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Thing is, though, USD is controlled by an even smaller group. Between BTC and fiat, BTC seems like a safer choice at the moment - at the very minimum you can't

by m0zg 5y ago

Thing is, though, USD is controlled by an even smaller group. Between BTC and fiat, BTC seems like a safer choice at the moment - at the very minimum you can't just go ahead and double the supply. Obvs, not financial advice and all that.

ehnto 5y ago
It seems like Bitcoin's value is at least partly based on it being fungible to USD. Even though you can technically turn it into many currencies, would a halved USD value not influence the value of BTC as well?
- m0zg 5y ago
  It would affect its value wrt USD for sure, by driving it higher. Bitcoin is, at this point, the new "gold standard", and that is by design. You can increase the supply some, but it's exponentially hard to do so, just like with gold - all the easy deposits are long gone. Whereas increasing the supply of USD boils down to a single database "update" statement. I'm exaggerating for dramatic effect, obviously, but not by all that much.
KennyBlanken 5y ago
> Thing is, though, USD is controlled by an even smaller group You can't "control" a currency as widely used as the USD. The Fed (and other countries, and large enough institutions) can try to influence it. The chair of the Fed doesn't just wake up one morning and say "you know, I think I'll do X to the value of the USD." US monetary policy in the very simplest sense is controlled by a small group (governors of the fed) but those people are nominated by the president, appointed by congress. We know who they are, and they do not operate in an isolation chamber. The president can remove them, though not without potential economic and political repercussions. Their actions have to pass muster with a lot of people - for example, investors on the stock market, other countries (ex: China holds a foreign reserve of over a trillion dollars. That is a fairly sizeable lever. But using that lever, again, has repercussions.) The people who control Bitcoin and do the majority of the mining aren't even known. We have no idea how many of them there really are (as pointed out in the article, one person could have an unlimited number of addresses.) There are effectively no repercussions for their actions other than the value of BTC changing. We have no idea if they are colluding. There's nothing whatsoever anyone can do to influence them from taking action that are not in the best interests of stability, the currency, the people using the currency, etc. Someone mentioned recently that a couple of years ago, some people coordinated enough between themselves that they were able to force a rollback of the blockchain...
- m0zg 5y ago
  You do you, man, no one is stopping you if that's what you believe. Just don't be surprised when hundred trillion dollar notes enter circulation. https://www.thehoopsnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Zimbabwe-Dollar.jpeg https://www.thehoopsnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Zimb...

by m0zg 5y ago

ehnto 5y ago

It seems like Bitcoin's value is at least partly based on it being fungible to USD. Even though you can technically turn it into many currencies, would a halved USD value not influence the value of BTC as well?

m0zg 5y ago
It would affect its value wrt USD for sure, by driving it higher. Bitcoin is, at this point, the new "gold standard", and that is by design. You can increase the supply some, but it's exponentially hard to do so, just like with gold - all the easy deposits are long gone. Whereas increasing the supply of USD boils down to a single database "update" statement. I'm exaggerating for dramatic effect, obviously, but not by all that much.

KennyBlanken 5y ago

> Thing is, though, USD is controlled by an even smaller group You can't "control" a currency as widely used as the USD. The Fed (and other countries, and large enough institutions) can try to influence it. The chair of the Fed doesn't just wake up one morning and say "you know, I think I'll do X to the value of the USD." US monetary policy in the very simplest sense is controlled by a small group (governors of the fed) but those people are nominated by the president, appointed by congress. We know who they are, and they do not operate in an isolation chamber. The president can remove them, though not without potential economic and political repercussions. Their actions have to pass muster with a lot of people - for example, investors on the stock market, other countries (ex: China holds a foreign reserve of over a trillion dollars. That is a fairly sizeable lever. But using that lever, again, has repercussions.) The people who control Bitcoin and do the majority of the mining aren't even known. We have no idea how many of them there really are (as pointed out in the article, one person could have an unlimited number of addresses.) There are effectively no repercussions for their actions other than the value of BTC changing. We have no idea if they are colluding. There's nothing whatsoever anyone can do to influence them from taking action that are not in the best interests of stability, the currency, the people using the currency, etc. Someone mentioned recently that a couple of years ago, some people coordinated enough between themselves that they were able to force a rollback of the blockchain...

m0zg 5y ago
You do you, man, no one is stopping you if that's what you believe. Just don't be surprised when hundred trillion dollar notes enter circulation. https://www.thehoopsnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Zimbabwe-Dollar.jpeg https://www.thehoopsnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Zimb...