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The hope is that in the future crypto breaks free of the connection to fiat. Rather than comparing crypto against $USD it will be compared against $BTC. This is

The hope is that in the future crypto breaks free of the connection to fiat. Rather than comparing crypto against $USD it will be compared against $BTC. This is why it’s essential for $BTC to maintain and expand upon its role as a source of value. It’s the best path we have to break the bondage to $USD and other government-controlled fiat currencies.

nemacol 5y ago
Forgive my ignorance but that sounds like comparing future crypto to the USD but with an extra step.
- eric_cc 5y ago
  Sadly I think the only people that would do the extra step will be older people who grew up with USD and still desire it. Do you mentally compare USD to other random obscure currencies? Of course not. And in a future when USD has been replaced, nobody will care to mentally determine USD prices. Another way to consider it: when you go to the grocery store, you don’t think about how many sats something costs. Because USD is still king.
xxs 5y ago
>The hope is that in the future crypto breaks free of the connection to fiat wow, I don't know what kind of hope this is, and I avoid commenting on any crypto currency[0]. Since the comment appears to be genuine, I've felt compelled. [0]: calling it them "crypto" is an insult to the rest of the cryptography, though
- __MatrixMan__ 5y ago
  I think that having more than one type of money to represent different types of value is a reasonable thing to want. We're operating under this illusion that all value is the same because we use USD as a unit of account, but it causes a lot problems. To give just one example, look at US policy in Latin America in the 80s: We would give weapons to terrorists, and the bargain was that once they had overthrown their governments, the new ones would respect our money. Then, having made ourselves into aristocrats, we'd come in and make off with their natural resources (e.g. Chilean copper). Better would be that if you want to influence people in a community that you aren't a member of, you have to contribute types of value that actually align with the values of those people. Of course having only two types, as GP suggests: fiat-value and crypto-value--that's a pretty impoverished type system. I'd rather have carbon-footprint-value and space-exploration-value and infrastrucure-maintenance-value... so that the allocation of types of value in my wallet are sort of an expression of my political will. This way, poison-the-well-and-sell-bottled-water-value can be rejected by pretty much everybody (as it should), while other sectors remain untarnished.
  - eric_cc 5y ago
    Great point. How would you represent/express space exploration value?
    - __MatrixMan__ 5y ago
      Well it would have a unit, call it parsecs or whatever, and individuals would configure their wallets to hold it at some percentage. If I'm a space nerd maybe I keep 50% of my wealth in parsecs, or if I think space exploration is a misallocation of resources maybe I keep 0% of it in parsecs.
      - eric_cc 5y ago
        I like the spirit of what you're saying here. It touches on why I think crypto/decentralized systems could have a domino effect that disrupts how people organize and govern. You like space and would be able to "vote" for it directly.
        __MatrixMan__ 5y ago
        Yeah, the directness of it appeals to me. By holding a token and using it as money, I give power to whoever controls its issuance. I'd like more choices about who that is.
  - smaryjerry 5y ago
    You’ve just invented capitalism and the stock market. Seriously though, in a free market system if you want to support space travel you would invest and thus own a portion of companies making space travel possible. Problem is that theses systems are not going to be mutually exclusive like you want because everything will always be tradable. If I have gold and you have space coloration there will always be a trade that makes it worth while.
    - __MatrixMan__ 5y ago
      It might be properly called capitalism, but it's not the capitalism that we practice. Because the money we use is not specific about its intent, people have to accept or reject it all together. It's too big to fail. You can't decline to do business in slavery-money because you have no way of knowing which money is slavery-money. It's all just money-money. In a typed-value system, you can notice that a certain kind of value is associated with economic activity that hurts people, and you can respond by setting it to 0% in your wallet. This will prevent you from accidentally contributing to its continuation. If all of the good guys do this, then the only people left for the bad guys to do business with will be other bad guys--which will make it more expensive for them to operate. Sure, factions will emerge, but rather than being delusional about their own efficacy and a drag on the entire system, unsustainable or otherwise objectionable economies will eventually find that nobody accepts their money, and they'll have to change their ways. You shouldn't be able to retire on wealth made at future generations' expense. Instead, saving for retirement should involve contributing to endeavors that future generations will be happy about. > If I have gold and you have space coloration there will always be a trade that makes it worth while. By keeping gold to yourself (and out of the electronics that are useful for making space ships) you're holding back the projects that I think are important. So there's one reason for me to not value your gold, what reason do I have to value it?
dale_glass 5y ago
This hope died years ago, when the early bitcoin enthusiasts were replaced by the modern "number go up" ones. This won't ever happen because pretty much nobody who matters wants this. BTC today is firmly a "store of value", where "value" is measured in USD, and the only point of it is to buy it low, and sell high, for USD. You won't find many today who think buying pizza in BTC is a good idea. BTC is also completely unsuitable for using as a currency given the block size limit.
- cuteboy19 5y ago
  Then: we will create a peer to peer digital cash system. No intermediaries or trust required. Now: we use the Crypto.Com Visa™ credit card with a Bitcoin sticker on it.
- eric_cc 5y ago
  > the only point of it is to buy it low, and sell high, for USD Until the point that nobody wants to be the USD bag holder. Plenty of boomers still don’t think of saving USD as a terrible idea because they were trained their whole life to have faith in it. They are being robbed in plain sight, sadly. But younger generations won’t put up with it.
  - dale_glass 5y ago
    BTC is completely unsuitable to be used as a currency, since it's deflationary. Would you buy a car if waiting meant you could have it at half price? Of course not, that'd be stupid. So you'll sit on your hoard, while the economy implodes.
    - eric_cc 5y ago
      How sad would it be if Americans consumed less? Mindless consumption is the whole point of living!
    - harambae 5y ago
      >Would you buy a car if waiting meant you could have it at half price? Apparently yes, a bunch of people are buying cars now at temporarily inflated prices when prices are expected to tank https://autos.yahoo.com/analysts-warn-possible-used-car-151000491.html https://autos.yahoo.com/analysts-warn-possible-used-car-1510...
Yizahi 5y ago
The bigger will be "consumer" possibilities and adoption of bitcoin token the bigger will be a payout for 51% attacker, same with relative price of each token and same with amount of financial instruments available. Bitcoin tokens are like a self destruct system which ticks faster to the explosion the more energy and adoption it has.
AvAn12 5y ago
How? If I want a unit of any cryptocurrency, I have to hand over an equal value of USD to obtain it. My employer can't pay me in crypto because they only have USD flowing in to their business in exchange for their products and services. What you describe would require basically the entire economy to somehow abandon its fiat currency and switch to crypto - - - I think if this scenario is supposed to be taken remotely seriously, you have to explain how that scenario is supposed to develop - something more than hope that in the future...
- eric_cc 5y ago
  > What you describe would require basically the entire economy to somehow abandon its fiat currency and switch to crypto - - - I think if this scenario is supposed to be taken remotely seriously, you have to explain how that scenario is supposed to develop Gradually, then Suddenly Unfortunately I believe we get there via chaos, winners, and losers. I don’t believe the transition will be equitable and clean because I don’t see any way that would be possible. And yet, it’ll be worth it in order to have sound money.
- koonsolo 5y ago
  > My Maybe you should try to look further than yourself. Miners are getting paid in crypto, crypto exchanges are getting paid in crypto. It just has to start somewhere. Investors with crypto staking are getting paid in crypto, or hodlers see their assets increase in value. Diamonds are getting bought with crypto: https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/10/billion-year-old-black-diamond-bought-with-cryptocurrency-for-4point3m.html https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/10/billion-year-old-black-diamo... Houses in Dubai are getting bought with crypto. I would say crypto is already kickstarted, let's just see how far it can take us.
  - crispyambulance 5y ago
    > I would say crypto is already kickstarted, let's just see how far it can take us. It will take us only up to the point where we can no longer convert crypto into actual currency (you know, "money"). After that whoever has crypto will be left "holding the bag", and all the boiler-room operators will have long-ago cashed out. I wish we could just have digital currency that is traceable, secure, and stable without all the insane hyper-libertarian social-Darwinist scammer stuff.

nemacol 5y ago

Forgive my ignorance but that sounds like comparing future crypto to the USD but with an extra step.

eric_cc 5y ago
Sadly I think the only people that would do the extra step will be older people who grew up with USD and still desire it. Do you mentally compare USD to other random obscure currencies? Of course not. And in a future when USD has been replaced, nobody will care to mentally determine USD prices. Another way to consider it: when you go to the grocery store, you don’t think about how many sats something costs. Because USD is still king.

xxs 5y ago

>The hope is that in the future crypto breaks free of the connection to fiat wow, I don't know what kind of hope this is, and I avoid commenting on any crypto currency[0]. Since the comment appears to be genuine, I've felt compelled. [0]: calling it them "crypto" is an insult to the rest of the cryptography, though

__MatrixMan__ 5y ago
I think that having more than one type of money to represent different types of value is a reasonable thing to want. We're operating under this illusion that all value is the same because we use USD as a unit of account, but it causes a lot problems. To give just one example, look at US policy in Latin America in the 80s: We would give weapons to terrorists, and the bargain was that once they had overthrown their governments, the new ones would respect our money. Then, having made ourselves into aristocrats, we'd come in and make off with their natural resources (e.g. Chilean copper). Better would be that if you want to influence people in a community that you aren't a member of, you have to contribute types of value that actually align with the values of those people. Of course having only two types, as GP suggests: fiat-value and crypto-value--that's a pretty impoverished type system. I'd rather have carbon-footprint-value and space-exploration-value and infrastrucure-maintenance-value... so that the allocation of types of value in my wallet are sort of an expression of my political will. This way, poison-the-well-and-sell-bottled-water-value can be rejected by pretty much everybody (as it should), while other sectors remain untarnished.
- eric_cc 5y ago
  Great point. How would you represent/express space exploration value?
  - __MatrixMan__ 5y ago
    Well it would have a unit, call it parsecs or whatever, and individuals would configure their wallets to hold it at some percentage. If I'm a space nerd maybe I keep 50% of my wealth in parsecs, or if I think space exploration is a misallocation of resources maybe I keep 0% of it in parsecs.
    - eric_cc 5y ago
      I like the spirit of what you're saying here. It touches on why I think crypto/decentralized systems could have a domino effect that disrupts how people organize and govern. You like space and would be able to "vote" for it directly.
      - __MatrixMan__ 5y ago
        Yeah, the directness of it appeals to me. By holding a token and using it as money, I give power to whoever controls its issuance. I'd like more choices about who that is.
- smaryjerry 5y ago
  You’ve just invented capitalism and the stock market. Seriously though, in a free market system if you want to support space travel you would invest and thus own a portion of companies making space travel possible. Problem is that theses systems are not going to be mutually exclusive like you want because everything will always be tradable. If I have gold and you have space coloration there will always be a trade that makes it worth while.
  - __MatrixMan__ 5y ago
    It might be properly called capitalism, but it's not the capitalism that we practice. Because the money we use is not specific about its intent, people have to accept or reject it all together. It's too big to fail. You can't decline to do business in slavery-money because you have no way of knowing which money is slavery-money. It's all just money-money. In a typed-value system, you can notice that a certain kind of value is associated with economic activity that hurts people, and you can respond by setting it to 0% in your wallet. This will prevent you from accidentally contributing to its continuation. If all of the good guys do this, then the only people left for the bad guys to do business with will be other bad guys--which will make it more expensive for them to operate. Sure, factions will emerge, but rather than being delusional about their own efficacy and a drag on the entire system, unsustainable or otherwise objectionable economies will eventually find that nobody accepts their money, and they'll have to change their ways. You shouldn't be able to retire on wealth made at future generations' expense. Instead, saving for retirement should involve contributing to endeavors that future generations will be happy about. > If I have gold and you have space coloration there will always be a trade that makes it worth while. By keeping gold to yourself (and out of the electronics that are useful for making space ships) you're holding back the projects that I think are important. So there's one reason for me to not value your gold, what reason do I have to value it?

dale_glass 5y ago

This hope died years ago, when the early bitcoin enthusiasts were replaced by the modern "number go up" ones. This won't ever happen because pretty much nobody who matters wants this. BTC today is firmly a "store of value", where "value" is measured in USD, and the only point of it is to buy it low, and sell high, for USD. You won't find many today who think buying pizza in BTC is a good idea. BTC is also completely unsuitable for using as a currency given the block size limit.

cuteboy19 5y ago
Then: we will create a peer to peer digital cash system. No intermediaries or trust required. Now: we use the Crypto.Com Visa™ credit card with a Bitcoin sticker on it.
eric_cc 5y ago
> the only point of it is to buy it low, and sell high, for USD Until the point that nobody wants to be the USD bag holder. Plenty of boomers still don’t think of saving USD as a terrible idea because they were trained their whole life to have faith in it. They are being robbed in plain sight, sadly. But younger generations won’t put up with it.
- dale_glass 5y ago
  BTC is completely unsuitable to be used as a currency, since it's deflationary. Would you buy a car if waiting meant you could have it at half price? Of course not, that'd be stupid. So you'll sit on your hoard, while the economy implodes.
  - eric_cc 5y ago
    How sad would it be if Americans consumed less? Mindless consumption is the whole point of living!
  - harambae 5y ago
    >Would you buy a car if waiting meant you could have it at half price? Apparently yes, a bunch of people are buying cars now at temporarily inflated prices when prices are expected to tank https://autos.yahoo.com/analysts-warn-possible-used-car-151000491.html https://autos.yahoo.com/analysts-warn-possible-used-car-1510...

Yizahi 5y ago

The bigger will be "consumer" possibilities and adoption of bitcoin token the bigger will be a payout for 51% attacker, same with relative price of each token and same with amount of financial instruments available. Bitcoin tokens are like a self destruct system which ticks faster to the explosion the more energy and adoption it has.

AvAn12 5y ago

How? If I want a unit of any cryptocurrency, I have to hand over an equal value of USD to obtain it. My employer can't pay me in crypto because they only have USD flowing in to their business in exchange for their products and services. What you describe would require basically the entire economy to somehow abandon its fiat currency and switch to crypto - - - I think if this scenario is supposed to be taken remotely seriously, you have to explain how that scenario is supposed to develop - something more than hope that in the future...

eric_cc 5y ago
> What you describe would require basically the entire economy to somehow abandon its fiat currency and switch to crypto - - - I think if this scenario is supposed to be taken remotely seriously, you have to explain how that scenario is supposed to develop Gradually, then Suddenly Unfortunately I believe we get there via chaos, winners, and losers. I don’t believe the transition will be equitable and clean because I don’t see any way that would be possible. And yet, it’ll be worth it in order to have sound money.
koonsolo 5y ago
> My Maybe you should try to look further than yourself. Miners are getting paid in crypto, crypto exchanges are getting paid in crypto. It just has to start somewhere. Investors with crypto staking are getting paid in crypto, or hodlers see their assets increase in value. Diamonds are getting bought with crypto: https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/10/billion-year-old-black-diamond-bought-with-cryptocurrency-for-4point3m.html https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/10/billion-year-old-black-diamo... Houses in Dubai are getting bought with crypto. I would say crypto is already kickstarted, let's just see how far it can take us.
- crispyambulance 5y ago
  > I would say crypto is already kickstarted, let's just see how far it can take us. It will take us only up to the point where we can no longer convert crypto into actual currency (you know, "money"). After that whoever has crypto will be left "holding the bag", and all the boiler-room operators will have long-ago cashed out. I wish we could just have digital currency that is traceable, secure, and stable without all the insane hyper-libertarian social-Darwinist scammer stuff.