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The ability to buy something? BTC is not a currency at least in the US. With cash you can actually buy something. BTC is a collectable investment where the sel

by sam345 5y ago

The ability to buy something? BTC is not a currency at least in the US. With cash you can actually buy something. BTC is a collectable investment where the seller gets taxed on every transaction. And the only value to BTC is that there are sometimes, depending on the market, a Greater Fool out there to buy it from you. See Tulip Mania.https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_mania https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_mania. Possibly BTC a way to store value between investments or during a currency crisis but the extreme volatility makes that extremely questionable. It seems it's mostly a gamble that a greater Fool will buy from you or, outside of investment/gambling a conduit for illicit transactions, though the publicly available tracking aspect of BTC puts that role in question also.

lowkey 5y ago
Assuming everything you said is true you still haven’t answered my question. If Bitcoin has no intrinsic value, how is that different than fiat? What gives the USD or British pound intrinsic value?
- NovemberWhiskey 5y ago
  The value of the USD is that it's a currency that can be used to buy goods and services. The same is largely not the case for BTC. To the extent that any goods and services are for sale with prices in BTC, they are (in my experience) priced consistently with trading out of BTC into some currency (say USD) and then purchasing the product with proceeds of the sale.
  - herbst 5y ago
    To be fair there are a lot more places in a 1000 miles radius around me taking bitcoin or crypto than there are taking dollars as payment. The relevance of USD, and any currency, is a regional value. And bitcoin is actually widely accepted here in Switzerland
- Twixes 5y ago
  The USD or practically all fiat currencies are an abstraction over barter. Obviously they are only worth as much as we all collectively believe, but that belief is anchored by what the currency primarily is used for, which normally is obtaining goods and services. That's not intrinsic but relatively stable, and central banks try to steer things in a stable way. Meanwhile BTC currently only serves as an abstraction over fiat currencies. It's practically only exchanged from and to fiat currencies, and that's not stable, as popularity is then the only mechanism dictating the price. BTC is much more like gold this way than the dollar.
  - lowkey 5y ago
    > Obviously they are only worth as much as we all collectively believe I agree, which means both fiat currencies and Bitcoin have no intrinsic value, only what we collectively believe. > BTC is more like gold this way than the dollar agree

by sam345 5y ago

lowkey 5y ago

Assuming everything you said is true you still haven’t answered my question. If Bitcoin has no intrinsic value, how is that different than fiat? What gives the USD or British pound intrinsic value?

NovemberWhiskey 5y ago
The value of the USD is that it's a currency that can be used to buy goods and services. The same is largely not the case for BTC. To the extent that any goods and services are for sale with prices in BTC, they are (in my experience) priced consistently with trading out of BTC into some currency (say USD) and then purchasing the product with proceeds of the sale.
- herbst 5y ago
  To be fair there are a lot more places in a 1000 miles radius around me taking bitcoin or crypto than there are taking dollars as payment. The relevance of USD, and any currency, is a regional value. And bitcoin is actually widely accepted here in Switzerland
Twixes 5y ago
The USD or practically all fiat currencies are an abstraction over barter. Obviously they are only worth as much as we all collectively believe, but that belief is anchored by what the currency primarily is used for, which normally is obtaining goods and services. That's not intrinsic but relatively stable, and central banks try to steer things in a stable way. Meanwhile BTC currently only serves as an abstraction over fiat currencies. It's practically only exchanged from and to fiat currencies, and that's not stable, as popularity is then the only mechanism dictating the price. BTC is much more like gold this way than the dollar.
- lowkey 5y ago
  > Obviously they are only worth as much as we all collectively believe I agree, which means both fiat currencies and Bitcoin have no intrinsic value, only what we collectively believe. > BTC is more like gold this way than the dollar agree