Topic: Bitcoin - Asset Or Currency? - page 4. (Read 563 times)

Let me just clear up confusions you had regarding bitcoin's place in this whole blockchain shenanigan.

You're right first off, you could say bitcoin's the progenitor of the blockchain, and the decentralized currency system. It pioneered the idea, and rallied multiple coins and projects that aim to improve upon this concept, or capitalize on it for profit and gain. Secondly, bitcoin is indeed decentralized. No question about that. The problem comes with your last statement, wherein you mentioned bitcoin being the antithesis to fiat. While there's some truth to that in the fact that some bitcoin maximalists and die-hard Satoshi Nakamoto Meat riders regard of bitcoin as some sort of money jesus, Bitcoin isn't made to antagonize the current financial system, it could be argued that the reason why bitcoin is here in the first place is to provide and improve upon the current paradigm by giving the people a taste of what decentralized monetary system could give them in the long run, Of course as time went by bitcoin became bigger than its previous directive and is now not only acting as a form of currency that you can exchange for goods and services but is also acting as a form of asset you can invest in for profit.

Fiat acts the same way anyway, we don't see Fiat Meatriders acting as if Fiat can only be one type, why rally the discussion of whether bitcoin's an asset or a currency then?

It's when you peruse into the system of cryptocurrency and most especially bitcoin it's when you will understand the important of Bitcoin and also know the class bitcoin belong to, it's very obvious that bitcoin is a digital currency which is decentralized and no one control bitcoin except it's market determination, so in nutshell bitcoin is an asset because it's an investment which multiple your capital when the market is of at advantages to the investor and also drop the value of capital used to invest in it if the market is against and also on the disadvantages of bitcoin.

Not completely true. The English pound represented a pound of silver initially. That's how it got it's name. It was later that it was linked to the Bank of England gold reserves.

The major similarity bitcoin shares with fiat is the fact that, they are both currencies. Other than this, bitcoin isn’t fiat and they’ve got almost nothing in common. Given that bitcoin is decentralized and as such, no single individual could manipulate its prize on a broad scale but while, fiat is centralized and as such, prize fixing or standardization is what we observe.

One mistake you seem to be making is not to see the value in the sat denomination of bitcoin, just the same way we have in dollar and cent.

It takes a 100cent = $1
That’s how it takes 100000000sat = BTC1

Until investors learn to see the value in the smallest sat, Bitcoin would always look like a high priced commodity to invest in. This is the concept of is too late for most meanwhile, we still ashore on the crypto innovation

Bitcoin is an asset moreover is far from what a layman sees it to be, bitcoin was created as an alternative means of fiat payment but from the popularity it gain over the years made people to see it as a store of value or means of reserving funds, having gone through what people are really facing now on bankruptcy, lack of trust, seeing that people had entirely lost their trust in bank and some other centralized exchange. People had this trust to move their money into bitcoin than keep saving their money in bank were they use our money for business and yet still imposed unnecessary charges on their customers.


This is not true, there wouldn't had been any complication because of the lightning network, I think below post prove your argument

"The Lightning Network is a "layer 2" payment protocol layered on top of Bitcoin. It is intended to enable fast transactions among participating nodes and has been proposed as a solution to the bitcoin scalability problem"
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To the best of my perspicacity, Bitcoin is more of asset than currency. If not, how else does one get such advice to hodl it rather than use it? It's a simple logic for those who like to act like it's currency to unravel. Fine, perhaps what Satoshi had in mind while creating it was as currency but what the globe is making out of it is asset. Check the early prices of Bitcoin and what it's today, and so many of us are still speculating that it will even do more than a double of its current ATH after halving next year. Tell, if it's not as asset in such manner; what other explanation best fits it?

In my opinion, it can be treated as both


People use bitcoin more as an asset than seeing it as a currency. The alternate use of bitcoin as an asset rather than just a currency it was designed for makes it more sorted out for and brings many investors to bank with it amidst the risks involved in owing them.


I don’t think so entirely. If you have a prepared mind and know the principles that guide something, you wouldn’t have a problem with its working principles as long as it serves your purpose of its use.

IMO majority of the people treat Bitcoins as an asset. The reason for treating it as an asset rather than currency is very simple. Bitcoins are limited in number, hence they’re very much valuable and rare. No more Bitcoins can be produced or created, so it is very crucial to save those coins. Now in such situation, very less people will give Bitcoins for something else in exchange. Yes many treat it as an currency, but they only do it, when they don’t have any other options available.

It is both all depends on the uses at the time. You want to buy bitcoin as an asset and you want to sell bitcoin as an asset as well. And you want to buy hardware wallet with bitcoin then bitcoin becomes a currency and also you to sell Pizza with bitcoin it is still as currency. So both the asset and currency are good to use. But before you use it you have to know the area you about use it because you can't use it when it for currency or asset.

OP this question of yours is very pertinent as it looks into the real stand of bitcoin and what  people think about it. If you have taken your time to go through the bitcoin white paper, you would have known better on the origin of bitcoin and why Satoshi had invented the bitcoin technology. Satoshi invented the Bitcoin to serve the place of fiat in the sense that bitcoin would serve s a digital currency void of any control from any quarters but the reverse was the case as whales saw the important futures of bitcoin and manipulated the market causing the weak hands and early adopters to sell making them control a large percentage of the bitcoin market. Since then, many people see it as an asset and store of value while for those who accept it as a means of legal tender sees it as a digital money.

In my country bitcoin is a commodity asset besides that it cannot be used for other payments but there are several countries that legalize bitcoin (El Salvador) their bitcoin as a currency.
But mostly bitcoins are still assets that must be held to allow for long-term upside.

Bitcoin fees are inexpensive in fact less than $1 if fees are down, so it doesn't matter as much as you might think especially when using a lightning network it will be even cheaper.
Have I ever bought something like hardware (Trezor) that costs little except for shipping costs, so that will be very different?

OMG... There are so many posts in that link, I don't know if I can read all of them or not, Thanks for giving the link to that thread


I'm also not sure bitcoin will become the new standard.


That makes sense. Using bitcoin as an alternative to cross-border payments will make transactions easier and costs less. I agree with you


I also think so. Even though bitcoin can be used as currency, for now it is still dominant as an asset

You are right! That's actually a problem: BTC can't be used for small purchases, moreover, nearly none of the business initiatives accept payments directly in crypto. That's why cryptocurrencies are not real currencies. I think, it's an asset: cryptocurrencies are a new form of digital assets.

FWIW There are always market makers and market manipulators that affect the price but that should not be confused with "controlling the price".

There have been altcoins that were also decentralized, Monero could be considered as a decentralized altcoin. However, many of these altcoins were too insignificant and without innovation to last long or become popular. Usually it is the centralized altcoins that despite having no innovation get pumped and become popular.

To be fair it is not just US that prints money without any cap. Any fiat currency in existence is like that. The only difference is that dollar used to be the dominant global reserve currency for the past couple of decades.

Not always. It's just hat people don't like the constant money printing without limitations that leads to eventual and inescapable inflation.

Not necessarily. When bitcoin price goes up, as a currency your purchasing power increases so you can for example buy more groceries with your bitcoins. In other words you don't have to measure bitcoin price in fiat or convert it to fiat ever.

For exactly what I just explained bitcoin is a currency. But a currency can be an asset too.

Bitcoin is an asset. Bitcoin is also a currency.

People can use bitcoin to purchase something. I have used bitcoin before to purchase something online. Bitcoin is a currency. There are sometimes that the fee is cheap and you can use lightning payment.

Some people are using the altcoin side chain like the pegged bitcoin on BSC and other blockchain for payment. But these are not bitcoin though.

It is its antithesis but rather it’s alternative that’s just edges it interms of usage ease and other features.

Bitcoin is both. First as the founder satoshi put it out to be a currency then through the use of it, people begin to see its value of been a strong investment asset just like how other stores of value like gold evolved to been assets. This was actual due to the fact that as fiat could devalue bitcoin doesn’t devalues due to the limited supply it has and also as hedge against inflation.


You can’t beat the fact that it will rise in price not because people stores it as an asset but because people demands increase on it and that subsequently would increases its value. The fiat currency grows in value as its becomes more valuable and attractive to many.

Just like I said it is an alternative currency so one could actually use other currency to pay for small transactions and then use bitcoin for cross boarder transactions or much larger transactions. This isn’t saying bitcoin can’t be use for smaller transactions too but to minimize cost of the transaction which are substantially less when the mempool is less congested than fiat transaction fee charged by banks sometimes

There are long history before Bitcoin creation in 2009.
Bitcoin Prehistory

The world has moved from Gold standard to US dollar standard. In future we might have other fiat currencies or CBDCs as new global standard or will Bitcoin become a new standard for the world?

The Bullish case for Bitcoin
The Bitcoin Standard: The Decentralized Alternative to Central Banking

I don't expect it will be a new global standard but I believe Bitcoin adoption will be bigger.

Currently, bitcoin has a very high price. I don't know why the bitcoin price can move so fast. Is it possible that there are brokers playing with bitcoin prices?

The little that I know about bitcoin is:

1. Bitcoin is the founding father of blockchain technology.

2. Bitcoin is purely decentralized. No entity, company, country or individual is affiliated with bitcoin. Only Bitcoin is like that, another coin was born from the company

3. Bitcoin is the antithesis of fiat

Initially, fiat money was born on the basis of gold reserves. But now it's not like that. Many people disagree when the US prints money massively without considering gold reserves. However, bitcoin was born without any guarantees, only the trust of the community makes bitcoin have value. Isn't that the same?

Today many people oppose the dominance of fiat. People who are against fiat will turn to crypto. But would you be happy if the bitcoin price is expensive?

If yes, then:
You still like fiat, because it costs a lot if bitcoin is converted to fiat, but if the bitcoin conversion becomes 1btc = 1000 eth or 1btc = 2000bnb then you don't have to worry about how much bitcoin is worth in fiat exchange. But you have to worry if 1btc = 500 eth. But we never discuss the price of bitcoin with eth or bnb, more people compare the price of bitcoin with fiat rates

In your opinion, bitcoin is an asset or a currency?

If bitcoin is an asset, it is now. Most people will hold bitcoin as an asset and take advantage of the rising price of bitcoin. If so you are still dominated by fiat

If bitcoins were currency, it would be complicated if bitcoins were used to buy cheap things, transaction fees would be very expensive

I have many questions in this thread. Sorry if my argument isn't comprehensive, I don't have a deep understanding of bitcoin yet