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As a lower bound, it's at least as useful as other things that people regard as valuable mostly because, historically, people have regarded it as valuable. Gold
by akoboldfrying 3y ago
As a lower bound, it's at least as useful as other things that people regard as valuable mostly because, historically, people have regarded it as valuable. Gold is in this category -- but so would be Awesomium, a substance I just made up but which myself and my associates are certain is gonna be the Next Big Thing, so get in now before it gets big, YOLO!
If you trust institutions like banks, tax departments and reserve banks, and transacting with them is easy and cheap, the value of crypto as a medium of exchange is very low. This is how the majority of people feel in the developed world, though whether this is rational (given things like the fact a government can just unilaterally change the rules by printing, or burning, a bunch of money) is disputed. To the extent you don't trust these institutions, or they make transacting hard, the value of alternatives, like cash notes and coins, barter, or crypto increases.
- telepathy 3y agoInventing tech to circumvent law is obviously "unlawful"
- akoboldfrying 3y agoYou claim that the only possible uses of cryptocurrency are to circumvent the law. If that were the case, governments would have simply made holding or trading it illegal -- but with few exceptions (bitcoin in China), they have not done so.
- telepathy 3y agoSo why don't you simply explain a few lawful use cases that are impossible with an ordinary database? Just do that and case closed, you win.
- akoboldfrying 3y ago>a few lawful use cases that are impossible This is not your original question -- you have smuggled the word "impossible" in there, hoping I wouldn't notice. Plainly a thing can have value even if what it can do can be done in other ways. It might be more convenient than those other ways, or cheaper, or be more reliable. It might involve having to trust fewer commercial third parties like banks -- which, you'll notice, has no implications for lawfulness. As I already stated, crypto can be used as a store of value like gold, or for exchange like cash or barter. Neither of these uses are necessarily illegal. I'm done here.
- telepathy 3y agoWe're looking for a lawful use case that can only be done with crypto. Still yet to be explained.