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it's a social phenomenon. no coincide that BTC and alt/memecoins rose at the same time as social media and generation of people who grew up with the internet.

it's a social phenomenon. no coincide that BTC and alt/memecoins rose at the same time as social media and generation of people who grew up with the internet. it's a social casino and it isn't going anywhere. it captures the post 2007-2008 zeitgeist perfectly.

fedeb95 3y ago
not necessarily true: many social phenomena stick, and later you can find usage for them. Gold was mainly a social thing for a long time (embellishing armors and weapons) before some usage was find (connectors and other stuff). This may, or may not, happen for cryptocurrencies even if they aren't very useful today.
- ffgjgf1 3y ago
  > Gold was mainly a social thing for a long time (embellishing armors and weapons) Gold’s role as an instrument for storing and transferring was infinitely more important than that. And it worked quite well at that before stable and competent governments were a thing. It was extremely useful (much more than it is today)
  - fedeb95 3y ago
    do you have any source on that? I got none, just my opinion formed over time. Might be wrong. If that's the case, I'll restate it as follows. I don't see why a technology that bears no initial utility couldn't find it in the future. Again, I'm not sayign it's definitely the case with Bitcoin. Using cryptography in some clever way to record transactions though... but yes, some hype is definitely misplaced.
OJFord 3y ago
Does it matter? That's (mostly, in terms of its value) true of gold too for example. I'm not a BTC/cryptocurrency fan or proponent (though I read the paper, was interested, mined as it was profitable at the time, and still hold some just as ~part of a diverse portfolio~ FOMO) but it's here, it exists, people can and do profit from it or store their wealth there - more volatily than gold, historically, sure, but it's not completely stupid and it's clear at this point it's not going to just go away.
- ffgjgf1 3y ago
  Yes for the most part in the modern economy gold is also a non productive speculatory asset/token just like bitcoin.
  - npoc 3y ago
    Speculating on what exactly?
    - junofan 3y ago
      Price movements. The CFTC’s old educational site was pretty solid: https://web.archive.org/web/20120813061455/http://www.cftc.gov/ConsumerProtection/EducationCenter/index.htm https://web.archive.org/web/20120813061455/http://www.cftc.g...
      - npoc 3y ago
        Everything moves in price due to people trading it, so in that sense all assets are speculative. And housing for example is non productive.
        ffgjgf1 3y ago
        > And housing for example is non productive. That’s not strictly true (I’m pretty rented housing fits the definition of a productive asset) and certainly not true at all when compared to bitcoin or gold
        npoc 3y ago
        Are you classifying it as productive because you can receive compensation (rent) for lending someone your house? That's true for all property. In the case of money (which includes bitcoin and gold), it's called interest.

fedeb95 3y ago

not necessarily true: many social phenomena stick, and later you can find usage for them. Gold was mainly a social thing for a long time (embellishing armors and weapons) before some usage was find (connectors and other stuff). This may, or may not, happen for cryptocurrencies even if they aren't very useful today.

ffgjgf1 3y ago
> Gold was mainly a social thing for a long time (embellishing armors and weapons) Gold’s role as an instrument for storing and transferring was infinitely more important than that. And it worked quite well at that before stable and competent governments were a thing. It was extremely useful (much more than it is today)
- fedeb95 3y ago
  do you have any source on that? I got none, just my opinion formed over time. Might be wrong. If that's the case, I'll restate it as follows. I don't see why a technology that bears no initial utility couldn't find it in the future. Again, I'm not sayign it's definitely the case with Bitcoin. Using cryptography in some clever way to record transactions though... but yes, some hype is definitely misplaced.

OJFord 3y ago

Does it matter? That's (mostly, in terms of its value) true of gold too for example. I'm not a BTC/cryptocurrency fan or proponent (though I read the paper, was interested, mined as it was profitable at the time, and still hold some just as ~part of a diverse portfolio~ FOMO) but it's here, it exists, people can and do profit from it or store their wealth there - more volatily than gold, historically, sure, but it's not completely stupid and it's clear at this point it's not going to just go away.

ffgjgf1 3y ago
Yes for the most part in the modern economy gold is also a non productive speculatory asset/token just like bitcoin.
- npoc 3y ago
  Speculating on what exactly?
  - junofan 3y ago
    Price movements. The CFTC’s old educational site was pretty solid: https://web.archive.org/web/20120813061455/http://www.cftc.gov/ConsumerProtection/EducationCenter/index.htm https://web.archive.org/web/20120813061455/http://www.cftc.g...
    - npoc 3y ago
      Everything moves in price due to people trading it, so in that sense all assets are speculative. And housing for example is non productive.
      - ffgjgf1 3y ago
        > And housing for example is non productive. That’s not strictly true (I’m pretty rented housing fits the definition of a productive asset) and certainly not true at all when compared to bitcoin or gold
        npoc 3y ago
        Are you classifying it as productive because you can receive compensation (rent) for lending someone your house? That's true for all property. In the case of money (which includes bitcoin and gold), it's called interest.