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You do need to separate medium of exchange from store of value. Real estate is useless as a currency while being the primary store of value for most people. Mo

by mabcat 3y ago

You do need to separate medium of exchange from store of value. Real estate is useless as a currency while being the primary store of value for most people. Most of your objections also apply to real estate: can't know how much wheat a house is worth, houses are notoriously illiquid, price discovery is difficult and quite opaque, the sector is rife with misrepresentations. I wouldn't go so far as to say fraud, but where does "real estate agent" sit on those polls of "most trusted professions"? Houses aren't even fungible! And if anyone thinks BTC/ETH transactions are slow and expensive (me!), around here the gas fee on real estate transactions is ~5% with a 6-month processing time...

peoplefromibiza 3y ago
I guess the difference is that you can live in a house. For the majority of people that's the real value. Real estate market is also heavily (heavily) regulated, to the point that buying and selling houses require so much paperwork that it's not really convenient for scammers. It's also quite stable, loans are secured by mortgages on the properties, I'm not sure anyone would accept bitcoins for the same purpose.
- thworp 3y ago
  You sort of tipped around the main difference: Real estate is illiquid and intransparent sure, but it is a non-fungible productive asset, you can get people to pay you rents because they need precisely your building. There are no comparable income streams for bitcoin (outside of Ponzi "yield farming") so it is illiquid without any of the benefits of traditional illiquid assets.
  - peoplefromibiza 3y ago
    rent is due after you bought the property. which entails a lot of the aforementioned paperwork and checks and law abidings. if bitcoin could provide the exact same level of security, it could be used as an asset, granted it failed as a currency. the problem is it was designed precisely to not adhere to the standards everyone expects from "old-school" transactions, hence its main purpose is speculation, and it's barely good at that right now.
darth_avocado 3y ago
You can live in a real estate investment or grow food on it or run a business in it. Bitcoin is a bunch of 1s and 0s that is same as a blank canvas hung in museum and is priced at $20M. It is essentially useless, but people believe it’s worth something, so it keeps holding value. Until one day, it doesn’t.
- lbotos 3y ago
  I'm not a bitcoin maximalist, but you have to acknowledge that in this day and age that your definition pretty much applies to USD as well. People believe it's worth something. And so it is.
  - blackle 3y ago
    USD holds value because the government says it does. The government holds authority because they have a monopoly on violence. Or, if your less pessimistic, it's because people believe in the government.
    - steveBK123 3y ago
      Exactly To paraphrase a quote attributed to Stalin - how many divisions does Satoshi have?
      - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
        But then you have to explain why gift cards are worth something. The answer is, because someone will give you something for them. Meanwhile there are a large number of entities that have already entered into long-term contracts denominated in cryptocurrencies and any of them would pay you something for it when they need to satisfy their obligations. That doesn't mean the value never changes, but that's also true of government-issued currencies. That's what inflation is.
        peoplefromibiza 3y ago

by mabcat 3y ago

peoplefromibiza 3y ago

I guess the difference is that you can live in a house. For the majority of people that's the real value. Real estate market is also heavily (heavily) regulated, to the point that buying and selling houses require so much paperwork that it's not really convenient for scammers. It's also quite stable, loans are secured by mortgages on the properties, I'm not sure anyone would accept bitcoins for the same purpose.

thworp 3y ago
You sort of tipped around the main difference: Real estate is illiquid and intransparent sure, but it is a non-fungible productive asset, you can get people to pay you rents because they need precisely your building. There are no comparable income streams for bitcoin (outside of Ponzi "yield farming") so it is illiquid without any of the benefits of traditional illiquid assets.
- peoplefromibiza 3y ago
  rent is due after you bought the property. which entails a lot of the aforementioned paperwork and checks and law abidings. if bitcoin could provide the exact same level of security, it could be used as an asset, granted it failed as a currency. the problem is it was designed precisely to not adhere to the standards everyone expects from "old-school" transactions, hence its main purpose is speculation, and it's barely good at that right now.

darth_avocado 3y ago

You can live in a real estate investment or grow food on it or run a business in it. Bitcoin is a bunch of 1s and 0s that is same as a blank canvas hung in museum and is priced at $20M. It is essentially useless, but people believe it’s worth something, so it keeps holding value. Until one day, it doesn’t.

lbotos 3y ago
I'm not a bitcoin maximalist, but you have to acknowledge that in this day and age that your definition pretty much applies to USD as well. People believe it's worth something. And so it is.
- blackle 3y ago
  USD holds value because the government says it does. The government holds authority because they have a monopoly on violence. Or, if your less pessimistic, it's because people believe in the government.
  - steveBK123 3y ago
    Exactly To paraphrase a quote attributed to Stalin - how many divisions does Satoshi have?
    - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
      But then you have to explain why gift cards are worth something. The answer is, because someone will give you something for them. Meanwhile there are a large number of entities that have already entered into long-term contracts denominated in cryptocurrencies and any of them would pay you something for it when they need to satisfy their obligations. That doesn't mean the value never changes, but that's also true of government-issued currencies. That's what inflation is.
      - peoplefromibiza 3y ago