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There are a number of Bitcoin variations out there (Bitcoin Cash and BSV) which are tuned in manner that gives faster and cheaper transactions. None of them see

There are a number of Bitcoin variations out there (Bitcoin Cash and BSV) which are tuned in manner that gives faster and cheaper transactions. None of them seem to have caught the eye of investors. My interpretation is that investors like their ponzi and don't really care about whether the technology is useful. I could try and scold them but I don't think it works, therefore I choose just to accept them as they are and see their beauty in their own right. In the money as credit model, the money supply expands and subtracts with economic activity. And the best suited money have price stability so the market of credit can focus "pricing" risk correctly. This model of money could be supported by some kind of cryptocurrency, however right now the investors don't seem to have an appetite for sponsoring that sort of thing.

grey-area 6y ago
You are describing speculation, not investment, and yes there is a difference, though people often lose sight of that during bubbles when the price is all that matters.
- throwaway4good 6y ago
  Speculator, investor ... I don't want to pass judgement. I listen what ARK Invest says, I think they are smart people, but I also think they overshoot.
  - grey-area 6y ago
    Speculator, investor ... I don't want to pass judgement QED
rualca 6y ago
> None of them seem to have caught the eye of investors. That's the problem with this doublespeak, where people intentionally fool themselves into cognitive dissonance. The whole point of currency is not investment. It's the exact opposite of investment. Currency is intended to have stable value over time, because it's whole point is to serve as a unit of account, store value, and serve as a medium to exchange value in an economy. By it's very definition "investing" implies the expectation of profit. Think about it for a second: how can something intended to have a stable value be considered apt for speculation?
- throwaway4good 6y ago
  Not to go into too much detail. But in a debt based system you have bonds and currency. A bond has the risk of not being repaid, speculators speculate in the likelihood of that and their individual decisions give a market price for that bond. Likewise bond may have repayment price-indexed and speculators then speculate indirectly in the currency's price stability. Point is that even with stable prices, there is plenty of room for speculators.
  - rualca 6y ago
    Bonds are not currency. That comparison is even invalid as a strawman. I don't understand why I need to point this out. Even if you feel the need to equate crypto-things to bonds, first you need to argue why buying, say, bitcoins can be argued as lending money to someone, which makes no sense whatsoever. Cryptos are nothing more than speculation vehicle, and it's pretty obvious that they are massively used as a pump-and-dump scheme. The only point in time where cryptos played a relevant role as a currency was way back in the silk road times where cryptos were used with the expectation of laundring transactions. That usecases quickly went out the door ages ago.
  - JackFr 6y ago
    But Bitcoin specifically excludes credit. I put $100 in the bank. The bank lends $50 to an entrepreneur. Now there is $150. That’s the magic of credit. And it’s impossible with Bitcoin.
    - tonfa 6y ago
      > And it’s impossible with Bitcoin. I'm sure bitcoin purist will hate it, but afaik there's a lot of btc being held at exchanges (e.g. coinbase). Technically instead of holding BTC there, you could be holding cBTC (value in a coinbase btc deposit account) and coinbase could issue cBTC loans similar to banks. (The issue is that there's no backstop like in the real world, where central bank can step in as lender of last resort to avoid bank runs)
      - 6y ago
jacquesm 6y ago
In this sense bitcoin is just like any other currency: it works because we all believe it works. The second people stop believing in a currency is when it will implode, there are plenty of historical examples of this.
- iso1631 6y ago
  Bitcoin's value in terms of pizzas you can buy with one has balooned ever since it was created, with massive fluctuations. It's awful as a currency because of that - why would I buy a pizza today when tomorrow I could buy two?
  - jacquesm 6y ago
    Because you are hungry today. If you're going to let the future determine your transaction patterns too much you will quite literally starve in the present. So even in that scenario there will be transactions and people will be happy to take your coin because they too hope that its value will go up. Obviously once a large fraction of world trade would be in a currency like that the currency itself would start to exhibit the same traits as the global economy and this effect would mostly cancel out any inherent properties. Effectively: bitcoin was underpriced at the beginning to the point that it could only go up, the question is how far it will do that before it will have expanded to fill the niches where it fits. As soon as that has happened it will cease to increase.

grey-area 6y ago

You are describing speculation, not investment, and yes there is a difference, though people often lose sight of that during bubbles when the price is all that matters.

throwaway4good 6y ago
Speculator, investor ... I don't want to pass judgement. I listen what ARK Invest says, I think they are smart people, but I also think they overshoot.
- grey-area 6y ago
  Speculator, investor ... I don't want to pass judgement QED

rualca 6y ago

> None of them seem to have caught the eye of investors. That's the problem with this doublespeak, where people intentionally fool themselves into cognitive dissonance. The whole point of currency is not investment. It's the exact opposite of investment. Currency is intended to have stable value over time, because it's whole point is to serve as a unit of account, store value, and serve as a medium to exchange value in an economy. By it's very definition "investing" implies the expectation of profit. Think about it for a second: how can something intended to have a stable value be considered apt for speculation?

throwaway4good 6y ago
Not to go into too much detail. But in a debt based system you have bonds and currency. A bond has the risk of not being repaid, speculators speculate in the likelihood of that and their individual decisions give a market price for that bond. Likewise bond may have repayment price-indexed and speculators then speculate indirectly in the currency's price stability. Point is that even with stable prices, there is plenty of room for speculators.
- rualca 6y ago
  Bonds are not currency. That comparison is even invalid as a strawman. I don't understand why I need to point this out. Even if you feel the need to equate crypto-things to bonds, first you need to argue why buying, say, bitcoins can be argued as lending money to someone, which makes no sense whatsoever. Cryptos are nothing more than speculation vehicle, and it's pretty obvious that they are massively used as a pump-and-dump scheme. The only point in time where cryptos played a relevant role as a currency was way back in the silk road times where cryptos were used with the expectation of laundring transactions. That usecases quickly went out the door ages ago.
- JackFr 6y ago
  But Bitcoin specifically excludes credit. I put $100 in the bank. The bank lends $50 to an entrepreneur. Now there is $150. That’s the magic of credit. And it’s impossible with Bitcoin.
  - tonfa 6y ago
    > And it’s impossible with Bitcoin. I'm sure bitcoin purist will hate it, but afaik there's a lot of btc being held at exchanges (e.g. coinbase). Technically instead of holding BTC there, you could be holding cBTC (value in a coinbase btc deposit account) and coinbase could issue cBTC loans similar to banks. (The issue is that there's no backstop like in the real world, where central bank can step in as lender of last resort to avoid bank runs)
    - 6y ago

jacquesm 6y ago

In this sense bitcoin is just like any other currency: it works because we all believe it works. The second people stop believing in a currency is when it will implode, there are plenty of historical examples of this.

iso1631 6y ago
Bitcoin's value in terms of pizzas you can buy with one has balooned ever since it was created, with massive fluctuations. It's awful as a currency because of that - why would I buy a pizza today when tomorrow I could buy two?
- jacquesm 6y ago
  Because you are hungry today. If you're going to let the future determine your transaction patterns too much you will quite literally starve in the present. So even in that scenario there will be transactions and people will be happy to take your coin because they too hope that its value will go up. Obviously once a large fraction of world trade would be in a currency like that the currency itself would start to exhibit the same traits as the global economy and this effect would mostly cancel out any inherent properties. Effectively: bitcoin was underpriced at the beginning to the point that it could only go up, the question is how far it will do that before it will have expanded to fill the niches where it fits. As soon as that has happened it will cease to increase.