5 ms·

> makes BTC fiat Did I miss a memo? Or is this a sort of Freduian slip wherein you said 'fiat' when you meant to say 'official'? It seems to me that we've be

by jMyles 5y ago

> makes BTC fiat Did I miss a memo? Or is this a sort of Freduian slip wherein you said 'fiat' when you meant to say 'official'? It seems to me that we've been conditioned to conflate the two.

oogabooga123 5y ago
That’s what “fiat” means. Did you have a Freudian slip wherein you said “fiat” when you meant to say “debt based central bank monetary system”?
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- jMyles 5y ago
  From MW for 'fiat'[0]: > a command or act of will that creates something without or as if without further effort A fiat currency is one whose supply can be inflated by a command or act of will. The supply of Bitcoin cannot be inflated in this manner, so it's not a fiat currency. As properties, official and fiat are orthogonal. A currency can be one, or both, or neither. 0: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fiat https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fiat
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    “Fiat money is government-issued currency that is not backed by a physical commodity, such as gold or silver, but rather by the government that issued it”. [0] (Commodity-representative/redeemable currencies cam be created at will, but are also not fiat money.) Bitcoin is not fiat money, but not for the reason you present, which tries to use a definition of fiat from outside of the specific context to create a new definition for it in this context, where it has a well-established definition. [0] https://www.investopedia.com/terms/f/fiatmoney.asp#:~:text=Fiat%20money%20is%20a%20government,U.S.%20dollar%2C%20are%20fiat%20currencies https://www.investopedia.com/terms/f/fiatmoney.asp#:~:text=F....
    - jMyles 5y ago
      > can be inflated by a command or act of will > not backed by a physical commodity Aren't these two ways of stating the same monetary property? The reason that fiat currencies can be created by fiat is they aren't backed by anything. > Commodity-representative/redeemable currencies cam be created at will No they certainly can not. Not without an actual supply of the commodity. At least not in the case of redeemables. Obviously some 'representative' currencies, like those that Zimbabwe has tried, have ended up turning into fiat.
      - dragonwriter 5y ago
        > > Commodity-representative/redeemable currencies cam be created at will > No they certainly can not. Not without an actual supply of the commodity. Yes they can. (And there is plenty of historical example of that happening.) Heck, pre-state-monopoly banknotes were essentially a redeemable virtual currency over the currency in which they were denominated which often relied very heavily on this trait. There is a risk associated with doing so, but that's also true of fiat currency, though the exact failure mode is different.
NovemberWhiskey 5y ago
If Bitcoin is money, then it is absolutely fiat money and always has been. The alternatives would be that it is commodity money (which is not the case because you can't use a Bitcoin other than exchange it for something else) or representative money (which is not the case because Bitcoin isn't backed by anything else for which it can exchanged). Up to this point, it's been a rather degenerate case of fiat money because the agreement that it has value has not been governmentally backed. But now that's no longer the case. Congrats, Bitcoin, you now absolutely meet all the requirements of fiat money!
- jMyles 5y ago
  By whose fiat can the supply of Bitcoin be inflated? And are precious metals fiat by the standard you've laid out? Or are they commodities strictly on thin premise that you can use silver as a disinfectant, etc?
  - NovemberWhiskey 5y ago
    >By whose fiat can the supply of Bitcoin be inflated? That's not what "fiat" means in this context. Fiat money is simply money that is asserted to be valuable. Control over issuance of money by those who assert the value of money is not an essential element of fiat money. For example, the US dollar is adopted as the currency of the Republic of Palau, and yet the Republic of Palau has no control over the US dollar. Does that suggest to you that, in Palau, the US dollar is not the fiat currency? >And are precious metals fiat by the standard you've laid out? Or are they commodities strictly on thin premise that you can use silver as a disinfectant, etc? Precious metals are not money; they're commodities. No-one thinks they're money. The question "are precious metals fiat?" is meaningless.
    - jMyles 5y ago
      > Fiat money is simply money that is asserted to be valuable. No. This is absolutely not the historical or academic definition of this term. From investopedia: > Fiat money gives central banks greater control over the economy because they can control how much money is printed. [0] To (in the passive voice, no less) that any money which "is asserted to be valuable" is fiat money makes every object ever valued by any human into fiat money. Moreover, it manufactures consent because it takes away the crucial ability to talk about money which can be capriciously inflated vs. money which cannot. And being in the latter category is, according to Bitcoin proponents (heck, according to me), among Bitcoin's strengths. 0: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/f/fiatmoney.asp https://www.investopedia.com/terms/f/fiatmoney.asp

by jMyles 5y ago

> makes BTC fiat Did I miss a memo? Or is this a sort of Freduian slip wherein you said 'fiat' when you meant to say 'official'? It seems to me that we've been conditioned to conflate the two.

oogabooga123 5y ago

That’s what “fiat” means. Did you have a Freudian slip wherein you said “fiat” when you meant to say “debt based central bank monetary system”?

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
jMyles 5y ago
From MW for 'fiat'[0]: > a command or act of will that creates something without or as if without further effort A fiat currency is one whose supply can be inflated by a command or act of will. The supply of Bitcoin cannot be inflated in this manner, so it's not a fiat currency. As properties, official and fiat are orthogonal. A currency can be one, or both, or neither. 0: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fiat https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fiat
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  “Fiat money is government-issued currency that is not backed by a physical commodity, such as gold or silver, but rather by the government that issued it”. [0] (Commodity-representative/redeemable currencies cam be created at will, but are also not fiat money.) Bitcoin is not fiat money, but not for the reason you present, which tries to use a definition of fiat from outside of the specific context to create a new definition for it in this context, where it has a well-established definition. [0] https://www.investopedia.com/terms/f/fiatmoney.asp#:~:text=Fiat%20money%20is%20a%20government,U.S.%20dollar%2C%20are%20fiat%20currencies https://www.investopedia.com/terms/f/fiatmoney.asp#:~:text=F....
  - jMyles 5y ago
    > can be inflated by a command or act of will > not backed by a physical commodity Aren't these two ways of stating the same monetary property? The reason that fiat currencies can be created by fiat is they aren't backed by anything. > Commodity-representative/redeemable currencies cam be created at will No they certainly can not. Not without an actual supply of the commodity. At least not in the case of redeemables. Obviously some 'representative' currencies, like those that Zimbabwe has tried, have ended up turning into fiat.
    - dragonwriter 5y ago
      > > Commodity-representative/redeemable currencies cam be created at will > No they certainly can not. Not without an actual supply of the commodity. Yes they can. (And there is plenty of historical example of that happening.) Heck, pre-state-monopoly banknotes were essentially a redeemable virtual currency over the currency in which they were denominated which often relied very heavily on this trait. There is a risk associated with doing so, but that's also true of fiat currency, though the exact failure mode is different.

NovemberWhiskey 5y ago

If Bitcoin is money, then it is absolutely fiat money and always has been. The alternatives would be that it is commodity money (which is not the case because you can't use a Bitcoin other than exchange it for something else) or representative money (which is not the case because Bitcoin isn't backed by anything else for which it can exchanged). Up to this point, it's been a rather degenerate case of fiat money because the agreement that it has value has not been governmentally backed. But now that's no longer the case. Congrats, Bitcoin, you now absolutely meet all the requirements of fiat money!

jMyles 5y ago
By whose fiat can the supply of Bitcoin be inflated? And are precious metals fiat by the standard you've laid out? Or are they commodities strictly on thin premise that you can use silver as a disinfectant, etc?
- NovemberWhiskey 5y ago
  >By whose fiat can the supply of Bitcoin be inflated? That's not what "fiat" means in this context. Fiat money is simply money that is asserted to be valuable. Control over issuance of money by those who assert the value of money is not an essential element of fiat money. For example, the US dollar is adopted as the currency of the Republic of Palau, and yet the Republic of Palau has no control over the US dollar. Does that suggest to you that, in Palau, the US dollar is not the fiat currency? >And are precious metals fiat by the standard you've laid out? Or are they commodities strictly on thin premise that you can use silver as a disinfectant, etc? Precious metals are not money; they're commodities. No-one thinks they're money. The question "are precious metals fiat?" is meaningless.
  - jMyles 5y ago
    > Fiat money is simply money that is asserted to be valuable. No. This is absolutely not the historical or academic definition of this term. From investopedia: > Fiat money gives central banks greater control over the economy because they can control how much money is printed. [0] To (in the passive voice, no less) that any money which "is asserted to be valuable" is fiat money makes every object ever valued by any human into fiat money. Moreover, it manufactures consent because it takes away the crucial ability to talk about money which can be capriciously inflated vs. money which cannot. And being in the latter category is, according to Bitcoin proponents (heck, according to me), among Bitcoin's strengths. 0: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/f/fiatmoney.asp https://www.investopedia.com/terms/f/fiatmoney.asp