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Yeah, but does this compare the cost of creation of the currency? Isn't that what's (fallaciously) being compared here? How much does it cost to create a US d

Yeah, but does this compare the cost of creation of the currency? Isn't that what's (fallaciously) being compared here? How much does it cost to create a US dollar, to be able to have transactions with it? Did it take 100 years of faith in the US credit to establish that? How much energy was that?

tmcw 6y ago
It costs about 16 cents to make a $20 bill. https://www.federalreserve.gov/faqs/currency_12771.htm https://www.federalreserve.gov/faqs/currency_12771.htm In truth, if I factor in the establishment of the United States and several hundred years of money policy, it'll be higher. But for a fair comparison with Bitcoin, that'd be unfair, right? Because the US's money policy is obviously historically tied to Britain's, so I should include that too. And Britain was adapting the system that was established in feudal times. A lot of work went into making fiat currency real. So a fair comparison would be Bitcoin versus the cost to print money, plus the history of the US currency system, UK, and all of monetary history before that. This is starting to look pretty bad!
- keypusher 6y ago
  How much does it cost to run the US treasury though?
  - JumpCrisscross 6y ago
    > How much does it cost to run the US treasury though? Would the U.S. Treasury disappear if we switched to Bitcoin? (Hint: look at countries that don't have their own currency. They still collect taxes and spend and borrow money.)
    - 1-more 6y ago
      I went looking for an example and to save anyone else some time: Ecuador no longer uses the sucre and instead has used the US dollar since 2000. They do still have a ministry of economy and finance which has a central bank. Fascinating ty!! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ministry_of_Economy_and_Finance_(Ecuador) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ministry_of_Economy_and_Financ...
1-more 6y ago
I'm not super hip to how BTC works, but doesn't a coin get created in the process of verifying a transaction? Like mining bitcoins involves finding constants that will produce so many zeros when appended to the record of the transaction and hashed, and you earn a bitcoin when you find such a constant
Barrin92 6y ago
What kind of last ditch attempt of an argument is this to make crypto look better. By that logic we're going to need to incorporate the energy required to dig the ore out of the ground to make crypto rigs and the entire history of computing into the equation. All that's relevant is what it costs now or else we're going back to the beginning of the universe

tmcw 6y ago

It costs about 16 cents to make a $20 bill. https://www.federalreserve.gov/faqs/currency_12771.htm https://www.federalreserve.gov/faqs/currency_12771.htm In truth, if I factor in the establishment of the United States and several hundred years of money policy, it'll be higher. But for a fair comparison with Bitcoin, that'd be unfair, right? Because the US's money policy is obviously historically tied to Britain's, so I should include that too. And Britain was adapting the system that was established in feudal times. A lot of work went into making fiat currency real. So a fair comparison would be Bitcoin versus the cost to print money, plus the history of the US currency system, UK, and all of monetary history before that. This is starting to look pretty bad!

keypusher 6y ago
How much does it cost to run the US treasury though?
- JumpCrisscross 6y ago
  > How much does it cost to run the US treasury though? Would the U.S. Treasury disappear if we switched to Bitcoin? (Hint: look at countries that don't have their own currency. They still collect taxes and spend and borrow money.)
  - 1-more 6y ago
    I went looking for an example and to save anyone else some time: Ecuador no longer uses the sucre and instead has used the US dollar since 2000. They do still have a ministry of economy and finance which has a central bank. Fascinating ty!! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ministry_of_Economy_and_Finance_(Ecuador) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ministry_of_Economy_and_Financ...

1-more 6y ago

I'm not super hip to how BTC works, but doesn't a coin get created in the process of verifying a transaction? Like mining bitcoins involves finding constants that will produce so many zeros when appended to the record of the transaction and hashed, and you earn a bitcoin when you find such a constant

Barrin92 6y ago

What kind of last ditch attempt of an argument is this to make crypto look better. By that logic we're going to need to incorporate the energy required to dig the ore out of the ground to make crypto rigs and the entire history of computing into the equation. All that's relevant is what it costs now or else we're going back to the beginning of the universe