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>It is another ATH day for BTC, so literally anyone that bought BTC in the past and held is in the money. To actually make money you must sell - to someone, hi

>It is another ATH day for BTC, so literally anyone that bought BTC in the past and held is in the money. To actually make money you must sell - to someone, higher than you bought. Then that person is in the same situation. Bitcoin is a zero-sum game (negative if mining is taken into account - billions of losses per year) so for every realized profit there's an equal loss somewhere else. While technically just one (formerly extremely rich) person could be the source of profits for everyone else by buying enough btc at ath from every holder, leaving everyone else in profit, the more likely distribution is Pareto with 20% winning and 80% losing.

rfd4sgmk8u 6y ago
Ahh, I feel that you don't believe bitcoin is money. You don't need to 'sell' it for fiat. What matters is the purchasing parity power. It is money already. I do not agree that it is a zero-sum game. This assumes that it provides no utility outside speculation, and everyone just wants back into USD. As the markets grow, there is less desire to hold depreciating assets like dollars, especially with negative interest rates.
- CaptainZapp 6y ago
  > You don't need to 'sell' it for fiat. What matters is the purchasing parity power. It is money already. If it would be money I could go into just about every shop and purchase whatever I want for crypto. Which, obviously, I cannot. I don't only believe that crypto currencies are not money, but a huge pyramid scheme, which will result in many, many losers. Some of them having lost their life savings. I'm pretty sure that we vehemently disagree on that. But claiming that crypto is money really stretches the definition of money.
  - rfd4sgmk8u 6y ago
    You literally can with payment cards do this today. The largest cryptocurrency exchange released a visa card where you can 'spend crypto'. I hate it when starbucks doesn't take my Krugerrands. What if cryptocurrencies can buy things that fiat currencies can not? Not everything is sold in a physical store. What if /the payment card industry/ converted cryptocurrency to local fiat for you? Right now there are several psuedobank providers that will do this (for years now), but we are talking about the card network themselves doing it themselves. Cryptocurrency does certainly stretch the definition of money. That's why it is exciting. Pyramid schemes are something different, pyramid schemes are about recruiting folks to pay you, and them getting them to repeat the same trick, with money funneling to the top. What you are thinking of is a Ponzi scheme, in which early investors are paid by later investors. Now this is where the definitions get blurred. Most asset classes act this way, and we don't consider SPY a ponzi, nor housing in major cities, nor the USD market itself. I am not trying to recruit, or even encourage you to convert your hard earned funds on magic internet money. But this dismissal of cryptocurrency is injurious to your future wealth.
    - danparsonson 6y ago
      Payment cards that allow you to 'spend crypto' don't make cryptocurrencies money any more than a card that allowed you to spend gold or shares or cabbages (if you happened to own a warehouse full of those) would make those things money. BTC isn't 'real money' in the conventional sense as long as people aren't transacting in it directly, and I can't see a path towards people ever doing that - who wants the buying power of their savings and income to swing wildly from day to day? As far as I know that only happens in countries with serious economic problems.
    - JumpCrisscross 6y ago
      > with payment cards do this today These cards don’t pay with cryptocurrencies. They pay out dollars and do finance on the back end to abstract away the credit and conversions. (They’re a great idea.)
  - swinglock 6y ago
    If I go to any shop they not will not accept dollars. I still think it's money.
  - varajelle 6y ago
    There are bitcoin credit card that exist. By your definition, USD isn't money either, because none of the shop here accept it. I first need to change it to euro to be able to pay in a shop, just like bitcoin. Bitcoin is not a pyramid scheme, because there is no promise of gain. Everyone is saying it is a risky asset and in that sense it's just like any other speculation.
    - danparsonson 6y ago
      Where in the world do you not need to exchange BTC in order to buy things with it? Can you point to any shop where things are priced only in BTC? Your bitcoin credit card is just an on-the-fly exchange, that doesn't mean bitcoin is money.
      - varajelle 6y ago
        There was the silk road. I guess there are new market place pricing in bitcoin. Also some ransomware were you can buy your files back. Maybe there's just some libertarian community somewhere with a few people using bitcoin.
- nootropicat 6y ago
  >Ahh, I feel that you don't believe bitcoin is money It's a fact it isn't. Money isn't a matter of belief, money must be backed with something. What is bitcoin backed by? Nothing. It goes up when speculative frenzy heats up and collapses violently when speculators lose interest. If every corporation in the world bought it to 'store value' it would moon. Then a depression comes, corporations start selling to cover operating costs. Except it turns out everyone wants to sell and nobody wants to buy, resulting in a violent collapse. Dollar is money because it's backed by all dollar denominated debts, including taxes. Any American is forced to sell a double-digit fraction of income for dollars. That's backing. It's true the value slowly falls, but no other asset with such a widespread demand source exists - it can be thought of as a utility fee. The prevailing (false) meme in bitcoin circles is that it's going to be less volatile once it grows bigger - on the level of us dollar. Yet much smaller currencies are money and are significantly less volatile - because they are backed by their respective states enforcing debts. >This assumes that it provides no utility outside speculation Whether there's actual utility or not, it's captured by tx fees. Tx fees go to miners, btc holders don't gain anything. Don't get too caught on in memes, btc only ever existed during a global bull market. People and companies are flush with cash they have no idea what to do and part of it goes to play on bitcoin. If you manage to dump on them then congrats - you took their money. The moment the global bull run ends and people are forced to try to get their 'stored' value back it's over. There was a temporary example during the covid crash.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- FridgeSeal 6y ago
  > You don't need to 'sell' it for fiat. What matters is the purchasing parity power. It is money already. Uhh I do if I want to pay rent, because as much as you want it to be so, it is in fact, not a real currency. Collectively crypto-currencies burn enormous amounts of energy for what? For a sub-par digital currency run by a collection of people with some ideological opposition to mainstream economics?

rfd4sgmk8u 6y ago

Ahh, I feel that you don't believe bitcoin is money. You don't need to 'sell' it for fiat. What matters is the purchasing parity power. It is money already. I do not agree that it is a zero-sum game. This assumes that it provides no utility outside speculation, and everyone just wants back into USD. As the markets grow, there is less desire to hold depreciating assets like dollars, especially with negative interest rates.

CaptainZapp 6y ago
> You don't need to 'sell' it for fiat. What matters is the purchasing parity power. It is money already. If it would be money I could go into just about every shop and purchase whatever I want for crypto. Which, obviously, I cannot. I don't only believe that crypto currencies are not money, but a huge pyramid scheme, which will result in many, many losers. Some of them having lost their life savings. I'm pretty sure that we vehemently disagree on that. But claiming that crypto is money really stretches the definition of money.
- rfd4sgmk8u 6y ago
  You literally can with payment cards do this today. The largest cryptocurrency exchange released a visa card where you can 'spend crypto'. I hate it when starbucks doesn't take my Krugerrands. What if cryptocurrencies can buy things that fiat currencies can not? Not everything is sold in a physical store. What if /the payment card industry/ converted cryptocurrency to local fiat for you? Right now there are several psuedobank providers that will do this (for years now), but we are talking about the card network themselves doing it themselves. Cryptocurrency does certainly stretch the definition of money. That's why it is exciting. Pyramid schemes are something different, pyramid schemes are about recruiting folks to pay you, and them getting them to repeat the same trick, with money funneling to the top. What you are thinking of is a Ponzi scheme, in which early investors are paid by later investors. Now this is where the definitions get blurred. Most asset classes act this way, and we don't consider SPY a ponzi, nor housing in major cities, nor the USD market itself. I am not trying to recruit, or even encourage you to convert your hard earned funds on magic internet money. But this dismissal of cryptocurrency is injurious to your future wealth.
  - danparsonson 6y ago
    Payment cards that allow you to 'spend crypto' don't make cryptocurrencies money any more than a card that allowed you to spend gold or shares or cabbages (if you happened to own a warehouse full of those) would make those things money. BTC isn't 'real money' in the conventional sense as long as people aren't transacting in it directly, and I can't see a path towards people ever doing that - who wants the buying power of their savings and income to swing wildly from day to day? As far as I know that only happens in countries with serious economic problems.
  - JumpCrisscross 6y ago
    > with payment cards do this today These cards don’t pay with cryptocurrencies. They pay out dollars and do finance on the back end to abstract away the credit and conversions. (They’re a great idea.)
- swinglock 6y ago
  If I go to any shop they not will not accept dollars. I still think it's money.
- varajelle 6y ago
  There are bitcoin credit card that exist. By your definition, USD isn't money either, because none of the shop here accept it. I first need to change it to euro to be able to pay in a shop, just like bitcoin. Bitcoin is not a pyramid scheme, because there is no promise of gain. Everyone is saying it is a risky asset and in that sense it's just like any other speculation.
  - danparsonson 6y ago
    Where in the world do you not need to exchange BTC in order to buy things with it? Can you point to any shop where things are priced only in BTC? Your bitcoin credit card is just an on-the-fly exchange, that doesn't mean bitcoin is money.
    - varajelle 6y ago
      There was the silk road. I guess there are new market place pricing in bitcoin. Also some ransomware were you can buy your files back. Maybe there's just some libertarian community somewhere with a few people using bitcoin.
nootropicat 6y ago
>Ahh, I feel that you don't believe bitcoin is money It's a fact it isn't. Money isn't a matter of belief, money must be backed with something. What is bitcoin backed by? Nothing. It goes up when speculative frenzy heats up and collapses violently when speculators lose interest. If every corporation in the world bought it to 'store value' it would moon. Then a depression comes, corporations start selling to cover operating costs. Except it turns out everyone wants to sell and nobody wants to buy, resulting in a violent collapse. Dollar is money because it's backed by all dollar denominated debts, including taxes. Any American is forced to sell a double-digit fraction of income for dollars. That's backing. It's true the value slowly falls, but no other asset with such a widespread demand source exists - it can be thought of as a utility fee. The prevailing (false) meme in bitcoin circles is that it's going to be less volatile once it grows bigger - on the level of us dollar. Yet much smaller currencies are money and are significantly less volatile - because they are backed by their respective states enforcing debts. >This assumes that it provides no utility outside speculation Whether there's actual utility or not, it's captured by tx fees. Tx fees go to miners, btc holders don't gain anything. Don't get too caught on in memes, btc only ever existed during a global bull market. People and companies are flush with cash they have no idea what to do and part of it goes to play on bitcoin. If you manage to dump on them then congrats - you took their money. The moment the global bull run ends and people are forced to try to get their 'stored' value back it's over. There was a temporary example during the covid crash.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
FridgeSeal 6y ago
> You don't need to 'sell' it for fiat. What matters is the purchasing parity power. It is money already. Uhh I do if I want to pay rent, because as much as you want it to be so, it is in fact, not a real currency. Collectively crypto-currencies burn enormous amounts of energy for what? For a sub-par digital currency run by a collection of people with some ideological opposition to mainstream economics?