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How? Beyond creating a few lottery winners, it has no utility for the average person.
by arrosenberg 6y ago
How? Beyond creating a few lottery winners, it has no utility for the average person.
- WrtCdEvrydy 6y agoNeither does a multi-million dollar yacht or companies / foreigners buying billions in properties for investment displacing communities. In the real world, "utility" doesn't exist unless it benefits a select few.
- renewiltord 6y agoVanishingly few things have substantial utility for the average person. But clearly BTC has utility for those participating in transacting and mining it, or they wouldn’t be doing it.
- arrosenberg 6y agoIt's not "clear" BTC has utility for anyone. For most people it seems like a speculative investment vehicle (i.e. a lottery ticket).
- renewiltord 6y agoEven granting that, speculative investments have utility. That's why people participate in them.
- arrosenberg 6y agoWhat is their utility beyond being a lottery ticket? That was my original question. Lotto winners have mixed outcomes, so I'm not sure that its clear if those lives were improved. We may come find out they weren't. State governments have had a monopoly on lotteries for my entire lifetime, so if we've granted that crypto is nothing beyond a lottery ticket, then there is no issue with society regulating it to whatever degree we can agree on.
- renewiltord 6y agoSociety can regulate whatever it wants. Usually it can attempt to make some sort of justification but the justification can be fairly flimsy (as the marijuana regulations have proven). So sure, society can regulate crypto, as the US Gov already has attempted to do. For the utility of decentralized currencies, it's best you get information from more than an Internet comment. Which sources have you used already?
- grey-area 6y agoNo, they don't. Investments have utility, speculation does not. Time was Bitcoin proponents would talk about the future of money (investment). Now everyone just wants to get rich at the expense if the poor fool who comes later (speculation). We're now at the mania stage of this bubble, where crazy things happen and ordinary people invest because of the distorted prices.
- CamTin 6y agoThe average person isn't doing any mining, specific people are. It has utility for the people doing it.
- tuesdayrain 6y agoIt's not just a few lottery winners. Every single person who bought and held BTC for a reasonable amount of time has made money. BTC is an extremely valuable investment vehicle that has no equivalent.