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You're looking at it from a totally wrong perspective. The U.S. government can print as much dollars as they want, whereas BTC cannot. The government does not c

You're looking at it from a totally wrong perspective. The U.S. government can print as much dollars as they want, whereas BTC cannot. The government does not care about green energy unless they can profit from it. To say that you did not buy BTC because of "wasting energy" is a very odd way to cope. You guys are so hung up on energy consumption, a meme, that you're forgetting the real intrinsic value of Bitcoin.

okprod 6y ago
I understand the value of blockchain tech, but what's the intrinsic value of Bitcoin?
- sparkie 6y ago
  Value which cannot be stolen or debased. Also, "blockchain" is just a data structure that has practically no use besides bitcoin.
  - wetmore 6y ago
    Seems like there have been numerous stories about bitcoin being stolen?
    - sparkie 6y ago
      Private keys can be stolen if you leave them lying around. Nobody can steal your bitcoin if your private keys are well protected. And of course, the best protection is a brain wallet. If a State attempts to implement an EO6102 equivalent for Bitcoin, they will be unable to enforce it.
      - sodality2 6y ago
        Brain wallets are hilariously bad, if you make it up yourself; a randomly generated key is far superior and can still be memorized. Search up "brainflayer" for just one example of a brain wallet cracker.
      - UncleMeat 6y ago
        > Nobody can steal your bitcoin if your private keys are well protected. And of course, the best protection is a brain wallet. The end result of this is that a huge portion of humans cannot safely store their wealth in btc. I sure as hell don't trust myself to keep that much cash in a brain wallet. "If your private keys are well protected" might as well mean "if you can do four backflips in a row" to most people.
        sparkie 6y ago
        The best strategy is to use a BIP-39 seed phrase with an additional passphrase. The seed phrase should be written down/etched into a piece of metal and stored safely (with redundancy), and the passphrase should be memorized by yourself and possibly a family member (as insurance if something happens to you). You can leave a small amount of coins in the wallet using the same seed phrase but with no passphrase as a decoy. This way, if somebody "stumbles upon" your seed phrase, they'll attempt to recover this small amount of money, and you can monitor using only the xpub to discover it has been compromised. You then have some time to move the other coins before anybody could potentially brute-force your passphrase (Since they need to compute PBKDF2 for each attempt). You can reuse the same seed phrase for multiple wallets, using a different passphrase for each. There is no way for somebody to determine if you have surrendered all passphrases for a give seed, since there could be infinitely many. This offers plausible deniability in the case your thief is the government.
        UncleMeat 6y ago
        Listen to yourself. Decoys? What percentage of people do you think won't go running away screaming when you tell them that this is how they should store their wealth? If I lose my bank password I can walk into a branch and talk to a human. No need for metal etchings and incantations.
        sparkie 6y ago
        Yeah, not everyone needs custody of their own money. But those of us who do, can. Under fiat, we can't.
  - okprod 6y ago
    > Value which cannot be stolen or debased. Bitcoin's "intrinsic value" is really value unto itself for the most part, at this point in time. Maybe in the future it'll be used more as a currency, and we've seen that with Tesla, Bovada, etc., but I don't think most governments will allow such a threat to their currency without additional controls. > Also, "blockchain" is just a data structure that has practically no use besides bitcoin. I've always felt the other way around actually; I think blockchain will be used more widely and longer-term than Bitcoin. Blockchain as a technology has already been invested in and deployed by firms like IBM and JPMorgan.
    - 816238721639812 6y ago
      Centralised blockchains are an oxymoron. Just use JPMorgans SQL database, it’s cheaper.
      - diroussel 6y ago
        Sometimes you want to trust and verify.
  - bagacrap 6y ago
    Cannot be debased? When the US government rules it illegal, or enough people collectively lose interest, btc will no longer have value.
    - noch 6y ago
      > When the US government rules it illegal, or enough people collectively lose interest, btc will no longer have value. Recall that for the first 2 years of its life, bitcoin had no market price. Bitcoin acquired a price because it has value to some people. That is, its having value preceded it having a price. What that should tell you is that even if a lot of people lost interest, bitcoin would still be valuable. The key insight arrives if you figure out what is valuable about Bitcoin that caused btc to acquire a price. " It might make sense just to get some in case it catches on. If enough people think the same way, that becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. " https://satoshi.nakamotoinstitute.org/emails/cryptography/17/#selection-103.0-107.9 https://satoshi.nakamotoinstitute.org/emails/cryptography/17...
InitialLastName 6y ago
> the real intrinsic value of Bitcoin Intrinsic: belonging to the essential nature or constitution of a thing [0]. Bitcoin, being a series of bits proving you or one of your financial forebears burnt some spare energy without any material return, has no intrinsic value. Its value is entirely extrinsic and intersubjective, in that it only has value if a quorum believes it has value. [0] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/intrinsic https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/intrinsic
bccdee 6y ago
Haha wait wait, so energy consumption is "a meme," but having a fixed supply of money is apparently a totally good idea and not at all a meme. We don't care about deflation, we don't care about monetary policy, we want a gold standard where instead of gold we just burn absurd quantities of carbon. lol
heterodoxxed 6y ago
> The U.S. government can print as much dollars as they want, whereas BTC cannot. In a macroeconomic sense, this is a strength of the dollar and a weakness of Bitcoin.
- shawnz 6y ago
  It is a strength of the dollar as a fiat currency, but that doesn't mean it would be a good thing for every asset class to behave that way.

okprod 6y ago

I understand the value of blockchain tech, but what's the intrinsic value of Bitcoin?

sparkie 6y ago
Value which cannot be stolen or debased. Also, "blockchain" is just a data structure that has practically no use besides bitcoin.
- wetmore 6y ago
  Seems like there have been numerous stories about bitcoin being stolen?
  - sparkie 6y ago
    Private keys can be stolen if you leave them lying around. Nobody can steal your bitcoin if your private keys are well protected. And of course, the best protection is a brain wallet. If a State attempts to implement an EO6102 equivalent for Bitcoin, they will be unable to enforce it.
    - sodality2 6y ago
      Brain wallets are hilariously bad, if you make it up yourself; a randomly generated key is far superior and can still be memorized. Search up "brainflayer" for just one example of a brain wallet cracker.
    - UncleMeat 6y ago
      > Nobody can steal your bitcoin if your private keys are well protected. And of course, the best protection is a brain wallet. The end result of this is that a huge portion of humans cannot safely store their wealth in btc. I sure as hell don't trust myself to keep that much cash in a brain wallet. "If your private keys are well protected" might as well mean "if you can do four backflips in a row" to most people.
      - sparkie 6y ago
        The best strategy is to use a BIP-39 seed phrase with an additional passphrase. The seed phrase should be written down/etched into a piece of metal and stored safely (with redundancy), and the passphrase should be memorized by yourself and possibly a family member (as insurance if something happens to you). You can leave a small amount of coins in the wallet using the same seed phrase but with no passphrase as a decoy. This way, if somebody "stumbles upon" your seed phrase, they'll attempt to recover this small amount of money, and you can monitor using only the xpub to discover it has been compromised. You then have some time to move the other coins before anybody could potentially brute-force your passphrase (Since they need to compute PBKDF2 for each attempt). You can reuse the same seed phrase for multiple wallets, using a different passphrase for each. There is no way for somebody to determine if you have surrendered all passphrases for a give seed, since there could be infinitely many. This offers plausible deniability in the case your thief is the government.
        UncleMeat 6y ago
        Listen to yourself. Decoys? What percentage of people do you think won't go running away screaming when you tell them that this is how they should store their wealth? If I lose my bank password I can walk into a branch and talk to a human. No need for metal etchings and incantations.
        sparkie 6y ago
        Yeah, not everyone needs custody of their own money. But those of us who do, can. Under fiat, we can't.
- okprod 6y ago
  > Value which cannot be stolen or debased. Bitcoin's "intrinsic value" is really value unto itself for the most part, at this point in time. Maybe in the future it'll be used more as a currency, and we've seen that with Tesla, Bovada, etc., but I don't think most governments will allow such a threat to their currency without additional controls. > Also, "blockchain" is just a data structure that has practically no use besides bitcoin. I've always felt the other way around actually; I think blockchain will be used more widely and longer-term than Bitcoin. Blockchain as a technology has already been invested in and deployed by firms like IBM and JPMorgan.
  - 816238721639812 6y ago
    Centralised blockchains are an oxymoron. Just use JPMorgans SQL database, it’s cheaper.
    - diroussel 6y ago
      Sometimes you want to trust and verify.
- bagacrap 6y ago
  Cannot be debased? When the US government rules it illegal, or enough people collectively lose interest, btc will no longer have value.
  - noch 6y ago
    > When the US government rules it illegal, or enough people collectively lose interest, btc will no longer have value. Recall that for the first 2 years of its life, bitcoin had no market price. Bitcoin acquired a price because it has value to some people. That is, its having value preceded it having a price. What that should tell you is that even if a lot of people lost interest, bitcoin would still be valuable. The key insight arrives if you figure out what is valuable about Bitcoin that caused btc to acquire a price. " It might make sense just to get some in case it catches on. If enough people think the same way, that becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. " https://satoshi.nakamotoinstitute.org/emails/cryptography/17/#selection-103.0-107.9 https://satoshi.nakamotoinstitute.org/emails/cryptography/17...

InitialLastName 6y ago

> the real intrinsic value of Bitcoin Intrinsic: belonging to the essential nature or constitution of a thing [0]. Bitcoin, being a series of bits proving you or one of your financial forebears burnt some spare energy without any material return, has no intrinsic value. Its value is entirely extrinsic and intersubjective, in that it only has value if a quorum believes it has value. [0] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/intrinsic https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/intrinsic

bccdee 6y ago

Haha wait wait, so energy consumption is "a meme," but having a fixed supply of money is apparently a totally good idea and not at all a meme. We don't care about deflation, we don't care about monetary policy, we want a gold standard where instead of gold we just burn absurd quantities of carbon. lol

heterodoxxed 6y ago

> The U.S. government can print as much dollars as they want, whereas BTC cannot. In a macroeconomic sense, this is a strength of the dollar and a weakness of Bitcoin.

shawnz 6y ago
It is a strength of the dollar as a fiat currency, but that doesn't mean it would be a good thing for every asset class to behave that way.