4 ms·

> Is every unit now worth 4 melons now just because someone sold one for 4 melons to an outside trader? Well, yes. That's why currencies increase in value, bec

by phaemon 13y ago

> Is every unit now worth 4 melons now just because someone sold one for 4 melons to an outside trader? Well, yes. That's why currencies increase in value, because they're in demand. That's why the value of the pound or dollar or whatever goes up and down. > If I go to the store where I used to buy a melon for 1 unit and tell them now that I think I deserve 4 melons for a unit, what will they say? Who knows? They might refuse to sell at that price. They might see that if they don't sell to you, you're likely to import melons more cheaply than you can buy them locally. The storeowner should react by buying melons in bulk using his units and then selling them to you more cheaply than you can import them yourself. Bitcoin is not unlike this. It's the same. Things are worth what people are willing to pay for them.

fat0wl 13y ago
My intuition says that the storeowner has no reason to accept. I think what a lot of the merchants are doing is using 3rd party processors, basically just saying "Fine yeah I'll take it" as long as a Bitcoin buyer is already lined up (which is essentially what a 3rd party exchange functions as). That way they get cash less transaction fee. But really even if they accept Bitcoin for 4 melons that doesn't mean they have embraced Bitcoin. It is just a credit to the power of Bitcoin's infrastructure that the trading network is there to accept the coins, no? That's my biggest worry. Bitcoin culture seems to believe that at a certain point all individuals will give up resistance and embrace/adopt Bitcoin, whereas there are many many barriers standing before that and I believe it is only the trading network that is strong. However, I do not believe Bitcoin is a stock, so I'm not sure what it is. What do you think, sir/madam phaemon?
- phaemon 13y ago
  > My intuition says that the storeowner has no reason to accept. Well, of course they don't. Things have just got worse for them. But that's exactly what happened to many local retailers when their customers realised they could get stuff cheaper by ordering over the Internet than they could buying locally. It's just how things go. > However, I do not believe Bitcoin is a stock, so I'm not sure what it is. It's an infrastructure. It happens to have a currency built in on top of it, but at heart it's an infrastructure. Its worth depends entirely on what people do with it, like the Internet itself. So, it's a little meta to consider what a currency that's an infrastructure is worth in it's own terms, but no-one has to decide that....just let people pay what they want for their share.
  - fat0wl 13y ago
    eh you lost me, man. he still has the option to only take USD or use a 3rd party payment processor. At the moment, it seems that this approach is not costing any businesses in sales, since Bitcoin is still used infrequently as currency. The only point it actually becomes a currency itself is when the shop owner stops using a 3rd party processor and says "you know what? I'm comfortable just holding onto these". With the market volatility of Bitcoin this is unlikely to happen for a while, unless they are among the believers who think the value can increase indefinitely and accurately represented by trading prices. I definitely understand the value as an infrastructure, but this is the web. Better solutions will emerge and could just co-opt the Bitcoin infrastructure. Like the way ISPs came in and bought access to the data lines of phone companies, same idea.
    - phaemon 13y ago
      > eh you lost me, man. he still has the option to only take USD or use a 3rd party payment processor. Uh, no he doesn't. He only takes Units. We're talking about your hypothetical melon salesman, remember? > Better solutions will emerge and could just co-opt the Bitcoin infrastructure. Probably. I would certainly hope so! That doesn't stop Bitcoin being valuable right now and new solutions being more valuable in the future. There's no reason not to have several competing digital currencies on the go.

by phaemon 13y ago

fat0wl 13y ago

My intuition says that the storeowner has no reason to accept. I think what a lot of the merchants are doing is using 3rd party processors, basically just saying "Fine yeah I'll take it" as long as a Bitcoin buyer is already lined up (which is essentially what a 3rd party exchange functions as). That way they get cash less transaction fee. But really even if they accept Bitcoin for 4 melons that doesn't mean they have embraced Bitcoin. It is just a credit to the power of Bitcoin's infrastructure that the trading network is there to accept the coins, no? That's my biggest worry. Bitcoin culture seems to believe that at a certain point all individuals will give up resistance and embrace/adopt Bitcoin, whereas there are many many barriers standing before that and I believe it is only the trading network that is strong. However, I do not believe Bitcoin is a stock, so I'm not sure what it is. What do you think, sir/madam phaemon?

phaemon 13y ago
> My intuition says that the storeowner has no reason to accept. Well, of course they don't. Things have just got worse for them. But that's exactly what happened to many local retailers when their customers realised they could get stuff cheaper by ordering over the Internet than they could buying locally. It's just how things go. > However, I do not believe Bitcoin is a stock, so I'm not sure what it is. It's an infrastructure. It happens to have a currency built in on top of it, but at heart it's an infrastructure. Its worth depends entirely on what people do with it, like the Internet itself. So, it's a little meta to consider what a currency that's an infrastructure is worth in it's own terms, but no-one has to decide that....just let people pay what they want for their share.
- fat0wl 13y ago
  eh you lost me, man. he still has the option to only take USD or use a 3rd party payment processor. At the moment, it seems that this approach is not costing any businesses in sales, since Bitcoin is still used infrequently as currency. The only point it actually becomes a currency itself is when the shop owner stops using a 3rd party processor and says "you know what? I'm comfortable just holding onto these". With the market volatility of Bitcoin this is unlikely to happen for a while, unless they are among the believers who think the value can increase indefinitely and accurately represented by trading prices. I definitely understand the value as an infrastructure, but this is the web. Better solutions will emerge and could just co-opt the Bitcoin infrastructure. Like the way ISPs came in and bought access to the data lines of phone companies, same idea.
  - phaemon 13y ago
    > eh you lost me, man. he still has the option to only take USD or use a 3rd party payment processor. Uh, no he doesn't. He only takes Units. We're talking about your hypothetical melon salesman, remember? > Better solutions will emerge and could just co-opt the Bitcoin infrastructure. Probably. I would certainly hope so! That doesn't stop Bitcoin being valuable right now and new solutions being more valuable in the future. There's no reason not to have several competing digital currencies on the go.