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> Then came the bitcoin core wars. Today bitcoin is a technological dead end, unable to evolve. Yet in spite of this, “speculative store of value” remains the

> Then came the bitcoin core wars. Today bitcoin is a technological dead end, unable to evolve. Yet in spite of this, “speculative store of value” remains the only real world use case of cryptocurrency, full stop. No cryptocurrency has risen above speculative store of value absolutely without exception. N.B. “digital gold” is merely a euphemism for speculative store of value. “Digital gold” is the Cadillac of all cryptocurrency narratives from a pure practical proven standpoint, much to the chagrin of investors loudly beating the “utility coin” drum to shamelessly drum up demand for other people to invest in their supposed utility-having coin unironically as a speculative store of value. This is also why all Bitcoin-to-altcoin competition is zero sum, and always will be — because no one uses cryptocurrency, they just virtue signal with it to jockey for position in the sheer Keynesian beauty contest that is cryptocurrency valuation [1]. Every core developer of Bitcoin could drop dead simultaneously, and Bitcoin’s “digital gold” narrative would remain intact. All you need is what Bitcoin is today if your only goal is the safest safe haven asset. It was wise of the Bitcoin developers to double down on the digital gold narrative due to the inherent realities of the cryptocurrency space which continue to prove themselves out as Bitcoin has risen from $300 to over $50,000 USD. Bitcoin is digital gold, and every altcoin is low-key trying to become that by calling attention to their "utility" which virtually no one has ever made any “use” of. Which is why Bitcoin remains the #1 coin by market cap, and virtually every other cryptocurrency is down c. 70% from their all-time highs (BTC-denominated ofc, because no other metric counts). [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keynesian_beauty_contest https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keynesian_beauty_contest

baby 6y ago
I guess you’ve never heard about stablecoins?
- atweiden 6y ago
  Tether and Tether copycats command the lion’s share of stablecoin usage. While it’s true Tether isn’t a speculative store of value — custodial risk of Tether notwithstanding — it’s also an IOU, not a cryptocurrency. Contrary to popular belief, alternative free-floating “stablecoins” aren’t actually stable: every major example of one has imploded at least once in times of high market volatility. This makes them speculative. Unstable “stablecoins” are speculative stores of value no different from any other cryptocurrency, but with a twist: the real world usage to virtue signaling ratio equally rounds down to zero, but the profit mechanism is different. You bet on unstable stablecoins by purchasing cooperative pseudo-equities whose value is propped up by all the drum beating that goes on for the closely linked unstable stablecoin itself. (All the examples of unstable “stablecoins” I’m familiar with have shipped such tertiary pseudo-equity coins as investor bait, which IMO explains virtually all of the buzz they seem to have — again no different from any other cryptocurrency.)
  - baby 6y ago
    Well I guess be ready to be proven wrong.

baby 6y ago

I guess you’ve never heard about stablecoins?

atweiden 6y ago
Tether and Tether copycats command the lion’s share of stablecoin usage. While it’s true Tether isn’t a speculative store of value — custodial risk of Tether notwithstanding — it’s also an IOU, not a cryptocurrency. Contrary to popular belief, alternative free-floating “stablecoins” aren’t actually stable: every major example of one has imploded at least once in times of high market volatility. This makes them speculative. Unstable “stablecoins” are speculative stores of value no different from any other cryptocurrency, but with a twist: the real world usage to virtue signaling ratio equally rounds down to zero, but the profit mechanism is different. You bet on unstable stablecoins by purchasing cooperative pseudo-equities whose value is propped up by all the drum beating that goes on for the closely linked unstable stablecoin itself. (All the examples of unstable “stablecoins” I’m familiar with have shipped such tertiary pseudo-equity coins as investor bait, which IMO explains virtually all of the buzz they seem to have — again no different from any other cryptocurrency.)
- baby 6y ago
  Well I guess be ready to be proven wrong.