7 ms·

I can live in a house. I can't live in a Bitcoin.

by nick0garvey 6y ago

brudgers 6y ago
You can live in a car. You can’t drive a house.
- knicholes 6y ago
  Motor home, then, to cover both bases.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
anonporridge 6y ago
Yes, but you also can't take your house with you stored in your brain if you have to flee the country. Bitcoin as chaos insurance (or schmuck insurance as Chamath calls it) is the use case that makes the most sense to me.
- microtherion 6y ago
  Then again, you rarely have to dig through a garbage dump for your house because you accidentally threw it out: https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/15/uk-man-makes-last-ditch-effort-to-recover-lost-bitcoin-hard-drive.html https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/15/uk-man-makes-last-ditch-effo...
  - anonporridge 6y ago
    True, but houses burn down all the time. Or get destroyed by "acts of god" that insurance won't cover. If you backup your private key in a redundant way, multiple storage locations can be completely destroyed without any loss. If you were really paranoid, you could distribute it around the world to mitigate geographic and geopolitical risk.
- Grustaf 6y ago
  People having to flee the country are not a big customer demographic for either of the companies.
  - anonporridge 6y ago
    In America, there may not be tons of people ready to flee, but we do have a culture of valuing the people having checks against government power (see second amendment). So, that's what I think is more likely the mentality of western people holding long term. A check against incompetent government.
- mtnGoat 6y ago
  do you really think if the sh*t hit the fan? the entire BTC network and the internet at large would still be working for you to transfer these units around? this to me is where the comparison to gold falls off. i can hold physical gold and silver and trade it at will even without power, pricing updates, etc. this does not apply to crypto. considering cutting internet access is now a normal thing during unrest, being able to pay with anything that is not physical, probably wont work out.
  - anonporridge 6y ago
    It depends on the scale of shit hitting the fan. If the global internet goes down and stays down, then I think it's safe to say that global civilization is permanently collapsing, in which case billions of people are going to die in the resulting famine and the survivors probably won't be able to maintain enough technology to survive long term as climate change continues to snowball. In this scenario, yeah bitcoin is worthless. But so is gold. The only thing worth stockpiling for this scenario is brass and lead (and a strong local community of other preppers who can organize into a new micro state after the collapse). And even then, you have to ask if the reward of surviving is even worth the cost of prepping.
    - mtnGoat 6y ago
      it wouldn't even take a global internet shortage, just your country to go offline, how you gonna pay someone to get you out(keep you safe, etc) if you cant transfer your crypto to them? A few ounces of gold on the other hand will take you anywhere you want to go. Crypto is far from a safe hedge in any type of crazy event. you see, gold can still be traded without power and internet, as could cash or really anything physical, as the value is assigned by those trading it at that time for whatever use they have but BTC is totally useless, toilet paper would literally have more value. brass/lead(killing people) isn't the only way to survive.
      - Johnny555 6y ago
        just your country to go offline, how you gonna pay someone to get you out(keep you safe, etc).... A few ounces of gold on the other hand will take you anywhere you want to go People keep using that argument about gold, but is it really realistic? If the SHTF and the USA goes dark for whatever reason, how good is gold really going to be? First, how does someone know you're really giving them pure gold and not some worthless alloy that looks and feels like gold? Second, how much is gold going to be worth? Will a gold bar buy you a house, or a loaf of bread? (probably not a good example, after a month or so, houses will probably be less valuable than food) And without any government to enforce a stable market, how will you even trade safely when the guy who has all the stuff you want can just hit you over the head and take your gold and whatever other possessions you may have with you? Eventually these things would be sorted out by forming some sort of communal groups for protection and resource gathering, and barter prices will eventually be set, but will the guy with the most gold be valuable, or the guy with real survival skills (or at least some more immediately usable possessions like weapons, farming tools, etc)? For the short term disruptions that are far more likely (like a regional power outage), cash is probably going to be just as good or better than gold because it's got an accepted value and everyone knows what it is (product values may rise, but in a society that's not used to using gold as currency with infrastructure to do so, it's a lot easier to sell a loaf of bread for $60 than for a gram of gold)

I can live in a house. I can't live in a Bitcoin.

brudgers 6y ago

You can live in a car. You can’t drive a house.

knicholes 6y ago
Motor home, then, to cover both bases.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

anonporridge 6y ago

Yes, but you also can't take your house with you stored in your brain if you have to flee the country. Bitcoin as chaos insurance (or schmuck insurance as Chamath calls it) is the use case that makes the most sense to me.

microtherion 6y ago
Then again, you rarely have to dig through a garbage dump for your house because you accidentally threw it out: https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/15/uk-man-makes-last-ditch-effort-to-recover-lost-bitcoin-hard-drive.html https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/15/uk-man-makes-last-ditch-effo...
- anonporridge 6y ago
  True, but houses burn down all the time. Or get destroyed by "acts of god" that insurance won't cover. If you backup your private key in a redundant way, multiple storage locations can be completely destroyed without any loss. If you were really paranoid, you could distribute it around the world to mitigate geographic and geopolitical risk.
Grustaf 6y ago
People having to flee the country are not a big customer demographic for either of the companies.
- anonporridge 6y ago
  In America, there may not be tons of people ready to flee, but we do have a culture of valuing the people having checks against government power (see second amendment). So, that's what I think is more likely the mentality of western people holding long term. A check against incompetent government.
mtnGoat 6y ago
do you really think if the sh*t hit the fan? the entire BTC network and the internet at large would still be working for you to transfer these units around? this to me is where the comparison to gold falls off. i can hold physical gold and silver and trade it at will even without power, pricing updates, etc. this does not apply to crypto. considering cutting internet access is now a normal thing during unrest, being able to pay with anything that is not physical, probably wont work out.
- anonporridge 6y ago
  It depends on the scale of shit hitting the fan. If the global internet goes down and stays down, then I think it's safe to say that global civilization is permanently collapsing, in which case billions of people are going to die in the resulting famine and the survivors probably won't be able to maintain enough technology to survive long term as climate change continues to snowball. In this scenario, yeah bitcoin is worthless. But so is gold. The only thing worth stockpiling for this scenario is brass and lead (and a strong local community of other preppers who can organize into a new micro state after the collapse). And even then, you have to ask if the reward of surviving is even worth the cost of prepping.
  - mtnGoat 6y ago
    it wouldn't even take a global internet shortage, just your country to go offline, how you gonna pay someone to get you out(keep you safe, etc) if you cant transfer your crypto to them? A few ounces of gold on the other hand will take you anywhere you want to go. Crypto is far from a safe hedge in any type of crazy event. you see, gold can still be traded without power and internet, as could cash or really anything physical, as the value is assigned by those trading it at that time for whatever use they have but BTC is totally useless, toilet paper would literally have more value. brass/lead(killing people) isn't the only way to survive.
    - Johnny555 6y ago
      just your country to go offline, how you gonna pay someone to get you out(keep you safe, etc).... A few ounces of gold on the other hand will take you anywhere you want to go People keep using that argument about gold, but is it really realistic? If the SHTF and the USA goes dark for whatever reason, how good is gold really going to be? First, how does someone know you're really giving them pure gold and not some worthless alloy that looks and feels like gold? Second, how much is gold going to be worth? Will a gold bar buy you a house, or a loaf of bread? (probably not a good example, after a month or so, houses will probably be less valuable than food) And without any government to enforce a stable market, how will you even trade safely when the guy who has all the stuff you want can just hit you over the head and take your gold and whatever other possessions you may have with you? Eventually these things would be sorted out by forming some sort of communal groups for protection and resource gathering, and barter prices will eventually be set, but will the guy with the most gold be valuable, or the guy with real survival skills (or at least some more immediately usable possessions like weapons, farming tools, etc)? For the short term disruptions that are far more likely (like a regional power outage), cash is probably going to be just as good or better than gold because it's got an accepted value and everyone knows what it is (product values may rise, but in a society that's not used to using gold as currency with infrastructure to do so, it's a lot easier to sell a loaf of bread for $60 than for a gram of gold)