4 ms·

No design needed. If the price of gold doubles, twice as much resources can be invested to dig up a ton of gold.

praxulus 6y ago
That applies to bitcoin too, but gold doesn't also become twice as hard to dig up just because mining equipment became twice as efficient.
- gruez 6y ago
  >gold doesn't also become twice as hard to dig up just because mining equipment became twice as efficient. it does, kind of. as we use up the easy to find deposits, the remaining deposits are harder to mine/refine, so essentially it does get harder.
Guvante 6y ago
Gold has an intrinsic additional cost to acquiring that is unrelated to humans. There exist deposits that are harder to get to in the world and it isn't currently economically viable to extract them. This isn't mankind's doing it is just a truth of the world. Bitcoin adds artificial scarcity that isn't intrinsic. And unfortunately society as a whole pays for that additional scarcity by increasing the resources spent mining blocks. I am not saying this is an unacceptable trade-off all things considered. I just think the gold analogy is flawed.
- gruez 6y ago
  >Gold has an intrinsic additional cost to acquiring that is unrelated to humans. There exist deposits that are harder to get to in the world and it isn't currently economically viable to extract them. This isn't mankind's doing it is just a truth of the world. I disagree. Gold was specifically chosen to be rare and hard to counterfeit. That's why we don't use sea shells as a store of value. In that respect I don't see how awarding value to holders of a shinny yellow metal is any different than awarding value to holders of a hard to find hash.
  - notahacker 6y ago
    The most obvious difference is that the "mining" of BTC is necessary for its security/transaction layer. The security of the worldwide gold supply is not contingent on constantly directing more resources towards mining, and it is possible to continue to transact with gold if mining were banned altogether. Most holders of gold don't have any interest at all in mining; indeed curtailing gold mining would actually work in their favour. (But yeah, gold hoarding is pretty wasteful in multiple ways too)
    - logifail 6y ago
      > gold hoarding is pretty wasteful in multiple ways too Isn't most hoarding wasteful?
probe 6y ago
This is also literally how oil/fracking projects work and are decided

That applies to bitcoin too, but gold doesn't also become twice as hard to dig up just because mining equipment became twice as efficient.

gruez 6y ago
>gold doesn't also become twice as hard to dig up just because mining equipment became twice as efficient. it does, kind of. as we use up the easy to find deposits, the remaining deposits are harder to mine/refine, so essentially it does get harder.

Guvante 6y ago

Gold has an intrinsic additional cost to acquiring that is unrelated to humans. There exist deposits that are harder to get to in the world and it isn't currently economically viable to extract them. This isn't mankind's doing it is just a truth of the world. Bitcoin adds artificial scarcity that isn't intrinsic. And unfortunately society as a whole pays for that additional scarcity by increasing the resources spent mining blocks. I am not saying this is an unacceptable trade-off all things considered. I just think the gold analogy is flawed.

gruez 6y ago
>Gold has an intrinsic additional cost to acquiring that is unrelated to humans. There exist deposits that are harder to get to in the world and it isn't currently economically viable to extract them. This isn't mankind's doing it is just a truth of the world. I disagree. Gold was specifically chosen to be rare and hard to counterfeit. That's why we don't use sea shells as a store of value. In that respect I don't see how awarding value to holders of a shinny yellow metal is any different than awarding value to holders of a hard to find hash.
- notahacker 6y ago
  The most obvious difference is that the "mining" of BTC is necessary for its security/transaction layer. The security of the worldwide gold supply is not contingent on constantly directing more resources towards mining, and it is possible to continue to transact with gold if mining were banned altogether. Most holders of gold don't have any interest at all in mining; indeed curtailing gold mining would actually work in their favour. (But yeah, gold hoarding is pretty wasteful in multiple ways too)
  - logifail 6y ago
    > gold hoarding is pretty wasteful in multiple ways too Isn't most hoarding wasteful?

probe 6y ago

This is also literally how oil/fracking projects work and are decided