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Yes, but because it's centralized, there can be more USD printed and that's how destabilization works. Let me give you an example. Chuck E. Cheese tokens are h

Yes, but because it's centralized, there can be more USD printed and that's how destabilization works. Let me give you an example. Chuck E. Cheese tokens are hardly worth anything. They're a terrible store of value. Why is this? Because Mr. Cheese can direct more to be minted at any time in an attempt to quantitatively ease the Chuck E. Cheese economy. One day, Chuck E. Cheese will go out of business for good, and no more of his tokens will be minted. At that point the value will stabilize and, relative to depreciating assets like USD, stocks, bonds, or other things that aren't types of coin, it'll actually skyrocket. Limited supply equals stable or increasing value, forever.

SketchySeaBeast 6y ago
But every USD will be the same price as every other regardless if they are devalued, that was your initial point. Same with Chuck E. Cheese. Same with Bitcoin. In fact, Bitcoin, which is largely treated as a commodity, could be greatly reduced in price if a lot of the currently unmoving coins flooded the market causing them to lose value. They'd still be worth 1 BTC of course, but that has no value in itself.
- rspeele 6y ago
  It's the law of supply and expand. Any object is worth approximately (all the world's wealth) / (number of that object in existence). This guarantees Bitcoin will always have value since supply is limited to 21 million. It's also why my cheese tokens become sound money if Chuck E. Cheese goes bankrupt and is no longer operating, but they're junk right now while they can still be used to play arcade games. It's also why I'm forking a new version of Bitcoin with the supply limited to 21 thousand. It's also got stable value and currently isn't trading for much but I'm holding it with the expectation that the value of every other asset in existence will rapidly depreciate soon.
  - SketchySeaBeast 6y ago
    Objects are only worth what people would pay for them - rarity is only one factor. Bitcoin forks are even less compelling as anyone can make them at any time - there is an infinite number of them. So the actual supply isn't 21,000 of your bitcoin, it's all the possibly forked version of bitcoins. Some of those may gain popularity, but I have no idea why you think yours would be.
    - iso1631 6y ago
      Sarcasm
      - SketchySeaBeast 6y ago
        You could say that in this case, but just below is someone arguing that Bitcoin is special because of some nature it has that nothing else does when it comes to 1 BTC == 1 BTC.
iso1631 6y ago
If the USD was really unstable because of printing, its value compared with the NZD (which hasn't had such printing) would have collapsed. Before covid it was 1.6 NZ to the US, now it's about 1.4 - so a loss of about 10%. If you had 1600 NZD in 2019 and bought USD, kept it under the matress, and sold it, you'd have lost NZD200. That's not great, but it's a similar range of NZD vs AUD, NZD vs CHF, CHF vs USD, etc. Now if you had 1600BTC in 2019 and bought USD, well that's tricky -- when in 2019? In Jan 2019 it was about 3500, by May 2019 it was about 5000 USD to the BTC, in June it was about 10,000, it fluctuated by about 20% over summer, dropped back to 7,000 in December. It stayed in that whole 7k-14k range until November 2020 when it ballooned upto about 60k over the next few months. In the last couple of years, gold has gone from about 1200 to 1700, 40% change in the last 2 years. Silver about 30%. Other currencies that haven't had printing about 20% fluctuation. Rice about 20%, Wheat about 40%, Soy about 50% - those comodities do fluctuate a fair bit over long time though. Bitcoin has increased around 1,000%. That's so far out from EVERYTHING ELSE that it isn't currencies shifting, it's crypto.

SketchySeaBeast 6y ago

But every USD will be the same price as every other regardless if they are devalued, that was your initial point. Same with Chuck E. Cheese. Same with Bitcoin. In fact, Bitcoin, which is largely treated as a commodity, could be greatly reduced in price if a lot of the currently unmoving coins flooded the market causing them to lose value. They'd still be worth 1 BTC of course, but that has no value in itself.

rspeele 6y ago
It's the law of supply and expand. Any object is worth approximately (all the world's wealth) / (number of that object in existence). This guarantees Bitcoin will always have value since supply is limited to 21 million. It's also why my cheese tokens become sound money if Chuck E. Cheese goes bankrupt and is no longer operating, but they're junk right now while they can still be used to play arcade games. It's also why I'm forking a new version of Bitcoin with the supply limited to 21 thousand. It's also got stable value and currently isn't trading for much but I'm holding it with the expectation that the value of every other asset in existence will rapidly depreciate soon.
- SketchySeaBeast 6y ago
  Objects are only worth what people would pay for them - rarity is only one factor. Bitcoin forks are even less compelling as anyone can make them at any time - there is an infinite number of them. So the actual supply isn't 21,000 of your bitcoin, it's all the possibly forked version of bitcoins. Some of those may gain popularity, but I have no idea why you think yours would be.
  - iso1631 6y ago
    Sarcasm
    - SketchySeaBeast 6y ago
      You could say that in this case, but just below is someone arguing that Bitcoin is special because of some nature it has that nothing else does when it comes to 1 BTC == 1 BTC.

iso1631 6y ago

If the USD was really unstable because of printing, its value compared with the NZD (which hasn't had such printing) would have collapsed. Before covid it was 1.6 NZ to the US, now it's about 1.4 - so a loss of about 10%. If you had 1600 NZD in 2019 and bought USD, kept it under the matress, and sold it, you'd have lost NZD200. That's not great, but it's a similar range of NZD vs AUD, NZD vs CHF, CHF vs USD, etc. Now if you had 1600BTC in 2019 and bought USD, well that's tricky -- when in 2019? In Jan 2019 it was about 3500, by May 2019 it was about 5000 USD to the BTC, in June it was about 10,000, it fluctuated by about 20% over summer, dropped back to 7,000 in December. It stayed in that whole 7k-14k range until November 2020 when it ballooned upto about 60k over the next few months. In the last couple of years, gold has gone from about 1200 to 1700, 40% change in the last 2 years. Silver about 30%. Other currencies that haven't had printing about 20% fluctuation. Rice about 20%, Wheat about 40%, Soy about 50% - those comodities do fluctuate a fair bit over long time though. Bitcoin has increased around 1,000%. That's so far out from EVERYTHING ELSE that it isn't currencies shifting, it's crypto.