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visa, paypal... all provide value in allowing commercial transitions. Exchange of goods and services, digitally or on credit. The value it is providing is elimi

visa, paypal... all provide value in allowing commercial transitions. Exchange of goods and services, digitally or on credit. The value it is providing is eliminating the inefficiency of barter (which cash also does), and allowing remote digital transactions, again good for societal benefit. There is no societal benefit to buying, holding, selling a crypto currency. The thing that could provide societal value is smart contracts - but that has nothing to do with crypto. Visa (or Stripe) could implement smart contracts in javascript on top of their platform and society gets pretty much all of the benefits without needing any of the crypto.

swader999 5y ago
There is value in having a monetary system though. And if BTC is a better system and more people find it's utility for barter or wealth preservation better it might appreciate more in relation to something like the USD which has many different characteristics.
- arcticbull 5y ago
  It's a strictly worse monetary system by any measure. It's massively more expensive to transact, it's unbelievably inefficient - requiring as much power as Thailand and generating as much e-waste as the Netherlands to scribble 2-3 tx/sec into a ledger. That's 60 days of power for the average US household and 1 iPad of e-waste per transaction. [1] [edit](97% of all mining hardware will be thrown away without ever winning a single block reward). If adopted as an actual currency it would immediately lead to a deflationary spiral savaging the job market. [2] Even the dictator of El Salvador wasn't nuts enough to adopt it as an actual currency. All pricing continues to be in USD and exchanged for BTC at the point of sale - and the point of a gun. (Keep in mind legal tender laws in ES require everyone to accept your Bitcoin for purchases or you face criminal charges). To call it wholly unfit for any purpose except exchanging for black tar heroin would be an understatement. [1] https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption [2] https://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/deflationary-spiral.asp https://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/deflationary-spiral.asp
  - FabHK 5y ago
    Given the capacity of the BTC blockchain, if everyone one earth finally adopted BTC (as some people dream about), everyone could get in about one transaction in their lifetime. (3 tx/sec = 3 tx/sec * 31m sec/a = 100m tx/a = 10bn tx/100a, so the network supports 10 bn transactions in about 100 years, and there are about 10bn people on earth, each living around 100 years.)
    - arcticbull 5y ago
      This is also one of the reasons Lightning is not a viable scaling solution. If you don't get your LN channel open soon, you'll be waiting until the year 2120. This will also of course consume 100% of the remaining block reward and almost a trillion dollars in electricity. That, and the quadratic routing complexity.
  - jkhdigital 5y ago
    > 97% of all mining hardware will be thrown away without ever winning a single block reward And fewer than 50% of Thoroughbred horses ever win a single race. This is a silly clickbaity statistic and you know it. Come on, you're better than this arcticbull ;-)
    - wpietri 5y ago
      Horse racing is actually a pretty good analogy here, in that it's essentially pointless and an awful lot more money goes in than comes out. The big difference is that at least horse racing produces a fair bit of entertainment value, and that a lot of people truly love their horses.
    - arcticbull 5y ago
      Is that actually a real statistic about horses? That's fascinating. I wouldn't build a currency on it though ;) Step right up to Horsecoin, fastest horse gets the block!
      - swader999 5y ago
- bduerst 5y ago
  There is value in having a useful monetary system. That ship sailed (multiple times) during the block size debacle for bitcoin, and there isn't nearly enough adoption with other cryptos to make them a useful payment system (aside from Monero if you're doing illegal activities)
sumedh 5y ago
> There is no societal benefit to buying, holding, selling a crypto currency. If you live a country where the govt mismanages the economy and drop the value of the nation's currency then in that case BTC has a lot of value.
- arcticbull 5y ago
  In most of those countries the transaction fee is a non-trivial percentage of the GDP. Using it as a currency there would be economic suicide. And the volatility would be crushing to the poor. They'd be infinitely better off with like USDC or better yet, a USD issued CBDC.
- wpietri 5y ago
  If you live in a country where the government mismanages the economy or the currency, Bitcoin is not a great choice. What most people use in that situation is just a different national currency. This is a well-known phenomenon known as dollarization or currency substitution: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Currency_substitution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Currency_substitution
yellow_postit 5y ago
More and more I wonder if there’s a cultural/community aspect to crypto. Humans are meaning and group seeking animals and there is a hard to break value from that relationship. While some are likely ephemeral (hype coins like shiba) the amount of community formed around ETH and BTC is non-trivial and provides something akin to “value”.
- wpietri 5y ago
  For sure. Bitcoin is in some ways better understood as a religion. If you're interested, I'd suggest the documentary LuLaRich, currently on Amazon Prime Video. It looks at the MLM/pyramid scheme LuLaRoe and does a good job conveying the quasi-religious nature of these things.

swader999 5y ago

There is value in having a monetary system though. And if BTC is a better system and more people find it's utility for barter or wealth preservation better it might appreciate more in relation to something like the USD which has many different characteristics.

arcticbull 5y ago
It's a strictly worse monetary system by any measure. It's massively more expensive to transact, it's unbelievably inefficient - requiring as much power as Thailand and generating as much e-waste as the Netherlands to scribble 2-3 tx/sec into a ledger. That's 60 days of power for the average US household and 1 iPad of e-waste per transaction. [1] [edit](97% of all mining hardware will be thrown away without ever winning a single block reward). If adopted as an actual currency it would immediately lead to a deflationary spiral savaging the job market. [2] Even the dictator of El Salvador wasn't nuts enough to adopt it as an actual currency. All pricing continues to be in USD and exchanged for BTC at the point of sale - and the point of a gun. (Keep in mind legal tender laws in ES require everyone to accept your Bitcoin for purchases or you face criminal charges). To call it wholly unfit for any purpose except exchanging for black tar heroin would be an understatement. [1] https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption [2] https://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/deflationary-spiral.asp https://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/deflationary-spiral.asp
- FabHK 5y ago
  Given the capacity of the BTC blockchain, if everyone one earth finally adopted BTC (as some people dream about), everyone could get in about one transaction in their lifetime. (3 tx/sec = 3 tx/sec * 31m sec/a = 100m tx/a = 10bn tx/100a, so the network supports 10 bn transactions in about 100 years, and there are about 10bn people on earth, each living around 100 years.)
  - arcticbull 5y ago
    This is also one of the reasons Lightning is not a viable scaling solution. If you don't get your LN channel open soon, you'll be waiting until the year 2120. This will also of course consume 100% of the remaining block reward and almost a trillion dollars in electricity. That, and the quadratic routing complexity.
- jkhdigital 5y ago
  > 97% of all mining hardware will be thrown away without ever winning a single block reward And fewer than 50% of Thoroughbred horses ever win a single race. This is a silly clickbaity statistic and you know it. Come on, you're better than this arcticbull ;-)
  - wpietri 5y ago
    Horse racing is actually a pretty good analogy here, in that it's essentially pointless and an awful lot more money goes in than comes out. The big difference is that at least horse racing produces a fair bit of entertainment value, and that a lot of people truly love their horses.
  - arcticbull 5y ago
    Is that actually a real statistic about horses? That's fascinating. I wouldn't build a currency on it though ;) Step right up to Horsecoin, fastest horse gets the block!
    - swader999 5y ago
bduerst 5y ago
There is value in having a useful monetary system. That ship sailed (multiple times) during the block size debacle for bitcoin, and there isn't nearly enough adoption with other cryptos to make them a useful payment system (aside from Monero if you're doing illegal activities)

sumedh 5y ago

> There is no societal benefit to buying, holding, selling a crypto currency. If you live a country where the govt mismanages the economy and drop the value of the nation's currency then in that case BTC has a lot of value.

arcticbull 5y ago
In most of those countries the transaction fee is a non-trivial percentage of the GDP. Using it as a currency there would be economic suicide. And the volatility would be crushing to the poor. They'd be infinitely better off with like USDC or better yet, a USD issued CBDC.
wpietri 5y ago
If you live in a country where the government mismanages the economy or the currency, Bitcoin is not a great choice. What most people use in that situation is just a different national currency. This is a well-known phenomenon known as dollarization or currency substitution: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Currency_substitution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Currency_substitution

yellow_postit 5y ago

More and more I wonder if there’s a cultural/community aspect to crypto. Humans are meaning and group seeking animals and there is a hard to break value from that relationship. While some are likely ephemeral (hype coins like shiba) the amount of community formed around ETH and BTC is non-trivial and provides something akin to “value”.

wpietri 5y ago
For sure. Bitcoin is in some ways better understood as a religion. If you're interested, I'd suggest the documentary LuLaRich, currently on Amazon Prime Video. It looks at the MLM/pyramid scheme LuLaRoe and does a good job conveying the quasi-religious nature of these things.