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It isn't money. Money can be easily exchanged for goods and services. It is a digital "asset" whose only meaningful application is speculative trading...of itse

It isn't money. Money can be easily exchanged for goods and services. It is a digital "asset" whose only meaningful application is speculative trading...of itself. If something only has value because you think you can sell it to the next sucker for more, it is a ponzi scheme.

bbbbb5 4y ago
Cryptocurrency can easily be exchanged for a whole lot of goods and services.
monero-xmr 4y ago
If your definition of money = using something for goods and services, the crypto has certainly exceeded that definition.
- jeremyjh 4y ago
  Yes that's why they accept it at Amazon and Alibaba right?
  - monero-xmr 4y ago
    Here is a list of services that accept crypto directly https://kycnot.me/ https://kycnot.me/
    - jeremyjh 4y ago
      Thank you for proving my point.
      - ifeeltriedboss 4y ago
        I can buy 4 VPNs with my crypto yay.
        deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
        bb88 4y ago
        It's like we're living in the future.
    - Kye 4y ago
      It's like a who's who of cryptocurrency-based black markets and facilitators.
    - IncRnd 4y ago
      A crypto exchange or vpn is not quite the same as a store that sells goods like groceries, clothes or electronics or services like a lawyer's time, a doctor's visit or a haircut. I don't see any mainstream websites listed on that website. Regular people are unable to use crypto as money for regular things.
      - monero-xmr 4y ago
        VPN industry is multi-billion, crypto exchanges are multi-billion, hosting is multi-billion. These are real industries - I mean a lot of people on HN are employed in companies that support and provide data / server hosting. It starts with digital services and it spiders out from there. Enthusiasts who own retail stores accept crypto as a novelty or marketing strategy, but in 25 years it could be much more common.
        Kye 4y ago
        >> "It starts with digital services and it spiders out from there." Silk Road was 11 years ago. When?
        monero-xmr 4y ago
        The first electric car was made over 100 years ago and they are still only a fraction of all the cars on the road. Revolutionary tech doesn’t always take over in 10 years let alone 100.
        IncRnd 4y ago
        You're pushing a fake, invented history. Electric cars existed in the 1830's - about 200 years ago and 52 prior to gasoline powered cars. Electric cars were supplanted by gasoline powered cars. It's NOT that they just haven't caught on, yet.
        IncRnd 4y ago
        None of that actually applies to this discussion, which is about crypto not being money. The example given for crypto being money was a website that listed things that are not goods and services people use to live their lives. The goods that people use to live are not vpns and secret crypto exchanges but groceries, automobiles, clothing, doctor appointments, etc. If you have some other list of goods and services that people can repeatedly and reliably purchase using crypto, you can provide that to show that crypto is money. The earlier list is almost entirely crypto exchanges and vpns, which is hardly a useful list of goods and services for normal day to day products that people use. If you can't purchase goods and services with crypto, crypto is not money.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - luckylion 4y ago
    Amazon doesn't accept cash. Is cash not money? They don't accept $foreignCurrency either, is that no longer money when you cross the border? Or do you mean "money is what you can use to pay your taxes"? That works to exclude crypto, at least for most of the world.
    - AstralStorm 4y ago
      Funny, Amazon does accept cash on delivery, so you are factually wrong. Doubly wrong since Amazon also accepts gift cards which can be bought with cash.
      - sershe 4y ago
        Where does Amazon accept cash on delivery? Also, by this logic Amazon accepts electronic cash that can be "bought" with crypto, right? Maybe dollars are just gift cards for bitcoin :P
        shagie 4y ago
        https://www.amazon.eg/-/en/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=GZSKGA5HH9DSSN27 https://www.amazon.eg/-/en/gp/help/customer/display.html?nod... > Cash on Delivery is available as a payment method for fulfilled by Amazon and some seller fulfilled items. If you have Gift Card balance in your account, you can redeem it and pay the remaining amount using Cash on Delivery payment method.
        monero-xmr 4y ago
        It’s quite easy to convert crypto into Amazon gift cards, which can then be used to buy stuff on Amazon. So it’s not exactly a big hop to go from crypto to Amazon.
    - garren 4y ago
      I imagine they’re more than happy to take your cash at their 4-star and pop-up physical locations.
    - 4y ago
  - costco 4y ago
    If you've ever used Alibaba you'd know that many sellers do accept it there.
TrianguloY 4y ago
> If something only has value because you think you can sell it to the next sucker for more, it is a ponzi scheme. Careful with that sentence. It is applicable to paintings, stamps, and collecting in general. True that on those other cases you have a physical object, so it has a value (as opposed to nft) but usually it's far less. A Pokemon card costs almost nothing, but some people are willing to pay millions for it, so it "costs" millions. Disclaimer: I still agree with your comment, I just think that the reason is more complex than that sentence.
- danaris 4y ago
  Paintings are nice to look at. Stamps and other collections are fun to collect and to have, regardless of their monetary value. (After all, people collect otherwise-worthless things like bottle caps, too.) Cryptocurrencies have no substance to them, they are not interesting to look at, and while I suppose one could get a thrill out of simply knowing one has them, I very much doubt that there's more than a tiny handful of people for whom that would remain true if they were worth $0.
  - sshine 4y ago
    > I very much doubt that there's more than a tiny handful of people for whom that would remain true if they were worth $0 By now they’re a part of our history. I keep a professionally made, empty paper wallet as a souvenir from the 2010s. It’s a lot more tangible than some scrap of paper with 24 random words on it.
- jeremyjh 4y ago
  This seems like a good point. I'm not sure I agree about paintings, but sure let's take Pokemon cards. These have only a little bit of intrinsic value - you can use them to play a game that is fun for 8 year olds. They only become more valuable because people speculate that their value may increase in the future. Why do they think that? Well, it happened with baseball cards and comics, and then everything else. But let's go back to baseball cards. Why did some of them become so valuable? Just a guess but maybe its because they became rare, yet retained nostalgia value. Kids who bought them in the 20s and 30s treated them like the worthless scraps of cardboard that they were. Most were lost or destroyed. But decades later if they came across some they evoked a powerful emotion, maybe the sort of emotion I feel when see the login prompt on a Vic-20 maybe. So they started collecting them, and of course they had the most demand for the legendary players who they idolized as kids, so the value of those went up. After that, its mostly just people speculating. But there was a kernel of real value there to begin.
koonsolo 4y ago
Here is a valid use-case for crypto (Monero): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31996612 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31996612
- IncRnd 4y ago
  > Here is a valid use-case for crypto (Monero): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31996612 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31996612 The very first comment on that use case is, "Please allow me to offer you a free rsync.net account, in perpetuity, for the backup portion of your requirements." [1] Saying that the use case for Monero is to compete with zero-cost services doesn't offer a compelling use-case for Monero. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31998255 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31998255
everfree 4y ago
> If something only has value because you think you can sell it to the next sucker for more, it is a ponzi scheme. That's not what a ponzi scheme is. In a ponzi scheme, there is a fictitious business model that's purported to be turning a profit, and its lack of profit is hidden by secretly using new inflows to pay off old investors. In crypto, none of that is hidden. It's widely known that dollars cashed out by earlier investors come from the coffers of later investors. Since e.g. Bitcoin doesn't deceive people about being a profitable company, it's by definition not a ponzi scheme. Edit: This is a discussion section. If you disagree with my comment, let's respectfully discuss it. I see a lot of voting and no replying.
NaturalPhallacy 4y ago
>It isn't money. Money can be easily exchanged for goods and services. And people do. There's a bitcoin ATM at my local liquor store. And a strip club downtown that takes bitcoin.
- IncRnd 4y ago
  You (but not many other people) can purchase liquor and sex, but you can't go to a grocery store the next morning and buy coffee for your hangover. You can't replace your totaled car that was lost during your escapades, either.
safetybox 4y ago
Since clearly you can buy things for Bitcoin, it is money. You can speculate on the value of any currency. I’ve earned thousands extra this year by invoicing foreign currencies at the right time, at no loss of my customers. Bitcoin only has value for me because of the things I can buy with Bitcoin. (Privacy preserving technology, online services, drugs, helping friends of friends get out of Ukraine.)
rvz 4y ago
> It isn't money. And it is somehow 'money' only when it suits projects and places like HN. [0] I'm sure any of you would immediately rush to sell 299 Ethereum right now, even if it ran through a Tornado.cash mixer, otherwise you would leave it alone if you believe that it isn't money or worth anything. > If something only has value because you think you can sell it to the next sucker for more, it is a ponzi scheme. That is not what a ponzi scheme is. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32923693 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32923693
- sershe 4y ago
  What would you do if you had 193k Argentinian pesos? Probably convert them to USD, too. Is it because you believe it's not money?

bbbbb5 4y ago

Cryptocurrency can easily be exchanged for a whole lot of goods and services.

monero-xmr 4y ago

If your definition of money = using something for goods and services, the crypto has certainly exceeded that definition.

jeremyjh 4y ago
Yes that's why they accept it at Amazon and Alibaba right?
- monero-xmr 4y ago
  Here is a list of services that accept crypto directly https://kycnot.me/ https://kycnot.me/
  - jeremyjh 4y ago
    Thank you for proving my point.
    - ifeeltriedboss 4y ago
      I can buy 4 VPNs with my crypto yay.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
      - bb88 4y ago
        It's like we're living in the future.
  - Kye 4y ago
    It's like a who's who of cryptocurrency-based black markets and facilitators.
  - IncRnd 4y ago
    A crypto exchange or vpn is not quite the same as a store that sells goods like groceries, clothes or electronics or services like a lawyer's time, a doctor's visit or a haircut. I don't see any mainstream websites listed on that website. Regular people are unable to use crypto as money for regular things.
    - monero-xmr 4y ago
      VPN industry is multi-billion, crypto exchanges are multi-billion, hosting is multi-billion. These are real industries - I mean a lot of people on HN are employed in companies that support and provide data / server hosting. It starts with digital services and it spiders out from there. Enthusiasts who own retail stores accept crypto as a novelty or marketing strategy, but in 25 years it could be much more common.
      - Kye 4y ago
        >> "It starts with digital services and it spiders out from there." Silk Road was 11 years ago. When?
        monero-xmr 4y ago
        The first electric car was made over 100 years ago and they are still only a fraction of all the cars on the road. Revolutionary tech doesn’t always take over in 10 years let alone 100.
        IncRnd 4y ago
        You're pushing a fake, invented history. Electric cars existed in the 1830's - about 200 years ago and 52 prior to gasoline powered cars. Electric cars were supplanted by gasoline powered cars. It's NOT that they just haven't caught on, yet.
      - IncRnd 4y ago
        None of that actually applies to this discussion, which is about crypto not being money. The example given for crypto being money was a website that listed things that are not goods and services people use to live their lives. The goods that people use to live are not vpns and secret crypto exchanges but groceries, automobiles, clothing, doctor appointments, etc. If you have some other list of goods and services that people can repeatedly and reliably purchase using crypto, you can provide that to show that crypto is money. The earlier list is almost entirely crypto exchanges and vpns, which is hardly a useful list of goods and services for normal day to day products that people use. If you can't purchase goods and services with crypto, crypto is not money.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- luckylion 4y ago
  Amazon doesn't accept cash. Is cash not money? They don't accept $foreignCurrency either, is that no longer money when you cross the border? Or do you mean "money is what you can use to pay your taxes"? That works to exclude crypto, at least for most of the world.
  - AstralStorm 4y ago
    Funny, Amazon does accept cash on delivery, so you are factually wrong. Doubly wrong since Amazon also accepts gift cards which can be bought with cash.
    - sershe 4y ago
      Where does Amazon accept cash on delivery? Also, by this logic Amazon accepts electronic cash that can be "bought" with crypto, right? Maybe dollars are just gift cards for bitcoin :P
      - shagie 4y ago
        https://www.amazon.eg/-/en/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=GZSKGA5HH9DSSN27 https://www.amazon.eg/-/en/gp/help/customer/display.html?nod... > Cash on Delivery is available as a payment method for fulfilled by Amazon and some seller fulfilled items. If you have Gift Card balance in your account, you can redeem it and pay the remaining amount using Cash on Delivery payment method.
        monero-xmr 4y ago
        It’s quite easy to convert crypto into Amazon gift cards, which can then be used to buy stuff on Amazon. So it’s not exactly a big hop to go from crypto to Amazon.
  - garren 4y ago
    I imagine they’re more than happy to take your cash at their 4-star and pop-up physical locations.
  - 4y ago
- costco 4y ago
  If you've ever used Alibaba you'd know that many sellers do accept it there.

TrianguloY 4y ago

> If something only has value because you think you can sell it to the next sucker for more, it is a ponzi scheme. Careful with that sentence. It is applicable to paintings, stamps, and collecting in general. True that on those other cases you have a physical object, so it has a value (as opposed to nft) but usually it's far less. A Pokemon card costs almost nothing, but some people are willing to pay millions for it, so it "costs" millions. Disclaimer: I still agree with your comment, I just think that the reason is more complex than that sentence.

danaris 4y ago
Paintings are nice to look at. Stamps and other collections are fun to collect and to have, regardless of their monetary value. (After all, people collect otherwise-worthless things like bottle caps, too.) Cryptocurrencies have no substance to them, they are not interesting to look at, and while I suppose one could get a thrill out of simply knowing one has them, I very much doubt that there's more than a tiny handful of people for whom that would remain true if they were worth $0.
- sshine 4y ago
  > I very much doubt that there's more than a tiny handful of people for whom that would remain true if they were worth $0 By now they’re a part of our history. I keep a professionally made, empty paper wallet as a souvenir from the 2010s. It’s a lot more tangible than some scrap of paper with 24 random words on it.
jeremyjh 4y ago
This seems like a good point. I'm not sure I agree about paintings, but sure let's take Pokemon cards. These have only a little bit of intrinsic value - you can use them to play a game that is fun for 8 year olds. They only become more valuable because people speculate that their value may increase in the future. Why do they think that? Well, it happened with baseball cards and comics, and then everything else. But let's go back to baseball cards. Why did some of them become so valuable? Just a guess but maybe its because they became rare, yet retained nostalgia value. Kids who bought them in the 20s and 30s treated them like the worthless scraps of cardboard that they were. Most were lost or destroyed. But decades later if they came across some they evoked a powerful emotion, maybe the sort of emotion I feel when see the login prompt on a Vic-20 maybe. So they started collecting them, and of course they had the most demand for the legendary players who they idolized as kids, so the value of those went up. After that, its mostly just people speculating. But there was a kernel of real value there to begin.

koonsolo 4y ago

Here is a valid use-case for crypto (Monero): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31996612 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31996612

IncRnd 4y ago
> Here is a valid use-case for crypto (Monero): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31996612 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31996612 The very first comment on that use case is, "Please allow me to offer you a free rsync.net account, in perpetuity, for the backup portion of your requirements." [1] Saying that the use case for Monero is to compete with zero-cost services doesn't offer a compelling use-case for Monero. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31998255 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31998255

everfree 4y ago

> If something only has value because you think you can sell it to the next sucker for more, it is a ponzi scheme. That's not what a ponzi scheme is. In a ponzi scheme, there is a fictitious business model that's purported to be turning a profit, and its lack of profit is hidden by secretly using new inflows to pay off old investors. In crypto, none of that is hidden. It's widely known that dollars cashed out by earlier investors come from the coffers of later investors. Since e.g. Bitcoin doesn't deceive people about being a profitable company, it's by definition not a ponzi scheme. Edit: This is a discussion section. If you disagree with my comment, let's respectfully discuss it. I see a lot of voting and no replying.

NaturalPhallacy 4y ago

>It isn't money. Money can be easily exchanged for goods and services. And people do. There's a bitcoin ATM at my local liquor store. And a strip club downtown that takes bitcoin.

IncRnd 4y ago
You (but not many other people) can purchase liquor and sex, but you can't go to a grocery store the next morning and buy coffee for your hangover. You can't replace your totaled car that was lost during your escapades, either.

safetybox 4y ago

Since clearly you can buy things for Bitcoin, it is money. You can speculate on the value of any currency. I’ve earned thousands extra this year by invoicing foreign currencies at the right time, at no loss of my customers. Bitcoin only has value for me because of the things I can buy with Bitcoin. (Privacy preserving technology, online services, drugs, helping friends of friends get out of Ukraine.)

rvz 4y ago

> It isn't money. And it is somehow 'money' only when it suits projects and places like HN. [0] I'm sure any of you would immediately rush to sell 299 Ethereum right now, even if it ran through a Tornado.cash mixer, otherwise you would leave it alone if you believe that it isn't money or worth anything. > If something only has value because you think you can sell it to the next sucker for more, it is a ponzi scheme. That is not what a ponzi scheme is. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32923693 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32923693

sershe 4y ago
What would you do if you had 193k Argentinian pesos? Probably convert them to USD, too. Is it because you believe it's not money?