Topic: Is Bitcoin really any different? Not in the long run. (Read 6646 times)

Do you know that the government can print unlimited money? They just need to press the "print" button.

In my opinion you don't get it at all. There are plenty of areas where bitcoin is much better than fiat money. Decentralization is one example. Limited number another.

The "backed by gold" had to be replaced with "In god we trust" 
After all, it works, everybody trust it is backed by something 

Value and price are not the same thing. The price will end up where it ends up and other coins will go up and down just like with Forex. The value will be what matters most. What can you do with it?

There is so much wrong it needs broken down shotgun style


Apples to oranges right off the bat


Not true. Fractional Reserve banking creates dollars out of thin air in the form of debt. Actually what you said doesn't really make a point.


Bitcoin is limited in supply. Not theoretically. Only X number of bitcoins will ever exist. Alternative crypto currencies do not affect the supply of bitcoin.


All you said is "Once the genie is out of the bottle you can't put it back in." Yeah, once an idea is released to the world it's there. This means nothing.


Competition will devalue bitcoin if the market determines other cryptos to be of greater value. That's how competition works. Whether a nation state adopts it or not has little to do with it.


Bernanke isn't controlling the supply of bitcoin?

You can't print more bitcoin to fund a war?

The finite supply makes the demand the driving factor behind bitcoin and it will continue to gain in value as adoption increases.

No one can ever take your bitcoin from you unless you let them.

No one will ever know how many bitcoin you own unless you tell them.

You're free to choose whether or not you participate in the system, there is no gun to your head forcing you.

That's a start. I think you should start learning up on what currency actually is before trying to make comparisons between fiat and bitcoin

In the real world, it happens more quickly than this.

Merchants see the costs directly and adjust prices according to their costs, they don't tend to wait on moving averages on a chart.  That is for academics who don't really participate in the market much anyway.

Nations debase in order to devalue their currency.  It is not so much to buy more before people figure that out, because that happens very quickly unless the nation is the direct buyer.  The devaluing nation gets the benefit of the reduced value of their currency in trade balances from their exports being cheaper than the exports from other countries, but it is a losing game unless they are purely exporting either finished goods using only domestically produced raw material, or the raw material itself because the parts that are imported cost more to them giving them domestic inflation on anything imported.  The reduced value of the currency also makes their debt more easily repayable.

This seems just an inciting post not really much to be bothered whenever bitcoin is compared to fiat. really.

A warehouse receipt is the type that is redeemable come hell or high water.  Even these though still bear some counter-party risk. 
This is common law in many places, in others it is the law by virtue of it being a contract, and is in the Uniform Commercial Code in the US
http://www.law.cornell.edu/ucc/7/7-202

Remember that Bitcoin is an internet based protocol. We have seen time and time again a protocol emerge that consolidates, superceeds and becomes a standard.
Yes, people can still use uucp, telnet, gopher and ftp, but http/https has come along and now THAT is the Internet.
Bitcoin is THE money protocol. It may not last forever, but it is the best by far right now. It has a long climb ahead.

FTFY

Ah, now I understand why the dollars have "In god we trust" written on them. That's short for "Only god knows if you will get your value back"... (-:

And here I thought this thread might actually be something interesting such as future bankers using bitcoin as the basis for fractional reserve bank notes and thus inflating the money supply that way...  which is almost certain to happen btw.   

moral question:  is it fraud when a bank lends out using "redeemable" bank notes more than it is able to cover?

i suppose it would depend on what exactly the bank note says. For example if it says "redeemable for 10 bitcoin so long as the bank has any left but beware we keep a fractional reserve", then does not seems morally wrong as the holder of the note is clearly warned before accepting.    But if it says "redeemable for 10 bitcoin come hell or high water" then that does seem like fraud to me.

Lets take Bitcoin...now imagine that it isn't Bitcoin!

I'd say Bitcoin is more... aside than different. But aside, for sure.

I've ran out of fingers and toes for how many alternate currencies that have been created. So I stopped counting. These have NOT affected Bitcoin. Bitcoin is different.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_external_debt
Data is a bit old, you can probably double it, now.
Funniest entry is probably Liechtenstein.
Just... Trash the cash... Bitcoins all the way!

WTF??? LOL!?!!!??

Good question, might be caused by the interest compound effect of those debt

As much as the upside on anything is infinite, you will never see infinite, therefore the amount of dollars is limited.

Somehow I am trying to wonder, is there money or wealth that people own that the world has no idea of, IE rothchilds already having trillions of cash in personal accounts/vaults and/or assets.

The last i checked the total size of the money supply was less than 10 trillion. yet we have outstanding debts far far beyond that...

Nail it