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"I'd argue that cryptocurrencies have a fair amount of commodity worth to them. The security of the coin is enabled by work put into the system by miners. Hypot

"I'd argue that cryptocurrencies have a fair amount of commodity worth to them. The security of the coin is enabled by work put into the system by miners. Hypothetically there is some value in linking a commodity compute operation to crypto coin value." You got causality backwards. Intrinsic value is what you can get out of a commodity, not what you spent putting into it. I can spend $100,000 cooking a hotdog over a Tesla Roadster bonfire; this does not inject $100,000 of intrinsic value into the hotdog.

kordless 13y ago
A cryptographically secure currency network is infinitely more valuable than a warm hotdog. Via Wikipedia: causality is the relation between an event (the cause) and a second event (the effect), where the second event is understood as a consequence of the first. In this example, the consequence of proof-of-work (mining and transaction validation) gives way to a distributed trust effect (crypto currency). i.e. work put into the system by miners gives the value of trust and security to the currency.
- throwaway_yy2Di 13y ago
  A cryptographically secure currency network is infinitely more valuable than a warm hotdog. Conversely, a global food distribution network is infinitely more valuable than a single dollar. You're conflating two radically unrelated things: the utility of the existence of a monetary system, with the concrete value of a specific instance of currency. The value of USD doesn't derive from the abstract utility of money. 1920's German hyperinflation didn't reflect people deciding that money systems, in general, are worthless. Understanding that we're talking over each other: * I have no doubt that cryptocurrency's utility is "enabled" by the effort spent in cryptographic validation; * I'm saying it's value does not derive from that cost; it is not causally linked

kordless 13y ago

A cryptographically secure currency network is infinitely more valuable than a warm hotdog. Via Wikipedia: causality is the relation between an event (the cause) and a second event (the effect), where the second event is understood as a consequence of the first. In this example, the consequence of proof-of-work (mining and transaction validation) gives way to a distributed trust effect (crypto currency). i.e. work put into the system by miners gives the value of trust and security to the currency.

throwaway_yy2Di 13y ago
A cryptographically secure currency network is infinitely more valuable than a warm hotdog. Conversely, a global food distribution network is infinitely more valuable than a single dollar. You're conflating two radically unrelated things: the utility of the existence of a monetary system, with the concrete value of a specific instance of currency. The value of USD doesn't derive from the abstract utility of money. 1920's German hyperinflation didn't reflect people deciding that money systems, in general, are worthless. Understanding that we're talking over each other: * I have no doubt that cryptocurrency's utility is "enabled" by the effort spent in cryptographic validation; * I'm saying it's value does not derive from that cost; it is not causally linked