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Gold has survived for thousands of years as a store of wealth. It has intrinsic properties, it is one of nature's unique elements. It cannot be synthetically

by yapcguy 13y ago

Gold has survived for thousands of years as a store of wealth. It has intrinsic properties, it is one of nature's unique elements. It cannot be synthetically created. Bitcoin's scarcity is based on a completely fictional and arbitrary hard limit of 21 million which can be changed in a trivial fork such as Litecoin. Furthermore, given that there is no intrinsic physical difference between a Litecoin, Freicoin, Bitcoin etc. there is an argument that a P2P currency is the ultimate fiat. The printing presses have just been handed to the public rather than being held by a select few. Bitcoin is a great electronic currency, and a real challenge to money transmitters like Western Union, but it is not a store of wealth (in my opinion).

modeless 13y ago
Saying that bitcoin isn't scarce because someone could fork the blockchain is like saying that gold isn't scarce because everyone in the world could suddenly agree to start using silver instead.
- fat0wl 13y ago
  Um... what? Limited resource physical commodities vs. a few bytes on your filesystem? This is a ridiculous comparison. But what people mean when they say you could fork libcoin or something like that is not that Bitcoin isn't scarce. It's more along the lines of "We are in no way beholden to this psychotic black market pyramid scheme currency. We can just start anew with a better dispersement/capping scheme."
  - greyfade 13y ago
    "psychotic black market pyramid scheme currency"?
  - brainburn 13y ago
    They are just a few bytes yes. But it's rather hard to generate the correct bytes. Referring to the bytes that constitute a valid block in the blockchain.
- yapcguy 13y ago
  No, I mean forking the software to start a whole new blockchain. What distinguishes one blockchain from another? Nothing, they're just numbers. What distinguishes gold from silver? Nature.
gnerd 13y ago
> Bitcoin is a great electronic currency, and a real challenge to money transmitters like Western Union, but it is not a store of wealth (in my opinion). You can store your wealth in any commodity. I can store my value in stocks, gold or BitCoin to hedge against inflation. Just because something doesn't have physical intrinsic properties does not mean it somehow stops being a store of value. Anything that someone wants to buy and someone wants to sell, that can be stored and transferred, can be a store of value.
SilasX 13y ago
>Bitcoin's scarcity is based on a completely fictional and arbitrary hard limit of 21 million which can be changed in a trivial fork such as Litecoin. Changed in a fork? Yes. Trivial? Not even close. Remember, you have to convince a lot of people to go along with your fork, due to the network effects required to get a new currency off the ground.
- crististm 13y ago
  The triviality is not bound to the network of people - the valuation is. And yes, the change is also trivial - and that means that once people realize that valuation is just about being first, then by starting another scheme the valuations of all the other will dilute. Does anyone remember the million dollar page?

by yapcguy 13y ago

modeless 13y ago

Saying that bitcoin isn't scarce because someone could fork the blockchain is like saying that gold isn't scarce because everyone in the world could suddenly agree to start using silver instead.

fat0wl 13y ago
Um... what? Limited resource physical commodities vs. a few bytes on your filesystem? This is a ridiculous comparison. But what people mean when they say you could fork libcoin or something like that is not that Bitcoin isn't scarce. It's more along the lines of "We are in no way beholden to this psychotic black market pyramid scheme currency. We can just start anew with a better dispersement/capping scheme."
- greyfade 13y ago
  "psychotic black market pyramid scheme currency"?
- brainburn 13y ago
  They are just a few bytes yes. But it's rather hard to generate the correct bytes. Referring to the bytes that constitute a valid block in the blockchain.
yapcguy 13y ago
No, I mean forking the software to start a whole new blockchain. What distinguishes one blockchain from another? Nothing, they're just numbers. What distinguishes gold from silver? Nature.

gnerd 13y ago

> Bitcoin is a great electronic currency, and a real challenge to money transmitters like Western Union, but it is not a store of wealth (in my opinion). You can store your wealth in any commodity. I can store my value in stocks, gold or BitCoin to hedge against inflation. Just because something doesn't have physical intrinsic properties does not mean it somehow stops being a store of value. Anything that someone wants to buy and someone wants to sell, that can be stored and transferred, can be a store of value.

SilasX 13y ago

>Bitcoin's scarcity is based on a completely fictional and arbitrary hard limit of 21 million which can be changed in a trivial fork such as Litecoin. Changed in a fork? Yes. Trivial? Not even close. Remember, you have to convince a lot of people to go along with your fork, due to the network effects required to get a new currency off the ground.

crististm 13y ago
The triviality is not bound to the network of people - the valuation is. And yes, the change is also trivial - and that means that once people realize that valuation is just about being first, then by starting another scheme the valuations of all the other will dilute. Does anyone remember the million dollar page?