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>Even gold, at least I can wear it and display my wealth. You can’t even display your crypto wealth like that I'd feel much safer displaying large sums of weal

>Even gold, at least I can wear it and display my wealth. You can’t even display your crypto wealth like that I'd feel much safer displaying large sums of wealth online by posting a wallet than by wearing luxury goods in public.

jesushax 4y ago
Totally agree. For example, I have 10,000 SOL (Solana tokens) that I regularly screenshot and show off. It's all on devnet, though, so it's free and worthless. It's the web3 version - in web 2 I'd be instagramming my knockoff Rolex I bought in Tijuana
- aaaaaaaaata 4y ago
  Bad example. Would you show off real SOL tokens of that qty?
throwaway413 4y ago
Oh totally agree - someone can just pull a necklace right off you. I was just surfacing the point that at least gold does has some value on its own as a status symbol - there is a market for jewelry outside of gold as a transfer protocol. An bitcoin wallet without ability to transfer it is just some used up memory, it doesn’t have any value on its own. See coins going to 0 when exchanges close their doors. All the banks in the world could close and people would still find shiny rocks attractive and admirable. We have for thousands of years.
- bckr 4y ago
  > someone can just pull a necklace right off you I wonder if there's an argument to be made that nothing is of any real value unless there's also some risk of losing it. e.g. you drop your apple in a gutter, or someone takes it from you, or it turns out to have a nice fat worm inside it
  - dredmorbius 4y ago
    nothing is of any real value unless there's also some risk of losing it. If you're looking for a commodity to have trade or exchange value, then it must be tradeable or exchangeable. That's the notion of "inalienable" as used in the US Declaration of Independence: rights which cannot be alienated (separated) from the individual posessing them. Life, liberty, happiness being the three used in that document. This doesn't mean undeniable, and there might be some value which can be extracted through threats of denial: "your money or your life". And there are aspects of value which can be exchanged though the good itself doesn't move: title, copyright, and patent rights might be three such of these. If I transer you land title, the land itself doesn't move, but the claim to usefruct from it does. A hypothetically nontransferable, non-appropriable technical asset is still subject to claims if a superior right or denial of access to that asset may still be claimed. And in general, a currency which is used to facilitate trade should in general be portable, readily recognisable, divisible, durable, and homogeneous, all attributes William Stanley Jevons proposed in 1875: https://archive.org/details/moneyexchange00jevorich/page/30/mode/2up https://archive.org/details/moneyexchange00jevorich/page/30/... (He also claimed money required intrinsic value, which appears to be an error. Rather, intrinsic value exchanges for trust within the financial system.) That said, an interesting suggestion.
  - throwaway413 4y ago
    I like that. Risk of losing it, and difficulty of recovery of the same or an equal asset. Life, for example, is extremely valuable. Everyone loses it, but there’s no getting it back. If you lose the apple, you can probably get another relatively easily, unless we’re talking a post-apocalypse situation…
    - aaaaaaaaata 4y ago
      As long as people are willing to take cryptocurrency, people will be willing to steal, or work for, cryptocurrency.
Hellbanevil 4y ago

jesushax 4y ago

Totally agree. For example, I have 10,000 SOL (Solana tokens) that I regularly screenshot and show off. It's all on devnet, though, so it's free and worthless. It's the web3 version - in web 2 I'd be instagramming my knockoff Rolex I bought in Tijuana

aaaaaaaaata 4y ago
Bad example. Would you show off real SOL tokens of that qty?

throwaway413 4y ago

Oh totally agree - someone can just pull a necklace right off you. I was just surfacing the point that at least gold does has some value on its own as a status symbol - there is a market for jewelry outside of gold as a transfer protocol. An bitcoin wallet without ability to transfer it is just some used up memory, it doesn’t have any value on its own. See coins going to 0 when exchanges close their doors. All the banks in the world could close and people would still find shiny rocks attractive and admirable. We have for thousands of years.

bckr 4y ago
> someone can just pull a necklace right off you I wonder if there's an argument to be made that nothing is of any real value unless there's also some risk of losing it. e.g. you drop your apple in a gutter, or someone takes it from you, or it turns out to have a nice fat worm inside it
- dredmorbius 4y ago
  nothing is of any real value unless there's also some risk of losing it. If you're looking for a commodity to have trade or exchange value, then it must be tradeable or exchangeable. That's the notion of "inalienable" as used in the US Declaration of Independence: rights which cannot be alienated (separated) from the individual posessing them. Life, liberty, happiness being the three used in that document. This doesn't mean undeniable, and there might be some value which can be extracted through threats of denial: "your money or your life". And there are aspects of value which can be exchanged though the good itself doesn't move: title, copyright, and patent rights might be three such of these. If I transer you land title, the land itself doesn't move, but the claim to usefruct from it does. A hypothetically nontransferable, non-appropriable technical asset is still subject to claims if a superior right or denial of access to that asset may still be claimed. And in general, a currency which is used to facilitate trade should in general be portable, readily recognisable, divisible, durable, and homogeneous, all attributes William Stanley Jevons proposed in 1875: https://archive.org/details/moneyexchange00jevorich/page/30/mode/2up https://archive.org/details/moneyexchange00jevorich/page/30/... (He also claimed money required intrinsic value, which appears to be an error. Rather, intrinsic value exchanges for trust within the financial system.) That said, an interesting suggestion.
- throwaway413 4y ago
  I like that. Risk of losing it, and difficulty of recovery of the same or an equal asset. Life, for example, is extremely valuable. Everyone loses it, but there’s no getting it back. If you lose the apple, you can probably get another relatively easily, unless we’re talking a post-apocalypse situation…
  - aaaaaaaaata 4y ago
    As long as people are willing to take cryptocurrency, people will be willing to steal, or work for, cryptocurrency.

Hellbanevil 4y ago