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>It basically boils down to "I lost faith in fiat". Well, this makes no sense, because the value of crypto is also a fiat backed by nothing. With crypto it's n

>It basically boils down to "I lost faith in fiat". Well, this makes no sense, because the value of crypto is also a fiat backed by nothing. With crypto it's not just the government you have to worry about, any person can mint infinite numbers of new crypto tokens, pump and dump them, take out massive debts and gain infinite leverage and then debase anything they want. The massive collapses and bankruptcies in crypto over the last few months should show you that the rickety row boat is actually an illusion, and you're really just stepping off into the water with no lifejacket. My suggestion? Take a swimming class, if you get my analogy.

throw8383833jj 4y ago
bitcoin is not fiat.
- hnthrow1010 4y ago
  But it actually is though, "fiat" is just another one of those words that crypto promoters have redefined to mean something that it doesn't. The original definition was a currency that isn't backed by a commodity, its value is derived from some group (typically a government) declaring a fiat that it has a certain value they give it. That's why it's called "fiat currency". If bitcoin were a currency (it actually isn't) it would definitely be a fiat currency, because it also has no value from any commodity or consuming demand. The value is derived completely from whatever someone else is willing to pay for it. The idea that bitcoin represents some kind of "digital gold" is simply false.
  - throw8383833jj 4y ago
    bitcoin supply is limited to 21 million. that's key. Meanwhile fiat currencies across the world are the governments escape vehicle for collecting the enormous taxes they're going to need to collect for their enormous debts, via inflation. this isn't just my assessment. Financial professionals (on net) across the world are dumping cash and bonds in record amounts. This is why the feds across the world needs to constantly buy up more and more bonds.
    - hnthrow1010 4y ago
      >bitcoin supply is limited to 21 million. that's key. No, this is another falsehood pushed by crypto promoters. For a user only trying to make a payment, the 21 million is just a magic number. Technically the miners can coordinate to soft fork the protocol to increase the number of bitcoins, and this has been proposed several times already. An uncoordinated group can also hard fork the network and suddenly the 21 million becomes 42 million; this has actually happened several times already to both bitcoin and ethereum. The idea that bitcoin is inflation proof is simply nonsense, even ignoring all the analysis, you only have to look at its price activity over the last few months to see how much of a lie that is. Another difference is that the bitcoin miners don't need to actually print more bitcoins to experience hyperinflation, the stablecoin issuers can cause that themselves just by printing infinite numbers of stablecoins and dumping them onto the bitcoin market. So it's in multiple ways worse than whatever you think is happening to the US dollar.
      - cowtools 4y ago
        How could the miners soft fork to increase the bitcoin supply? That would be a hard fork, because they will not be able to spend those "higher" coinbase outputs, which are seen as lower to the rest of the network. >An uncoordinated group can also hard fork the network What are you talking about? An unintentional hard fork, or an intentional one like BCH? >The idea that bitcoin is inflation proof is simply nonsense, even ignoring all the analysis The idea that you can make inferences based on technical analysis alone is based on flawed assumptions. The bitcoin block reward distribution is not finished yet, so it is too early to say. But I predict that it will be too deflationary, which will harm the network in the long run by creating incentives for selfish mining attacks [0]. >the stablecoin issuers can cause that themselves just by printing infinite numbers of stablecoins and dumping them onto the bitcoin market That only works insofar as users (irrationally) trust stablecoins disproportionately compared to bitcoin. Eventually they will cash out and the ponzi scheme will fall apart. [0] https://eprint.iacr.org/2020/094.pdf https://eprint.iacr.org/2020/094.pdf
        hnthrow1010 4y ago

throw8383833jj 4y ago

bitcoin is not fiat.

hnthrow1010 4y ago
But it actually is though, "fiat" is just another one of those words that crypto promoters have redefined to mean something that it doesn't. The original definition was a currency that isn't backed by a commodity, its value is derived from some group (typically a government) declaring a fiat that it has a certain value they give it. That's why it's called "fiat currency". If bitcoin were a currency (it actually isn't) it would definitely be a fiat currency, because it also has no value from any commodity or consuming demand. The value is derived completely from whatever someone else is willing to pay for it. The idea that bitcoin represents some kind of "digital gold" is simply false.
- throw8383833jj 4y ago
  bitcoin supply is limited to 21 million. that's key. Meanwhile fiat currencies across the world are the governments escape vehicle for collecting the enormous taxes they're going to need to collect for their enormous debts, via inflation. this isn't just my assessment. Financial professionals (on net) across the world are dumping cash and bonds in record amounts. This is why the feds across the world needs to constantly buy up more and more bonds.
  - hnthrow1010 4y ago
    >bitcoin supply is limited to 21 million. that's key. No, this is another falsehood pushed by crypto promoters. For a user only trying to make a payment, the 21 million is just a magic number. Technically the miners can coordinate to soft fork the protocol to increase the number of bitcoins, and this has been proposed several times already. An uncoordinated group can also hard fork the network and suddenly the 21 million becomes 42 million; this has actually happened several times already to both bitcoin and ethereum. The idea that bitcoin is inflation proof is simply nonsense, even ignoring all the analysis, you only have to look at its price activity over the last few months to see how much of a lie that is. Another difference is that the bitcoin miners don't need to actually print more bitcoins to experience hyperinflation, the stablecoin issuers can cause that themselves just by printing infinite numbers of stablecoins and dumping them onto the bitcoin market. So it's in multiple ways worse than whatever you think is happening to the US dollar.
    - cowtools 4y ago
      How could the miners soft fork to increase the bitcoin supply? That would be a hard fork, because they will not be able to spend those "higher" coinbase outputs, which are seen as lower to the rest of the network. >An uncoordinated group can also hard fork the network What are you talking about? An unintentional hard fork, or an intentional one like BCH? >The idea that bitcoin is inflation proof is simply nonsense, even ignoring all the analysis The idea that you can make inferences based on technical analysis alone is based on flawed assumptions. The bitcoin block reward distribution is not finished yet, so it is too early to say. But I predict that it will be too deflationary, which will harm the network in the long run by creating incentives for selfish mining attacks [0]. >the stablecoin issuers can cause that themselves just by printing infinite numbers of stablecoins and dumping them onto the bitcoin market That only works insofar as users (irrationally) trust stablecoins disproportionately compared to bitcoin. Eventually they will cash out and the ponzi scheme will fall apart. [0] https://eprint.iacr.org/2020/094.pdf https://eprint.iacr.org/2020/094.pdf
      - hnthrow1010 4y ago