Topic: A simple proof that Bitcoin has zero value - page 6. (Read 1435 times)
The value of anything is subjective. Ask 1000 different people what they think a bitcoin is worth and get 1000 different answers. You see to some people Bitcoin is worth zero because they either don’t care about it or don’t want to use it or maybe even know anything about it. To some people bitcoin is very valuable. It would depend on who you are asking. Everything is only worth what someone else will pay for it. There is no such thing as absolute value. To some people gold and diamonds are just shiny rocks. What is the dollar value you would put on love or a friendship? What is your pet dog or cat worth? What is your time worth? What is your car worth? These questions all have very different answers depending on who you are talking to because value is subjective not objective.
You have to realize that in 21th century virtual things have value too, it's part of real world. Bitcoin is as usable as paper notes you have in pocket. You just transfer that notes into bitcoin and oppositely, transfer bitcoins into notes. Bitcoin isn't like an air, it has it's advantages to mine so it's not freely created, something was wasted for it and it's electricity + components of equipment.
Exactly. Bitcoin isn’t like air. That fact that bitcoin has been successfully used for the exchange of goods and services proves it has value. And bitcoin ATMs won’t be popping up around the world if it had zero value. The fact that something is digital and not tangible doesn’t mean it’s not real.
There is no proof for the bitcoin and it is impossible that we should judge the crypto and bitcoin is not a value less currency and if some one make an observation that will be just illusion not not fact that shows actual value of bitcoin.
Will bitcoin today has a value and I think it will never fall into zero value, because it has now an amazing price, if we are in dip today maybe tommorow or in the next months or year we are on pump status crypto is unstable. So there is a posibility to rise or maybe fall depending on the volume of investors on the feild.Bitcoin never had, nor ever will have value. What you see on the exchanges is not value but letters and numbers, something like this: BTC/USD 6,352.02. Value of bitcoin has always been zero, i.e. numbers that you see are not quantifiers of value but marks of events where people give their possessions for free. In the legitimate market, like EUR/USD for e.g., number 1.1700 quantifies the value of claims derived from loan created money in the US in terms of claims derived from loan created money in the EU. So, we have ratio between two things (claims) with value of their own and number is only expression of that ratio. But in the case of BTC/USD, number 6,325.02 does not represent ratio between two values, since bitcoin is a number and numbers cannot have value on their own. For that reason 6,325.02 is nothing but a numerical mark of the fact that currently, people are willing to throw away 6,325.02 US dollars for the alteration of worthless number in publicly distributed database. And this is stupidity on a scale never seen in human history.
Your understanding of the global economy and global banking system is poor.
USD is not "loan created money". FED has not borrowed money from aliens or Illuminati to loan it forward to business banks. It printed it - created it from thin air. And the EUR/USD is not a ratio between "claims" to loans in respective currencies. That ratio is derived absolutely and only from supply and demand of each currency for another. The same goes for BTC/USD.
You haven't defined a term "value", as interpretations I think are clashing. In your case it definitely isn't a thing of supply and demand - like in neoliberal capitalism.
Does Ethereum as a network have value? If not, does Uber or Airbnb or Reddit have value and why?
The same argument used against bitcoin in this case can also be used against every other items on the list, the USD as some printed pieces of paper that are worthless unless people say it is, for example it is worthless to some locals in some remote part of the World, an iPhone can be valued as some child's toy which will be of no use to an adult.The concept of intrinsic value is only useful when there is a need to be satisfied.
USD is not pinted piece of paper. USD is claim derived for debt and backed by some form of collateral (land, car, home or borrower’s income). Paper is just a medium upon which numerical information about claim size is stored. This has nothing to do with what "people say." Comparing bitcoin to dollar is like comparing dirt to Ferrari.
The same argument used against bitcoin in this case can also be used against every other items on the list, the USD as some printed pieces of paper that are worthless unless people say it is, for example it is worthless to some locals in some remote part of the World, an iPhone can be valued as some child's toy which will be of no use to an adult.The concept of intrinsic value is only useful when there is a need to be satisfied.
There is no proof for the bitcoin and it is impossible that we should judge the crypto and bitcoin is not a value less currency and if some one make an observation that will be just illusion not not fact that shows actual value of bitcoin.
Will bitcoin today has a value and I think it will never fall into zero value, because it has now an amazing price, if we are in dip today maybe tommorow or in the next months or year we are on pump status crypto is unstable. So there is a posibility to rise or maybe fall depending on the volume of investors on the feild.Bitcoin never had, nor ever will have value. What you see on the exchanges is not value but letters and numbers, something like this: BTC/USD 6,352.02. Value of bitcoin has always been zero, i.e. numbers that you see are not quantifiers of value but marks of events where people give their possessions for free. In the legitimate market, like EUR/USD for e.g., number 1.1700 quantifies the value of claims derived from loan created money in the US in terms of claims derived from loan created money in the EU. So, we have ratio between two things (claims) with value of their own and number is only expression of that ratio. But in the case of BTC/USD, number 6,325.02 does not represent the ratio between two values, since bitcoin is a number and numbers cannot have value on their own. For that reason 6,325.02 is nothing but a numerical mark of the fact that currently, people are willing to throw away 6,325.02 US dollars for the alteration of worthless number in publicly distributed database. And this is stupidity on a scale never seen in human history.
There is no proof for the bitcoin and it is impossible that we should judge the crypto and bitcoin is not a value less currency and if some one make an observation that will be just illusion not not fact that shows actual value of bitcoin.
Will bitcoin today has a value and I think it will never fall into zero value, because it has now an amazing price, if we are in dip today maybe tommorow or in the next months or year we are on pump status crypto is unstable. So there is a posibility to rise or maybe fall depending on the volume of investors on the feild. And it is also an oxymoron to state that a bitcoin worth US $6K has a zero value, don't you think otherwise?
What happened here is that you talked about physicality. An iphone is a cellphone, a US Dollar is a paper bill and IBM Shares are bond or equity that is with proofing of a certificate or something to that effect.
It is for this mere reason that you based your assumption that bitcoin has zero value. And truly, bitcoin has no physical form simply because it was designed electronically (or digitally, whichever you prefer to call it). Just like an email, an email remains to be digital in nature with no physical form until you had that email printed. But until the printing, does it mean that the email holds no value at all? Of course not, right?
Thus, i do believe that bitcoin is more than what you think of it. It is not zero value. It has its own purchasing power.
What happened here is that you talked about physicality. An iphone is a cellphone, a US Dollar is a paper bill and IBM Shares are bond or equity that is with proofing of a certificate or something to that effect.
It is for this mere reason that you based your assumption that bitcoin has zero value. And truly, bitcoin has no physical form simply because it was designed electronically (or digitally, whichever you prefer to call it). Just like an email, an email remains to be digital in nature with no physical form until you had that email printed. But until the printing, does it mean that the email holds no value at all? Of course not, right?
Thus, i do believe that bitcoin is more than what you think of it. It is not zero value. It has its own purchasing power.
E-mail has value because it contains information about some aspect of reality i.e. it provides the answer to a question of some kind or resolves uncertainty. Bitcoin has zero value because it is just empty number connected to the addresses, it is just numerical symbols that point to nothing in the real world. Numerical symbols are valueless on their own. "45437368752737" - I just created numerical symbols out of thin air. Do they have value? Of course not. "11" - my computer just find this symbols via brute-force i.e. by spending energy. Did this gave these symbols value? Of course not - they are still just symbols in a memory. If I give name to them, for. e.g. - XYZCoin, does this make them valuable? Of course not - naming something doesn't change its properties. Now, if I write them down into some database ("XYZ blockchain"), and connect them to some address(name): "John - 11", because John gave me 1,000,000 US Dollars, does that mean that two bytes stored in memory have value of a house. Of course not, these bytes are just as worthless as before - their properties didn't change just because John did something. By connecting them to "John" we simply marked the fact that John gave me 1,000,000 US Dollars for free. We could also mark this event with symbols "John - STUPID". Nothing would change. Symbols would stay symbols i.e. linguistic or mathematical objects with zero value.
And are not paper bills just the same? It is just a piece of paper with denoting values printed on it. Not until unless the government state otherwise that the paper bill is to be accepted with the amount printed on it, the paper bill remains of no value.
Just as gold. What gives gold its value? What can gold be formed into that silver could not? Or even stainless steel, a much cheaper alternative. Yet gold is more valuable than its competitors. Why? Because people gives value unto it.
And it is the same with bitcoin. People gives value to it. And again, how could something of no value provide purchasing power? Perhaps your argument was true until bitcoin proved to the world its worth.
From the premises: people give value to things and bitcoin is a thing, it does not follow: bitcoin has value. Nobody can give value to something that has no capacity to hold value. In principle, anything that has value on its own, i.e. that has practical utility, can hold value. For example, a toothpick. Although the intrinsic value of a toothpick is very small it is not zero since a toothpick has practical utility. That is why a toothpick has capacity to hold value. But bitcoin is a number, and numbers are abstract mathematical entities that can only express values of other things, for e.g. in the form of ratio between X toothpicks to one iPhone, but numbers cannot in principle hold value on their own. Thus, it is true that people give value to things, but this has nothing to do with bitcoin.
Like I have already said, bitcoin is nothing but a numerical mark that someone gave his possessions for free.
Here is an example that points otherwise, a fast read about the upcoming institutional-grade Bitcoin trading platform!
https://coincodex.com/article/2359/bakkt-ceo-elaborates-on-platforms-vision/
https://coincodex.com/article/2359/bakkt-ceo-elaborates-on-platforms-vision/
There is no proof for the bitcoin and it is impossible that we should judge the crypto and bitcoin is not a value less currency and if some one make an observation that will be just illusion not not fact that shows actual value of bitcoin.
And it is also an oxymoron to state that a bitcoin worth US $6K has a zero value, don't you think otherwise?
What happened here is that you talked about physicality. An iphone is a cellphone, a US Dollar is a paper bill and IBM Shares are bond or equity that is with proofing of a certificate or something to that effect.
It is for this mere reason that you based your assumption that bitcoin has zero value. And truly, bitcoin has no physical form simply because it was designed electronically (or digitally, whichever you prefer to call it). Just like an email, an email remains to be digital in nature with no physical form until you had that email printed. But until the printing, does it mean that the email holds no value at all? Of course not, right?
Thus, i do believe that bitcoin is more than what you think of it. It is not zero value. It has its own purchasing power.
What happened here is that you talked about physicality. An iphone is a cellphone, a US Dollar is a paper bill and IBM Shares are bond or equity that is with proofing of a certificate or something to that effect.
It is for this mere reason that you based your assumption that bitcoin has zero value. And truly, bitcoin has no physical form simply because it was designed electronically (or digitally, whichever you prefer to call it). Just like an email, an email remains to be digital in nature with no physical form until you had that email printed. But until the printing, does it mean that the email holds no value at all? Of course not, right?
Thus, i do believe that bitcoin is more than what you think of it. It is not zero value. It has its own purchasing power.
E-mail has value because it contains information about some aspect of reality i.e. it provides the answer to a question of some kind or resolves uncertainty. Bitcoin has zero value because it is just empty number connected to the addresses, it is just numerical symbols that point to nothing in the real world. Numerical symbols are valueless on their own. "45437368752737" - I just created numerical symbols out of thin air. Do they have value? Of course not. "11" - my computer just find this symbols via brute-force i.e. by spending energy. Did this gave these symbols value? Of course not - they are still just symbols in a memory. If I give name to them, for. e.g. - XYZCoin, does this make them valuable? Of course not - naming something doesn't change its properties. Now, if I write them down into some database ("XYZ blockchain"), and connect them to some address(name): "John - 11", because John gave me 1,000,000 US Dollars, does that mean that two bytes stored in memory have value of a house. Of course not, these bytes are just as worthless as before - their properties didn't change just because John did something. By connecting them to "John" we simply marked the fact that John gave me 1,000,000 US Dollars for free. We could also mark this event with symbols "John - STUPID". Nothing would change. Symbols would stay symbols i.e. linguistic or mathematical objects with zero value.
And are not paper bills just the same? It is just a piece of paper with denoting values printed on it. Not until unless the government state otherwise that the paper bill is to be accepted with the amount printed on it, the paper bill remains of no value.
Just as gold. What gives gold its value? What can gold be formed into that silver could not? Or even stainless steel, a much cheaper alternative. Yet gold is more valuable than its competitors. Why? Because people gives value unto it.
And it is the same with bitcoin. People gives value to it. And again, how could something of no value provide purchasing power? Perhaps your argument was true until bitcoin proved to the world its worth.
Bitcoin is not created out of thin air.There is mining cost for bitcoins to be mined.If you had added another column for US dollar,then it would best suit for what you have mentioned.
Yes it is, bitcoin is created out of thin air. First there was nothing in the ledger, and then there was number(bitcoin) in the ledger. Hence, out of thin air. All numbers in databases are created out of thin air. They are not "build" by adding parts gradually, step by step, like houses, cars or mobile phones are. And of course, the amount of energy spent or force applied in the process of creation does not change the fact that they are created out of thin air.
Ok, explain to us how a credit card gets credited by money and how fiat currencies are being duplicated out of thin air when
you deposit your physical cash into Banks and how they "duplicate" that money, when they loan it to someone else. Also
called, Fractional reserve banking , it is a banking system in which only a fraction of bank deposits are backed by actual
cash on hand and are available for withdrawal. A digital entry out of thin air... Magic Money with ZERO value.
They only had to push a few buttons on a computer, nearly no electricity was spend to create that money.
I explained this already in the posts above. Numbers on bank accounts are created out of thin air, but it is not this numbers what have value. Things like bank reserves, bank liabilities, collateral, borrowers liabilities and claims that are derived from these liabilities have value.
Numbers are just worthless symbols whose only purpose is to express the size of these claims and that is why they can be created out of thin air. If you measure the height of a building you've created numbers out of thin air, but it is building what has value, not numbers.
You are just not the sharpest pencil in the box, thats all. I wont even explain You, how macro economics work, You are unable to understand even the simplest and most obvious arguments.
Your employer transfers Your salary, that You get for... I dont know... selling hot dogs... to Your bank account. Its is Your jobs value converted into more usable form - Your bank balance. Wtf You speak about, numbers have no value?
Your bank balance, usable in most places, together with reasonable assurance, that someone else can not use it instead of You - this is value. You basically carry Your job´s value with You, with opportunity to use it where You like and on what You like.
Numbers with symbols "USD" which exist in a banking system measure the size of the share in the total claims that originated from the total borrowers liabilities in the US monetary system. Hence, my jobs value was NOT converted into bank balance, but into share in the total claims, while bank balance is just numerical means to express the size of that share.
And certainty, that You can claim Your share from total pool of claims, anywhere You are and with very high (almost all certainly) probability there will be no problems with that, it is what makes it valuable. But OK, that was my last answer to this topic, its a waste of time.
Bitcoin is not created out of thin air.There is mining cost for bitcoins to be mined.If you had added another column for US dollar,then it would best suit for what you have mentioned.
Yes it is, bitcoin is created out of thin air. First there was nothing in the ledger, and then there was number(bitcoin) in the ledger. Hence, out of thin air. All numbers in databases are created out of thin air. They are not "build" by adding parts gradually, step by step, like houses, cars or mobile phones are. And of course, the amount of energy spent or force applied in the process of creation does not change the fact that they are created out of thin air.
Ok, explain to us how a credit card gets credited by money and how fiat currencies are being duplicated out of thin air when
you deposit your physical cash into Banks and how they "duplicate" that money, when they loan it to someone else. Also
called, Fractional reserve banking , it is a banking system in which only a fraction of bank deposits are backed by actual
cash on hand and are available for withdrawal. A digital entry out of thin air... Magic Money with ZERO value.
They only had to push a few buttons on a computer, nearly no electricity was spend to create that money.
I explained this already in the posts above. Numbers on bank accounts are created out of thin air, but it is not this numbers what have value. Things like bank reserves, bank liabilities, collateral, borrowers liabilities and claims that are derived from these liabilities have value.
Numbers are just worthless symbols whose only purpose is to express the size of these claims and that is why they can be created out of thin air. If you measure the height of a building you've created numbers out of thin air, but it is building what has value, not numbers.
You are just not the sharpest pencil in the box, thats all. I wont even explain You, how macro economics work, You are unable to understand even the simplest and most obvious arguments.
Your employer transfers Your salary, that You get for... I dont know... selling hot dogs... to Your bank account. Its is Your jobs value converted into more usable form - Your bank balance. Wtf You speak about, numbers have no value?
Your bank balance, usable in most places, together with reasonable assurance, that someone else can not use it instead of You - this is value. You basically carry Your job´s value with You, with opportunity to use it where You like and on what You like.
Numbers with symbols "USD" which exist in a banking system measure the size of the share in the total claims that originated from the total borrowers liabilities in the US monetary system. Hence, my jobs value was NOT converted into bank balance, but into share in the total claims, while the bank balance is just numerical means to express the size of that share.
Bitcoin is not created out of thin air.There is mining cost for bitcoins to be mined.If you had added another column for US dollar,then it would best suit for what you have mentioned.
Yes it is, bitcoin is created out of thin air. First there was nothing in the ledger, and then there was number(bitcoin) in the ledger. Hence, out of thin air. All numbers in databases are created out of thin air. They are not "build" by adding parts gradually, step by step, like houses, cars or mobile phones are. And of course, the amount of energy spent or force applied in the process of creation does not change the fact that they are created out of thin air.
Ok, explain to us how a credit card gets credited by money and how fiat currencies are being duplicated out of thin air when
you deposit your physical cash into Banks and how they "duplicate" that money, when they loan it to someone else. Also
called, Fractional reserve banking , it is a banking system in which only a fraction of bank deposits are backed by actual
cash on hand and are available for withdrawal. A digital entry out of thin air... Magic Money with ZERO value.
They only had to push a few buttons on a computer, nearly no electricity was spend to create that money.
I explained this already in the posts above. Numbers on bank accounts are created out of thin air, but it is not this numbers what have value. Things like bank reserves, bank liabilities, collateral, borrowers liabilities and claims that are derived from these liabilities have value.
Numbers are just worthless symbols whose only purpose is to express the size of these claims and that is why they can be created out of thin air. If you measure the height of a building you've created numbers out of thin air, but it is building what has value, not numbers.
You are just not the sharpest pencil in the box, thats all. I wont even explain You, how macro economics work, You are unable to understand even the simplest and most obvious arguments.
Your employer transfers Your salary, that You get for... I dont know... selling hot dogs... to Your bank account. Its is Your jobs value converted into more usable form - Your bank balance. Wtf You speak about, numbers have no value?
Your bank balance, usable in most places, together with reasonable assurance, that someone else can not use it instead of You - this is value. You basically carry Your job´s value with You, with opportunity to use it where You like and on what You like.
So, Peter owns 2 numbers and Peter owns number 2. But how can someone own a number? The first three rows in our database clearly show that numbers are just means to quantify things, they are not things that are owned. As such, these numbers are valueless on their own, and they can be created out of thin air.
Bitcoin is a "thing" just like the others, which is why it's generally treated as property or currency. The fact that you can only fathom bitcoins as "numbers" is just a function of your own limitations.
And bitcoins definitely can't be created out of thin air. You can spin up another new cryptocurrency out of thin air, but not bitcoins. People across the world run Bitcoin nodes that enforce the protocol. They completely ignore any attempts to print BTC out of thin air.
Bitcoin is a number in a database, not a thing. A thing is some entity, object, or creature that exists outside the database which contains some data about it. I explained this already.
That explanation is completely inadequate. Why do bitcoins need to be "things" at all? This is a requirement you invented without reason. You say, "if we now ask what actual thing outside the database is owned by Peter, we face an inherent contradiction."
Owning bitcoins doesn't entail owning "things outside the decentralized ledger." Why would it need to? The whole point is that they're a native currency in a monetary network. If you have a balance at a bank, you don't have a "thing" to show for it either -- only numbers in the bank's database, numbers on a screen. Do dollars have no value when they're just numbers in a database? What matters is what other people will pay for them, not your circular proofs that depend on your cherry-picked definitions.
Also, let's take a look at the definition of "thing."
Quote
1 : an object or entity not precisely designated or capable of being designated. 2a : an inanimate object distinguished from a living being. b : a separate and distinct individual quality, fact, idea, or usually entity. 5a : possessions, effects. 5b : whatever may be possessed or owned or be the object of a right.
How are bitcoins not "things?"
Everything in universe that is made up of atoms can be called a thing. But does that mean everything has value? Of course not. So even if we call bitcoin a thing this doesn't make it valuable.
And it is also an oxymoron to state that a bitcoin worth US $6K has a zero value, don't you think otherwise?
What happened here is that you talked about physicality. An iphone is a cellphone, a US Dollar is a paper bill and IBM Shares are bond or equity that is with proofing of a certificate or something to that effect.
It is for this mere reason that you based your assumption that bitcoin has zero value. And truly, bitcoin has no physical form simply because it was designed electronically (or digitally, whichever you prefer to call it). Just like an email, an email remains to be digital in nature with no physical form until you had that email printed. But until the printing, does it mean that the email holds no value at all? Of course not, right?
Thus, i do believe that bitcoin is more than what you think of it. It is not zero value. It has its own purchasing power.
What happened here is that you talked about physicality. An iphone is a cellphone, a US Dollar is a paper bill and IBM Shares are bond or equity that is with proofing of a certificate or something to that effect.
It is for this mere reason that you based your assumption that bitcoin has zero value. And truly, bitcoin has no physical form simply because it was designed electronically (or digitally, whichever you prefer to call it). Just like an email, an email remains to be digital in nature with no physical form until you had that email printed. But until the printing, does it mean that the email holds no value at all? Of course not, right?
Thus, i do believe that bitcoin is more than what you think of it. It is not zero value. It has its own purchasing power.
E-mail has value because it contains information about some aspect of reality i.e. it provides the answer to a question of some kind or resolves uncertainty. Bitcoin has zero value because it is just empty number connected to the addresses, it is just numerical symbols that point to nothing in the real world. Numerical symbols are valueless on their own. "45437368752737" - I just created numerical symbols out of thin air. Do they have value? Of course not. "11" - my computer just find this symbols via brute-force i.e. by spending energy. Did this gave these symbols value? Of course not - they are still just symbols in a memory. If I give name to them, for. e.g. - XYZCoin, does this make them valuable? Of course not - naming something doesn't change its properties. Now, if I write them down into some database ("XYZ blockchain"), and connect them to some address(name): "John - 11", because John gave me 1,000,000 US Dollars, does that mean that two bytes stored in memory have value of a house. Of course not, these bytes are just as worthless as before - their properties didn't change just because John did something. By connecting them to "John" we simply marked the fact that John gave me 1,000,000 US Dollars for free. We could also mark this event with symbols "John - STUPID". Nothing would change. Symbols would stay symbols i.e. linguistic or mathematical objects with zero value.
Bitcoin is not created out of thin air.There is mining cost for bitcoins to be mined.If you had added another column for US dollar,then it would best suit for what you have mentioned.
Yes it is, bitcoin is created out of thin air. First there was nothing in the ledger, and then there was number(bitcoin) in the ledger. Hence, out of thin air. All numbers in databases are created out of thin air. They are not "build" by adding parts gradually, step by step, like houses, cars or mobile phones are. And of course, the amount of energy spent or force applied in the process of creation does not change the fact that they are created out of thin air.
Ok, explain to us how a credit card gets credited by money and how fiat currencies are being duplicated out of thin air when
you deposit your physical cash into Banks and how they "duplicate" that money, when they loan it to someone else. Also
called, Fractional reserve banking , it is a banking system in which only a fraction of bank deposits are backed by actual
cash on hand and are available for withdrawal. A digital entry out of thin air... Magic Money with ZERO value.
They only had to push a few buttons on a computer, nearly no electricity was spend to create that money.
I explained this already in the posts above. Numbers on bank accounts are created out of thin air, but it is not this numbers what have value. Things like bank reserves, bank liabilities, collateral, borrowers liabilities and claims that are derived from these liabilities have value.
Numbers are just worthless symbols whose only purpose is to express the size of these claims and that is why they can be created out of thin air. If you measure the height of a building you've created numbers out of thin air, but it is building what has value, not numbers.
I will not say that bitcoin is now losing a lot, because the price for the coin is built very well, despite all the negative signs in the crypto-currency market, and in General in the world a bad reputation.
guys no point replying to FXsurfer..
he is now trolling like a flat earther.
just let the topic die out
he is now trolling like a flat earther.
just let the topic die out
and i dont think he will see the big picture about cost, utility, function that creates value
maybe, just maybe
one day he will learn that the binary digits that make up the ledger has an actual function.
that creating the database has a cost.
and for people that want and need that function are happy to pay the cost of its creation.
but until then. no point going around in circles, unless he is ready to learn the big picture stuffmaybe, just maybe
one day he will learn that the binary digits that make up the ledger has an actual function.
that creating the database has a cost.
and for people that want and need that function are happy to pay the cost of its creation.
He somehow came to a conclusion that if something doesn't physically exist or doesn't represent another physical thing, it has no value. This is simply untrue.
People are buying online games, game accounts, avatars, items like cs:go skins, ingame currencies like wow gold. All these things have value and are exchangeable for fiat money and other physical goods. You can literally exchange a cs:go skin for an iphone or an IBM share if that's what you want.
So, Peter owns 2 numbers and Peter owns number 2. But how can someone own a number? The first three rows in our database clearly show that numbers are just means to quantify things, they are not things that are owned. As such, these numbers are valueless on their own, and they can be created out of thin air.
Bitcoin is a "thing" just like the others, which is why it's generally treated as property or currency. The fact that you can only fathom bitcoins as "numbers" is just a function of your own limitations.
And bitcoins definitely can't be created out of thin air. You can spin up another new cryptocurrency out of thin air, but not bitcoins. People across the world run Bitcoin nodes that enforce the protocol. They completely ignore any attempts to print BTC out of thin air.
Bitcoin is a number in a database, not a thing. A thing is some entity, object, or creature that exists outside the database which contains some data about it. I explained this already.
That explanation is completely inadequate. Why do bitcoins need to be "things" at all? This is a requirement you invented without reason. You say, "if we now ask what actual thing outside the database is owned by Peter, we face an inherent contradiction."
Owning bitcoins doesn't entail owning "things outside the decentralized ledger." Why would it need to? The whole point is that they're a native currency in a monetary network. If you have a balance at a bank, you don't have a "thing" to show for it either -- only numbers in the bank's database, numbers on a screen. Do dollars have no value when they're just numbers in a database? What matters is what other people will pay for them, not your circular proofs that depend on your cherry-picked definitions.
Also, let's take a look at the definition of "thing."
Quote
1 : an object or entity not precisely designated or capable of being designated. 2a : an inanimate object distinguished from a living being. b : a separate and distinct individual quality, fact, idea, or usually entity. 5a : possessions, effects. 5b : whatever may be possessed or owned or be the object of a right.
How are bitcoins not "things?"
Jump to: