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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 th

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.
Sammi 6y ago
There are uncountable Bitocoin copies, but none of them are worth anything because of Network Effects, also called Metcalfe's Law: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metcalfe%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metcalfe%27s_law The value of Bitcoin comes from the same place as the value of any network. The amount of connections in the network is the value of the network. E.g. any social network. A Bitcoin copy has no connections in it, so it doesn't have any value.

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.

Sammi 6y ago

There are uncountable Bitocoin copies, but none of them are worth anything because of Network Effects, also called Metcalfe's Law: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metcalfe%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metcalfe%27s_law The value of Bitcoin comes from the same place as the value of any network. The amount of connections in the network is the value of the network. E.g. any social network. A Bitcoin copy has no connections in it, so it doesn't have any value.