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Yes crypto is gambling. So is fiat. This seems to be where people get confused. They think just because everything is priced in fiat that fiat somehow is immune

by toolz 5y ago

Yes crypto is gambling. So is fiat. This seems to be where people get confused. They think just because everything is priced in fiat that fiat somehow is immune from value swings. Which it's really weird that people believe that given how much the price of things priced in USD changes so much. Literally everything is a gamble - there's no such thing as a risk-less vehicle for maintaining your wealth. Maybe something like bitcoin is more volatile than USD today, but that is not guaranteed to hold in the future. Crypto is superior to fiat in every property of money other than stability, but with global adoption of bitcoin I suspect even that property will be more satisfied by crypto in the not-so-distant future.

CPLX 5y ago
The word gambling has a meaning. People don't procure fiat currency primarily in order to profit from its change in value. They use it to engage in trading of goods and services. People do primarily procure crypto primarily in order to profit from its change in value. The fact that each can (sort of) be used for the other purpose in limited cases doesn't invalidate that. > Crypto is superior to fiat in every property of money other than stability It's not. It's vastly inferior for the purpose of trading value for goods and services.
- toolz 5y ago
  > The word gambling has a meaning. I'm aware of that and I'm aware of the meaning. Which is why I used the word. > People don't procure fiat currency primarily in order to profit from its change in value. They use it to engage in trading of goods and services. This is exactly the definition of procuring something to use it to increase their own value. When someone receives a good or service they value that good or service higher than the fiat they are holding which is exactly the gamble they're taking by procuring the fiat. > It's not. It's vastly inferior for the purpose of trading value for goods and services. I guess I could say "no you're wrong" too, but that's not a fruitful argument crypto is more fungible than fiat (fiat isn't global and doesn't have global access to exchanging for other fiats, even) crypto is more durable, fiat is easily destroyed crypto is more portable, I can take literally billions of USD worth of crypto across borders and spend every single penny of it instantly. You couldn't even begin to hope to have that kind of portability of fiat. crypto as a category is much more recognizable - there are _many_ different services that will guarantee the authenticity of a bitcoin transfer, while the fiat you're being paid in may very well be counterfeit. finaly the property of stability - fiat wins here, for now.
  - CPLX 5y ago
    Those aren't the same thing. This reminds me of those sort of pedantic disingenuous arguments where people take two words that are sort of in the same conceptual framework but have very clearly distinct meanings and say that they mean the same thing. Greatest hits include the idea that there's no difference between working for a company and having your own business ("you go from one boss to many bosses") or the idea that prostitution and dating are the same thing if the man is paying for dinner. And so on. That sort of gotcha is never as clever as people think it is. Yes, the concepts are related to each other. No, they aren't the same thing.

by toolz 5y ago

CPLX 5y ago

The word gambling has a meaning. People don't procure fiat currency primarily in order to profit from its change in value. They use it to engage in trading of goods and services. People do primarily procure crypto primarily in order to profit from its change in value. The fact that each can (sort of) be used for the other purpose in limited cases doesn't invalidate that. > Crypto is superior to fiat in every property of money other than stability It's not. It's vastly inferior for the purpose of trading value for goods and services.

toolz 5y ago
> The word gambling has a meaning. I'm aware of that and I'm aware of the meaning. Which is why I used the word. > People don't procure fiat currency primarily in order to profit from its change in value. They use it to engage in trading of goods and services. This is exactly the definition of procuring something to use it to increase their own value. When someone receives a good or service they value that good or service higher than the fiat they are holding which is exactly the gamble they're taking by procuring the fiat. > It's not. It's vastly inferior for the purpose of trading value for goods and services. I guess I could say "no you're wrong" too, but that's not a fruitful argument crypto is more fungible than fiat (fiat isn't global and doesn't have global access to exchanging for other fiats, even) crypto is more durable, fiat is easily destroyed crypto is more portable, I can take literally billions of USD worth of crypto across borders and spend every single penny of it instantly. You couldn't even begin to hope to have that kind of portability of fiat. crypto as a category is much more recognizable - there are _many_ different services that will guarantee the authenticity of a bitcoin transfer, while the fiat you're being paid in may very well be counterfeit. finaly the property of stability - fiat wins here, for now.
- CPLX 5y ago
  Those aren't the same thing. This reminds me of those sort of pedantic disingenuous arguments where people take two words that are sort of in the same conceptual framework but have very clearly distinct meanings and say that they mean the same thing. Greatest hits include the idea that there's no difference between working for a company and having your own business ("you go from one boss to many bosses") or the idea that prostitution and dating are the same thing if the man is paying for dinner. And so on. That sort of gotcha is never as clever as people think it is. Yes, the concepts are related to each other. No, they aren't the same thing.