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Okay so that’s a competing theory to the parent I was replying to, to be clear, though it does seem a better fit for available evidence to my unsophisticated se

Okay so that’s a competing theory to the parent I was replying to, to be clear, though it does seem a better fit for available evidence to my unsophisticated self.

smolder 5y ago
I don't think they're mutually exclusive. If China wants bitcoin to succeed, they would do well to turn a blind eye to people evading currency controls, in order to maximize incentive for their citizens to mine and use it.
- larsiusprime 5y ago
  That makes sense, but it seems like an unstable temporary situation? If what you say is true there’s a tension- crypto can help unseat USD as the global reserve currency, but a huge part of crypto’s value is because... Chinese oligarchs can use it to transmute their renminbi into USD? What am I missing?
  - smolder 5y ago
    I'm on pretty shaky ground hypothesizing further, but if it were the case, they must believe whatever they cede through allowing the circumvention is worth the outcome. Would trading Chinese-mined BTC (on equipment largely produced in China) for USD necessarily be good for the dollar?
  - inter_netuser 5y ago
    The value of Bitcoin comes from the fact it can provide strong property rights to anyone in the world. There are many countries where the governments have failed to secure property rights appropriately, mismanage their currencies, embezzle public funds, and abuse their citizens in so many other ways. It's disgusting. Citizens of those countries can opt-in and benefit from Bitcoin and security guarantees it provides. Billions, quite literally billions, of such people live in such situation today. They have no economic security. No property rights. Even the land they live on gets confiscated every now and then. ....how is granting strong property rights to the less fortunate of the world is not one of the most valuable things in the world? Bitcoin is a freedom technology, disguised as get-rich-quick scheme.
    - sjfidsfkds 5y ago
      This is the best pro-bitcoin argument I’ve heard in a long time! One big question I have is why bitcoin specifically has the value and not other cryptocurrencies. Others provide the same technical security guarantees. Bitcoin has a lot of hash power, which is nice, but that doesn’t seem to provide much additional security compared to other major cryptos, especially if the government of China can ruin it at any time. Why not Etherium, which has a lot of additional useful features? Or some other crypto with lower fees and a higher transaction capacity? One that’s carbon-neutral? I buy that bitcoin is important (I do own some), but I don’t see why the value should go up, or that it should end up being worth a big proportion of the benefit that cryptocurrency brings to humanity.
      - atweiden 5y ago
        Bitcoin is the #1 SoV because: 1) it was launched fairly by a person who uniquely had no reasonable expectation of profit when doing so, 2) it was launched first, giving it first-mover advantage, and 3) its proprietors made the very wise choice from 2015-2017 of censoring their populist opponents pushing for Bitcoin to become PayPal 2.0, and instead euphemistically refering to Bitcoin as “digital gold” — the speculative store of value to end all speculative stores of value The very fact you’ve asked this question in full knowledge of owning both BTC and altcoins whilst also alluding to altcoins being more valuable, and the fact readers can only possibly act on your narrative by investing in the coins to which you allude — obviously only as a speculative store of value — just goes to show why Bitcoin is #1. Cryptocurrencies are simply nothing more than speculative stores of value, there are no exceptions.
    - lottin 5y ago
      Bitcoin provides literally no property rights. All bitcoin does is say this address has that many bitcoins (in this particular blockchain).
      - inter_netuser 5y ago
        It doesn't provide any property rights? Well then, why don't you go ahead and help yourself with some billions in Bitcoin from Musk's personal holdings? Should be easy, according to you. I think you'll find that it's much much easier to repossess a house, rather than repossess a bitcoin address with billions. Here's a detailed analysis by a law professor from a reputable law school on Bitcoin as a property rights system: https://scholarship.shu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1676&context=shlr https://scholarship.shu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1676...

Okay so that’s a competing theory to the parent I was replying to, to be clear, though it does seem a better fit for available evidence to my unsophisticated self.

smolder 5y ago

I don't think they're mutually exclusive. If China wants bitcoin to succeed, they would do well to turn a blind eye to people evading currency controls, in order to maximize incentive for their citizens to mine and use it.

larsiusprime 5y ago
That makes sense, but it seems like an unstable temporary situation? If what you say is true there’s a tension- crypto can help unseat USD as the global reserve currency, but a huge part of crypto’s value is because... Chinese oligarchs can use it to transmute their renminbi into USD? What am I missing?
- smolder 5y ago
  I'm on pretty shaky ground hypothesizing further, but if it were the case, they must believe whatever they cede through allowing the circumvention is worth the outcome. Would trading Chinese-mined BTC (on equipment largely produced in China) for USD necessarily be good for the dollar?
- inter_netuser 5y ago
  The value of Bitcoin comes from the fact it can provide strong property rights to anyone in the world. There are many countries where the governments have failed to secure property rights appropriately, mismanage their currencies, embezzle public funds, and abuse their citizens in so many other ways. It's disgusting. Citizens of those countries can opt-in and benefit from Bitcoin and security guarantees it provides. Billions, quite literally billions, of such people live in such situation today. They have no economic security. No property rights. Even the land they live on gets confiscated every now and then. ....how is granting strong property rights to the less fortunate of the world is not one of the most valuable things in the world? Bitcoin is a freedom technology, disguised as get-rich-quick scheme.
  - sjfidsfkds 5y ago
    This is the best pro-bitcoin argument I’ve heard in a long time! One big question I have is why bitcoin specifically has the value and not other cryptocurrencies. Others provide the same technical security guarantees. Bitcoin has a lot of hash power, which is nice, but that doesn’t seem to provide much additional security compared to other major cryptos, especially if the government of China can ruin it at any time. Why not Etherium, which has a lot of additional useful features? Or some other crypto with lower fees and a higher transaction capacity? One that’s carbon-neutral? I buy that bitcoin is important (I do own some), but I don’t see why the value should go up, or that it should end up being worth a big proportion of the benefit that cryptocurrency brings to humanity.
    - atweiden 5y ago
      Bitcoin is the #1 SoV because: 1) it was launched fairly by a person who uniquely had no reasonable expectation of profit when doing so, 2) it was launched first, giving it first-mover advantage, and 3) its proprietors made the very wise choice from 2015-2017 of censoring their populist opponents pushing for Bitcoin to become PayPal 2.0, and instead euphemistically refering to Bitcoin as “digital gold” — the speculative store of value to end all speculative stores of value The very fact you’ve asked this question in full knowledge of owning both BTC and altcoins whilst also alluding to altcoins being more valuable, and the fact readers can only possibly act on your narrative by investing in the coins to which you allude — obviously only as a speculative store of value — just goes to show why Bitcoin is #1. Cryptocurrencies are simply nothing more than speculative stores of value, there are no exceptions.
  - lottin 5y ago
    Bitcoin provides literally no property rights. All bitcoin does is say this address has that many bitcoins (in this particular blockchain).
    - inter_netuser 5y ago
      It doesn't provide any property rights? Well then, why don't you go ahead and help yourself with some billions in Bitcoin from Musk's personal holdings? Should be easy, according to you. I think you'll find that it's much much easier to repossess a house, rather than repossess a bitcoin address with billions. Here's a detailed analysis by a law professor from a reputable law school on Bitcoin as a property rights system: https://scholarship.shu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1676&context=shlr https://scholarship.shu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1676...