean on the side of "it's not". WRT guarantee... yes, let's say I accept that you can send BTC to somebody regardless what laws the US passes. The question is, can you receive something in exchange? Because if you can't then it means that the technology is not offering you any guarantee. So that guarantee can't be the "intrinsic value". (you don't claim that it is - you just claim intrinsic value does not exist, which is a completely new discussion that I don't want to get into right now)

keymone 6y ago
> can you receive something in exchange? that is quite the goalpost shift. bitcoin allows you to send and receive bitcoin securely and without asking permission. it is not bitcoin's purpose to ensure whatever the contract you're trying to realize entails. there are escrow services and what not for that. the guarantee bitcoin gives you is that once transaction was finalized: - you are the sole owner of assigned bitcoin - only you can change that record in the ledger - nobody can stop you from doing that - nobody can dilute your share of the asset beyond the normal issuance schedule
- virgilp 6y ago
  Again, the claim I objected to is "transfer money[+] across political boundaries without censorship". That's what I'm objecting to. Yes - you can make a transfer of bitcoin/ it's very hard for the state to stop or reverse that transfer. But is that what we mean when we say "without censorship", really? We're getting into the joke territory here, this sounds very much like "USSR had freedom of speech, what it didn't have was freedom after speech". [+] BTC is not money, but I'm going to let that slide for this part of the argument.
  - keymone 6y ago
    > But is that what we mean when we say "without censorship", really? yes it is. no technology will suddenly make censorhip go away. but technology can allow one to circumvent censorship. bitcoin doesn't solve censorship, corruption, fascism, genocide and whatever else you may want to throw in to justify your skepticism, but it doesn't have to. it solves a very specific problem: non-debaseable digital money and permission-less transacting of it. that comes with a set of compromises and great deal of responsibility for your actions, but it's a useful and valuable tool, first of it's kind and certainly the biggest revolution in finance since gold standard.
NoOneNew 6y ago
I know where you're getting at, but I think investment vehicle is a better term than commodity. Bitcoin is traded around as bitcoin to speculate that it'll have future value upon a traded upon nationalized currency. Commodities, while do get traded, are eventually consumed outside the investment market. You might trade and hold corn on the market, its end goal is to end up (consumed) as doritos or cornbread. Or iron gets consumed as steel for a car. The end goal of trading bitcoin ends up to be continously traded for a direct return on investment in the future. This is partially the issue with the housing crisis. Houses were constantly market traded without being consumed. Both in home investment speculators, folks that just bought the house to flip it the next week without ever living in it (a paper in florida at the time did an article showing a lot of homes in neighborhoods would go through about 6 owners in 2 or 3 years before someone lived in it right before the bubble burst) then there was the investment vehicle constant trading of the mortgages themselves. That was a twofer of shit hitting the fan. Anyways yea, not harping on you too much for semantics but the rabid crypto fanboys(not calling you one) really fuck up their terminology and understanding of basic economics. Hey, wait a second, isnt McAfee supposed to eat his dick since bitcoin didnt hit the million mark?

keymone 6y ago

> can you receive something in exchange? that is quite the goalpost shift. bitcoin allows you to send and receive bitcoin securely and without asking permission. it is not bitcoin's purpose to ensure whatever the contract you're trying to realize entails. there are escrow services and what not for that. the guarantee bitcoin gives you is that once transaction was finalized: - you are the sole owner of assigned bitcoin - only you can change that record in the ledger - nobody can stop you from doing that - nobody can dilute your share of the asset beyond the normal issuance schedule

virgilp 6y ago
Again, the claim I objected to is "transfer money[+] across political boundaries without censorship". That's what I'm objecting to. Yes - you can make a transfer of bitcoin/ it's very hard for the state to stop or reverse that transfer. But is that what we mean when we say "without censorship", really? We're getting into the joke territory here, this sounds very much like "USSR had freedom of speech, what it didn't have was freedom after speech". [+] BTC is not money, but I'm going to let that slide for this part of the argument.
- keymone 6y ago
  > But is that what we mean when we say "without censorship", really? yes it is. no technology will suddenly make censorhip go away. but technology can allow one to circumvent censorship. bitcoin doesn't solve censorship, corruption, fascism, genocide and whatever else you may want to throw in to justify your skepticism, but it doesn't have to. it solves a very specific problem: non-debaseable digital money and permission-less transacting of it. that comes with a set of compromises and great deal of responsibility for your actions, but it's a useful and valuable tool, first of it's kind and certainly the biggest revolution in finance since gold standard.

NoOneNew 6y ago

I know where you're getting at, but I think investment vehicle is a better term than commodity. Bitcoin is traded around as bitcoin to speculate that it'll have future value upon a traded upon nationalized currency. Commodities, while do get traded, are eventually consumed outside the investment market. You might trade and hold corn on the market, its end goal is to end up (consumed) as doritos or cornbread. Or iron gets consumed as steel for a car. The end goal of trading bitcoin ends up to be continously traded for a direct return on investment in the future. This is partially the issue with the housing crisis. Houses were constantly market traded without being consumed. Both in home investment speculators, folks that just bought the house to flip it the next week without ever living in it (a paper in florida at the time did an article showing a lot of homes in neighborhoods would go through about 6 owners in 2 or 3 years before someone lived in it right before the bubble burst) then there was the investment vehicle constant trading of the mortgages themselves. That was a twofer of shit hitting the fan. Anyways yea, not harping on you too much for semantics but the rabid crypto fanboys(not calling you one) really fuck up their terminology and understanding of basic economics. Hey, wait a second, isnt McAfee supposed to eat his dick since bitcoin didnt hit the million mark?