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Stocks: * You buy them because they increase earnings and eventually produce dividends at a very high yield to your initial investment. * The company can issu

Stocks: * You buy them because they increase earnings and eventually produce dividends at a very high yield to your initial investment. * The company can issue shares suppressing the price. * The company can do stock buybacks, increasing the price. * Brokers can naked short, suppressing the price. Fiat currency * You need it to pay taxes and debts. * Endless Printing. Gold * Bought because of limited supply. * Supply can be increased by settling futures in fiat, or more gold mining or naked shorting. * Very few have custody. Bitcoin * You buy it not for dividends. * No naked shorting. No stock buybacks because there is no company. Limited new issuance because code=law. Bitcoin's use case is a reliable means of calculating reciprocation for value provided that can't be interfered with by 3rd parties to the transaction via dilution unless they expend meaningful effort by mining.

klyrs 6y ago
You missed the part about fiat where you can carry it in your pocket and exchange it for goods nearly instantaneously, which isn't true of the other three.
- anonytrary 6y ago
  You can only transfer what's in your pocket instantaneously when the recipient is right next to you. The real value of cash is that it is able to be nearly anonymous. Venmo and other services break this anonymity. The only thing cash has on crypto is stronger anonymity.
  - klyrs 6y ago
    No, bitcoin has transparency and every transaction is publicly visible. Privacy is a myth.
    - anonytrary 6y ago
      You clearly read my comment wrong. I said that cash is better than crypto when it comes to privacy and anonymity, which you are agreeing with, so I am not sure why you prefixed your comment with "No".
  - newsbinator 6y ago
    I’m surprised Monero is not more popular. It’s got the positives of Bitcoin, plus it’s as anonymous as cash: simply buying a used book on the street doesn’t welcome the seller to scrutinize your bank account.
    - HeadsUpHigh 6y ago
      I think it is unlikely that crypto in it's current form will become the defacto money. Maybe we'll get the kind of anonymity that monero has or parts of it or corporations that anonymize transactions for a fee( think of it like how a public ip doesn't correspond to an address in a way).
ykevinator3 6y ago
Right but you can make a new crypto out of thin air, you can't do that with gold. There is no value in it because you can just make a new one. It's more fiat than the fiat the kids complain about.
- ralusek 6y ago
  You mean a new cryptocurrency altogether? Sure, but it's not worth squat unless you get tons of people on board. With Bitcoin and Ethereum, they already are.
  - piva00 6y ago
    Basically cryptocurrencies' value are completely related to their network effect. WhatsApp on another comment was a good parallel/analogy, still it sounds a bit flimsy that value is tied to an amorphous network of people trying to earn money by mining, not sure how comfortable I feel with that as the only incentive for a whole network keeping my "store of value" afloat. Even more when this network can collapse at any time due to artifical technical limitations (in BTC's case the block size and low transactions per second count).
    - ralusek 6y ago
      The stock market is more and more detached from the underlying companies that stocks represent, and more and more based on network effect. Most countries currencies are just based off of network effect. Try getting people in Argentina to buy a house using their own currency. Good luck.
- sygma 6y ago
  Right, but you can make a new WhatsApp out of thin air. There is no value in it because you can just make a new one.
  - ykevinator3 6y ago
    Agreed. It's just fashion. Disco will not live forever, some day punk will come along and people with leave disco in droves.
strogonoff 6y ago
> Stocks: you buy them because they increase earnings and eventually produce dividends at a very high yield to your initial investment. No, you buy them because you want to support good, non-nefarious companies with sound business models. (I know that’s idealistic, but focusing purely on speculative uses of stocks is another extreme and paints a very incomplete picture.)
- faustlast 6y ago
  > No, you buy them because you want to support good, non-nefarious companies with sound business models. No, you really are buying the company stock because of current and future profit prospects. None of this supporting thing... a shareholder is just the owner of the share, nothing more.
  - goblin89 6y ago
    Feel free to speak for yourself, but don't make it seem like everyone is the same. There are shareholders buying parts of companies purely for personal gain. They may not care if the business is shady, as long as the stock technically performs well they will join in and try to get out in time so that a less lucky investor is left holding the bag. There are also shareholders who approach investment with other goals in mind. They buy parts of companies that they believe in, maybe because they find the idea valuable and the implementation viable, and/or find the people running the company trustworthy. Under ideal conditions, those objectives align and a well-intentioned and well-managed initiative should succeed. In practice, of course, things don't always work like that. Some companies successfully abuse the system and inflate valuations riding on hype and speculative investments without a fundamentally good business model to back it, while others may fail despite being honest due to factors outside of their control. Investors of the latter kind don't need to be rosy-eyed and buy into companies with noble intentions that they believe will never succeed, but they would be wary of investing into something they know is profitable but ethically questionable.
- jstanley 6y ago
  If that's what you want to do, there's no need to buy shares. You can just donate.
GlennS 6y ago
> The company can issue shares suppressing the price. > The company can do stock buybacks, increasing the price. It's not obvious that these should be true. There are more or less shares around, so we have a change in supply, but the company also has more or less money, which should counteract that. Likely to vary depending on whether or not people believe the company can usefully spend and grow that money. (Not sure what the actual evidence says on this.)

klyrs 6y ago

You missed the part about fiat where you can carry it in your pocket and exchange it for goods nearly instantaneously, which isn't true of the other three.

anonytrary 6y ago
You can only transfer what's in your pocket instantaneously when the recipient is right next to you. The real value of cash is that it is able to be nearly anonymous. Venmo and other services break this anonymity. The only thing cash has on crypto is stronger anonymity.
- klyrs 6y ago
  No, bitcoin has transparency and every transaction is publicly visible. Privacy is a myth.
  - anonytrary 6y ago
    You clearly read my comment wrong. I said that cash is better than crypto when it comes to privacy and anonymity, which you are agreeing with, so I am not sure why you prefixed your comment with "No".
- newsbinator 6y ago
  I’m surprised Monero is not more popular. It’s got the positives of Bitcoin, plus it’s as anonymous as cash: simply buying a used book on the street doesn’t welcome the seller to scrutinize your bank account.
  - HeadsUpHigh 6y ago
    I think it is unlikely that crypto in it's current form will become the defacto money. Maybe we'll get the kind of anonymity that monero has or parts of it or corporations that anonymize transactions for a fee( think of it like how a public ip doesn't correspond to an address in a way).

ykevinator3 6y ago

Right but you can make a new crypto out of thin air, you can't do that with gold. There is no value in it because you can just make a new one. It's more fiat than the fiat the kids complain about.

ralusek 6y ago
You mean a new cryptocurrency altogether? Sure, but it's not worth squat unless you get tons of people on board. With Bitcoin and Ethereum, they already are.
- piva00 6y ago
  Basically cryptocurrencies' value are completely related to their network effect. WhatsApp on another comment was a good parallel/analogy, still it sounds a bit flimsy that value is tied to an amorphous network of people trying to earn money by mining, not sure how comfortable I feel with that as the only incentive for a whole network keeping my "store of value" afloat. Even more when this network can collapse at any time due to artifical technical limitations (in BTC's case the block size and low transactions per second count).
  - ralusek 6y ago
    The stock market is more and more detached from the underlying companies that stocks represent, and more and more based on network effect. Most countries currencies are just based off of network effect. Try getting people in Argentina to buy a house using their own currency. Good luck.
sygma 6y ago
Right, but you can make a new WhatsApp out of thin air. There is no value in it because you can just make a new one.
- ykevinator3 6y ago
  Agreed. It's just fashion. Disco will not live forever, some day punk will come along and people with leave disco in droves.

strogonoff 6y ago

> Stocks: you buy them because they increase earnings and eventually produce dividends at a very high yield to your initial investment. No, you buy them because you want to support good, non-nefarious companies with sound business models. (I know that’s idealistic, but focusing purely on speculative uses of stocks is another extreme and paints a very incomplete picture.)

faustlast 6y ago
> No, you buy them because you want to support good, non-nefarious companies with sound business models. No, you really are buying the company stock because of current and future profit prospects. None of this supporting thing... a shareholder is just the owner of the share, nothing more.
- goblin89 6y ago
  Feel free to speak for yourself, but don't make it seem like everyone is the same. There are shareholders buying parts of companies purely for personal gain. They may not care if the business is shady, as long as the stock technically performs well they will join in and try to get out in time so that a less lucky investor is left holding the bag. There are also shareholders who approach investment with other goals in mind. They buy parts of companies that they believe in, maybe because they find the idea valuable and the implementation viable, and/or find the people running the company trustworthy. Under ideal conditions, those objectives align and a well-intentioned and well-managed initiative should succeed. In practice, of course, things don't always work like that. Some companies successfully abuse the system and inflate valuations riding on hype and speculative investments without a fundamentally good business model to back it, while others may fail despite being honest due to factors outside of their control. Investors of the latter kind don't need to be rosy-eyed and buy into companies with noble intentions that they believe will never succeed, but they would be wary of investing into something they know is profitable but ethically questionable.
jstanley 6y ago
If that's what you want to do, there's no need to buy shares. You can just donate.

GlennS 6y ago

> The company can issue shares suppressing the price. > The company can do stock buybacks, increasing the price. It's not obvious that these should be true. There are more or less shares around, so we have a change in supply, but the company also has more or less money, which should counteract that. Likely to vary depending on whether or not people believe the company can usefully spend and grow that money. (Not sure what the actual evidence says on this.)