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Whether the price goes up or down from here, one notion has been sufficiently shattered over the last couple of years - that Bitcoin is a stable ~source~ store

by paxys 9mo ago

Whether the price goes up or down from here, one notion has been sufficiently shattered over the last couple of years - that Bitcoin is a stable ~source~ store of value that acts has a hedge against inflation and currency control by governments. While assets like gold and silver have surged in the same time period due to political and economic uncertainty, as one may expect, Bitcoin has gone in the opposite direction and has been driven more by hype cycles and a small number of whales rather than any fundamentals.

dinkblam 9mo ago
> that Bitcoin is a stable source of value no sane person could have ever held that notion - there is no underlying value.
- pllbnk 9mo ago
  Hindsight is 20/20. That bitcoin is a store of value has been talked about for a very long time when other blockchains overtook it in terms of functionality. People’s memories are short so I am sure it will be touted as such again in a couple years.
- dpc050505 9mo ago
  The computing cost to mine more bitcoin is hailed as the underlying value by proponents of that notion. It depends on bitcoin holders refusing to sell at a price lower than the cost of mining, which isn't a given. It's also a notion that doesn't account for potential innovations such as quantum computing, which would significantly reduce crypto mining costs.
deleted 9mo ago
[deleted]
kkfx 9mo ago
A currency has no intrinsic value except a minimal one; for BTC, we can say it was 10k BTC for two pizzas. The subsequent value didn't come from speculation but from an underlying economy. In BTC case, it was the D-Company that sold drugs for BTC and with BTC bought weapons, explosives etc for Al-Qaeda, and those who sold them accepted BTC because they could sell it for local fiat currencies to various D-Company customers. From there, it was an uphill race. The decline came when it moved from the criminal economy, which was well-supplied and very interested in exchanging BTC, to Wall Street, interested in speculating and with capital far greater than states evading sanctions and criminal groups. However, the decline is always relative, because in its brief existence to date, BTC is still the asset that has gained the most value over time compared to any other. Despite many technical problems https://blog.dshr.org/2025/09/the-gaslit-asset-class.html https://blog.dshr.org/2025/09/the-gaslit-asset-class.html, it has spread. Running a node costs, let's say, a BitAxe/NerdMiner+Raspberry Pi+2TB of storage and an internet connection, meaning it's within reach of many. Once you have a node, you can set up a Lightning channel with your own node to have a "wallet" for everyday payments with low fees and sufficient TPS to pay for a coffee, if the seller accepts SAT. In other words, it truly is an asset against failed currencies, authoritarian governments, geopolitical quakes, and so on. It isn't much compared to gold only because most people don't own BTC, don't know how to use it, so in a major crisis, well, only a few would know what to do, and these few would still need other things for daily exchanges. However, these few could, for example, flee a country taking wealth with them. Something that in a major crisis isn't guaranteed to be possible otherwise. So, it isn't much of a currency at this moment. The currency uses that gave it the bulk of its super-value during this period are reduced, while speculative ones are high. It isn't very sustainable for the miners' economy without a rising price, and this creates a very dangerous downward spiral because, to date, states and giant actors accumulate BTC here and there but don't do much mining, and the interest in keeping the network up remains to be seen how it will hold over time. But it does have value in the current context. The problem is always that the market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent. The market isn't made up entirely of homines economici, but only some, and many other purely emotional subjects whose reasoning seems more constructed after the fact to justify emotional choices. Personally, I suspend judgment. I've never really digested the definition of "store of value" nor that of digital gold, but I don't digest gold either because in itself it has minimal value; the super-value is pure psychology that can change at any time, ESPECIALLY in a major crisis where most are hungry and don't eat ingots. I just wonder in case of a major crisis what the few who have BTC can do with it, besides waiting for better times.

by paxys 9mo ago

dinkblam 9mo ago

> that Bitcoin is a stable source of value no sane person could have ever held that notion - there is no underlying value.

pllbnk 9mo ago
Hindsight is 20/20. That bitcoin is a store of value has been talked about for a very long time when other blockchains overtook it in terms of functionality. People’s memories are short so I am sure it will be touted as such again in a couple years.
dpc050505 9mo ago
The computing cost to mine more bitcoin is hailed as the underlying value by proponents of that notion. It depends on bitcoin holders refusing to sell at a price lower than the cost of mining, which isn't a given. It's also a notion that doesn't account for potential innovations such as quantum computing, which would significantly reduce crypto mining costs.

deleted 9mo ago

[deleted]

kkfx 9mo ago

A currency has no intrinsic value except a minimal one; for BTC, we can say it was 10k BTC for two pizzas. The subsequent value didn't come from speculation but from an underlying economy. In BTC case, it was the D-Company that sold drugs for BTC and with BTC bought weapons, explosives etc for Al-Qaeda, and those who sold them accepted BTC because they could sell it for local fiat currencies to various D-Company customers. From there, it was an uphill race. The decline came when it moved from the criminal economy, which was well-supplied and very interested in exchanging BTC, to Wall Street, interested in speculating and with capital far greater than states evading sanctions and criminal groups. However, the decline is always relative, because in its brief existence to date, BTC is still the asset that has gained the most value over time compared to any other. Despite many technical problems https://blog.dshr.org/2025/09/the-gaslit-asset-class.html https://blog.dshr.org/2025/09/the-gaslit-asset-class.html, it has spread. Running a node costs, let's say, a BitAxe/NerdMiner+Raspberry Pi+2TB of storage and an internet connection, meaning it's within reach of many. Once you have a node, you can set up a Lightning channel with your own node to have a "wallet" for everyday payments with low fees and sufficient TPS to pay for a coffee, if the seller accepts SAT. In other words, it truly is an asset against failed currencies, authoritarian governments, geopolitical quakes, and so on. It isn't much compared to gold only because most people don't own BTC, don't know how to use it, so in a major crisis, well, only a few would know what to do, and these few would still need other things for daily exchanges. However, these few could, for example, flee a country taking wealth with them. Something that in a major crisis isn't guaranteed to be possible otherwise. So, it isn't much of a currency at this moment. The currency uses that gave it the bulk of its super-value during this period are reduced, while speculative ones are high. It isn't very sustainable for the miners' economy without a rising price, and this creates a very dangerous downward spiral because, to date, states and giant actors accumulate BTC here and there but don't do much mining, and the interest in keeping the network up remains to be seen how it will hold over time. But it does have value in the current context. The problem is always that the market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent. The market isn't made up entirely of homines economici, but only some, and many other purely emotional subjects whose reasoning seems more constructed after the fact to justify emotional choices. Personally, I suspend judgment. I've never really digested the definition of "store of value" nor that of digital gold, but I don't digest gold either because in itself it has minimal value; the super-value is pure psychology that can change at any time, ESPECIALLY in a major crisis where most are hungry and don't eat ingots. I just wonder in case of a major crisis what the few who have BTC can do with it, besides waiting for better times.