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BTC are like casino chips. When you goto Vegas and at the Bellagio you give them $100 and you get back $100 worth of Bellagio chips, those chips only have valu

BTC are like casino chips. When you goto Vegas and at the Bellagio you give them $100 and you get back $100 worth of Bellagio chips, those chips only have value INSIDE the Bellagio and if you take those chips outside to a 7-eleven and try to pay for a slurpie and a taquito the 7-eleven guy will tell you to get lost we do not accept Bellagio casino chips. 2-cents. BTC value is an illusion they only hold value inside the BTC network and they are worth what the next sucker will pay for it. Yes you can make money from anyone inside the network who's willing to pay more than you did. Maybe i don't know what im talking about but im not the only one. 2-cents.

anonporridge 5y ago
This is great analogy, except the "inside" of bitcoin is constantly growing bigger and assimilating more real world realms. It now includes the entire country of El Salvador. The real magic happens when a nation state starts selling it's exports priced in bitcoin instead of dollars. In fact, Putin was recently asked about exactly this for Russia. He dismissed it as "too early to talk about the trade of energy resources in crypto", but my takeaway from that statement, is that the door is absolutely open. [0] Then again, wanting to sell oil for something other than dollars is probably why the US killed both Saddam Hussein (wanted Euros) and Muammar Gaddafi (wanted gold backed African currency), so we'll see if the US still has enough proof of violence (PoV) to maintain security of the dollar as the global reserve currency. I don't know what I'm talking about either, so this is just my 2 sats. [0] - https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/14/russias-putin-says-crypto-has-value-but-maybe-not-for-trading-oil.html https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/14/russias-putin-says-crypto-ha...
- pkaye 5y ago
  > probably why the US killed both Saddam Hussein (wanted Euros) and Muammar Gaddafi (wanted gold backed African currency)... As far as I understand the Libya military intervention was a NATO mission and the French and British were early proponents of intervention before the US. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_military_intervention_in_Libya https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_military_intervention_in_...
  - totetsu 5y ago
    We came, we saw, he died
ilammy 5y ago
As if any other currency is different. Try to take your cash and pay with it outside your country, people will look just as funny at you. Might be a bit different with currencies like USD, but in many countries it's actually illegal to accept payment in foreign currency.
m0llusk 5y ago
Bellagio has low transaction costs. The relatively small amount of money I have in Bitcoin would cost me more than its value in transaction costs to convert to dollars.
- ashwagary 5y ago
  This may not be true, if you are comfortable sharing the amount, I may be able to help you. Fiat has the same issue depending on the amount being exchanged. Attempting to convert a US penny to Euros can leave you in the same situation.
achenatx 5y ago
actually you used to be able to use poker chips like cash as this article describes and explains why it is no longer allowed. If you try to bring in chips received from other people the casino can choose to not pay you out as the article describes. https://lasvegassun.com/news/2007/mar/09/chips-no-longer-good-cash/ https://lasvegassun.com/news/2007/mar/09/chips-no-longer-goo... <<The harsh lesson he learned is that this isn't old Vegas, where casino chips were the coin of the realm, used to settle debts between friends, buy groceries and pay for haircuts. That culture started to change 20 years ago when Nevada defined tokens as the property of individual casinos and prohibited their use "for any monetary purpose" outside the casino. They were simply intended as stand-ins for cash, loaned to players for the sole purpose of gambling. The regulation was adopted to bring state law in line with federal rules prohibiting the creation of new currencies and with existing casino accounting procedures. The rule also has favorable tax implications for casinos, which aren't taxed on unreturned chips.>> I thought for sure the fed gov would kill bitcoin by banning its use as a "currency" which is why I didnt get in at 25 cents.
- anonporridge 5y ago
  They kind of did. It's defined as property, so every time you spend it, you trigger a taxable event and need to calculate capital gains or losses, which of course can get absurdly complicated if you use it for everyday purchases. That's why most people are using it as a kind of savings account, where they rarely liquidate larger amounts into the local fiat when they need it. Of course, now that's not necessary in El Salvador since it's now a legal tender alongside USD. That's the first country where it's use as a currency can really be tested en masse. Still too early to tell how that's going to work out.
recursive4 5y ago
Yes; BTC is non-fungible with the majority of your potential trading partners. However, depending on your locality, the same can be said about USD, Renminbi, Euro, et al. You are biased in that you are discounting the shifting Overton Window of what your trading partners will accept in the future.
AnonC 5y ago
That analogy fails badly. It could be said of any fiat currency. Take some Japanese Yen to different country where it is not a readily accepted legal tender and give it in a supermarket. I’m sure the response would be the same as what you quoted. The value and the next sucker part also fails for the same reason. You can exchange or even use to pay, say, USD in many countries in shops and street side currency converters of dubious legal standing. They would trade it with the “next sucker” because they’re part of a network that values USD.
nuerow 5y ago
> BTC are like casino chips. When you goto Vegas and at the Bellagio you give them $100 and you get back $100 worth of Bellagio chips (...) This comparison is not valid at all because, unlike any crypto like BTC, the value of Bellagio chips is specified by a central authority (Bellagio itself) which guarantees the exchange between chips and cash with a fixed and very stable exchange rate. With crypto like BTC, not only their value fluctuates wildly and thus fail as a store of value but also the only option you have to exchange them for fiat currency is to sell them to other customers in an open market. The best comparison with BTC is indeed tulips during the Dutch tulip craze: they have no intrinsic market value, their market was highly speculative, and demand was driven by mass hysteria.
- ashwagary 5y ago
  >their value fluctuates wildly and thus fail as a store of value... Sounds like TSLA and many other publicly traded companies are bad stores of value according to that argument. Many people with stock exposure in their retirement portfolio would disagree.
  - sidibe 5y ago
    Stocks aren't supposed to be a store of value
    - ashwagary 5y ago
      Thanks to mismanagement of the US economy, debasement of the dollar, and 0% interest rates, stocks are now used as stores of value because it's impossible to beat the hurdle rate and stay liquid with any other asset. Bitcoin fixes this.
  - nuerow 5y ago
    > Sounds like TSLA and many other publicly traded companies are bad stores of value according to that argument. If you intend to have a serious and honest discussion on crypto then the very least you should do is go acknowledge the frequent crashes that result in halving their market value. For instance, BTC still hasn't recovered from the latest crash a few months ago, when it tanked to half it's value almost overnight. Otherwise, these nin-sequiturs don't lead anywhere.

anonporridge 5y ago

This is great analogy, except the "inside" of bitcoin is constantly growing bigger and assimilating more real world realms. It now includes the entire country of El Salvador. The real magic happens when a nation state starts selling it's exports priced in bitcoin instead of dollars. In fact, Putin was recently asked about exactly this for Russia. He dismissed it as "too early to talk about the trade of energy resources in crypto", but my takeaway from that statement, is that the door is absolutely open. [0] Then again, wanting to sell oil for something other than dollars is probably why the US killed both Saddam Hussein (wanted Euros) and Muammar Gaddafi (wanted gold backed African currency), so we'll see if the US still has enough proof of violence (PoV) to maintain security of the dollar as the global reserve currency. I don't know what I'm talking about either, so this is just my 2 sats. [0] - https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/14/russias-putin-says-crypto-has-value-but-maybe-not-for-trading-oil.html https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/14/russias-putin-says-crypto-ha...

pkaye 5y ago
> probably why the US killed both Saddam Hussein (wanted Euros) and Muammar Gaddafi (wanted gold backed African currency)... As far as I understand the Libya military intervention was a NATO mission and the French and British were early proponents of intervention before the US. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_military_intervention_in_Libya https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_military_intervention_in_...
- totetsu 5y ago
  We came, we saw, he died

ilammy 5y ago

As if any other currency is different. Try to take your cash and pay with it outside your country, people will look just as funny at you. Might be a bit different with currencies like USD, but in many countries it's actually illegal to accept payment in foreign currency.

m0llusk 5y ago

Bellagio has low transaction costs. The relatively small amount of money I have in Bitcoin would cost me more than its value in transaction costs to convert to dollars.

ashwagary 5y ago
This may not be true, if you are comfortable sharing the amount, I may be able to help you. Fiat has the same issue depending on the amount being exchanged. Attempting to convert a US penny to Euros can leave you in the same situation.

achenatx 5y ago

actually you used to be able to use poker chips like cash as this article describes and explains why it is no longer allowed. If you try to bring in chips received from other people the casino can choose to not pay you out as the article describes. https://lasvegassun.com/news/2007/mar/09/chips-no-longer-good-cash/ https://lasvegassun.com/news/2007/mar/09/chips-no-longer-goo... <<The harsh lesson he learned is that this isn't old Vegas, where casino chips were the coin of the realm, used to settle debts between friends, buy groceries and pay for haircuts. That culture started to change 20 years ago when Nevada defined tokens as the property of individual casinos and prohibited their use "for any monetary purpose" outside the casino. They were simply intended as stand-ins for cash, loaned to players for the sole purpose of gambling. The regulation was adopted to bring state law in line with federal rules prohibiting the creation of new currencies and with existing casino accounting procedures. The rule also has favorable tax implications for casinos, which aren't taxed on unreturned chips.>> I thought for sure the fed gov would kill bitcoin by banning its use as a "currency" which is why I didnt get in at 25 cents.

anonporridge 5y ago
They kind of did. It's defined as property, so every time you spend it, you trigger a taxable event and need to calculate capital gains or losses, which of course can get absurdly complicated if you use it for everyday purchases. That's why most people are using it as a kind of savings account, where they rarely liquidate larger amounts into the local fiat when they need it. Of course, now that's not necessary in El Salvador since it's now a legal tender alongside USD. That's the first country where it's use as a currency can really be tested en masse. Still too early to tell how that's going to work out.

recursive4 5y ago

Yes; BTC is non-fungible with the majority of your potential trading partners. However, depending on your locality, the same can be said about USD, Renminbi, Euro, et al. You are biased in that you are discounting the shifting Overton Window of what your trading partners will accept in the future.

AnonC 5y ago

That analogy fails badly. It could be said of any fiat currency. Take some Japanese Yen to different country where it is not a readily accepted legal tender and give it in a supermarket. I’m sure the response would be the same as what you quoted. The value and the next sucker part also fails for the same reason. You can exchange or even use to pay, say, USD in many countries in shops and street side currency converters of dubious legal standing. They would trade it with the “next sucker” because they’re part of a network that values USD.

nuerow 5y ago

> BTC are like casino chips. When you goto Vegas and at the Bellagio you give them $100 and you get back $100 worth of Bellagio chips (...) This comparison is not valid at all because, unlike any crypto like BTC, the value of Bellagio chips is specified by a central authority (Bellagio itself) which guarantees the exchange between chips and cash with a fixed and very stable exchange rate. With crypto like BTC, not only their value fluctuates wildly and thus fail as a store of value but also the only option you have to exchange them for fiat currency is to sell them to other customers in an open market. The best comparison with BTC is indeed tulips during the Dutch tulip craze: they have no intrinsic market value, their market was highly speculative, and demand was driven by mass hysteria.

ashwagary 5y ago
>their value fluctuates wildly and thus fail as a store of value... Sounds like TSLA and many other publicly traded companies are bad stores of value according to that argument. Many people with stock exposure in their retirement portfolio would disagree.
- sidibe 5y ago
  Stocks aren't supposed to be a store of value
  - ashwagary 5y ago
    Thanks to mismanagement of the US economy, debasement of the dollar, and 0% interest rates, stocks are now used as stores of value because it's impossible to beat the hurdle rate and stay liquid with any other asset. Bitcoin fixes this.
- nuerow 5y ago
  > Sounds like TSLA and many other publicly traded companies are bad stores of value according to that argument. If you intend to have a serious and honest discussion on crypto then the very least you should do is go acknowledge the frequent crashes that result in halving their market value. For instance, BTC still hasn't recovered from the latest crash a few months ago, when it tanked to half it's value almost overnight. Otherwise, these nin-sequiturs don't lead anywhere.