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All you say is true, but it is also true if you replace BTC with EUR. It’s just a statement about the non-canonical currency, nothing to do with Bitcoin.

• notahacker 6y ago
  No, EUR is needed by hundreds of millions of Europeans as the only legal way to satisfy their Euro denominated debts, taxes or other payment obligations. So one can safely assume that demand for EUR is linked on actual need to hold it Some people have devised contracts whereby they owe others Bitcoins, but those obligations are comparatively tiny in comparison with the quantity of Bitcoins out there, Bitcoins are not legal tender anywhere, and the issuing of new Bitcoins is not backed by BTC-denominated debt, or anything else.
  • beagle3 6y ago
    Ok then, Zimbabwean dollars then. The distinction is not because of what Bitcoin is, it’s that you think demand may go to zero. Well, it has gone to zero for “bona fide” currencies like zim dollar recently and German currency 100 years ago.
    • notahacker 6y ago
      Sure, Zimbabwe and the Weimar Republic issued currency that was mostly not backed by repayment obligations (they printed precisely because they needed funds far in excess of what they could tax) much like Bitcoin is almost entirely not backed by repayment obligations. It is possible for a sufficiently incompetently managed central bank to create an asset almost as unlikely to be needed to make payments as your average cryptocurrency.