Topic: Long-Term Bulls - page 4. (Read 10502 times)

http://www.libertariannews.org/2011/07/07/the-economics-of-bitcoin-challenging-mises-regression-theorem/

Can you guys hurry up and read this already? We're busy over in the technical analysis and project development threads. There's no time for silly misunderstandings.

My point in referencing the chronology of assertions of bitcoins being money and the adoption of Bitcoin was how the initial adoption (and even it's creation) of Bitcoin was due to a misunderstanding of what money is.  The assertions that it was money combined with the rules of the system turned out to be more of a social contract where people agree to pretend it is money (though most adopters likely believed it actually was money, and weren't making a conscious decision to pretend it was, due to the lack of an explicitly stated agreement, and the lack of serious questioning of whether it really is money among most adopters).

I think that most people that adopted bitcoin more recently also did so because they also believed it was money.  Their introduction to bitcoin was a bunch of false information about what bitcoin really is.  Few adopters seemed to care that almost no one accepts the "money".  Few adopters seemed to care that it provides no direct service.  The only thing most adopters knew was that others called it "money" or "currency", and that it had a quickly increasing exchange value.  Almost all adopters did not realize that almost everything they knew about Bitcoin was merely a metaphor.  It was "catching on" and "becoming mainstream" and they were going to be rich...who cares about reality?

Believing this state of affairs leads one to suspect that it's not going to last, that Bitcoin is just a bubble.  Someone that's considering adopting bitcoin and understands these things would likely only acquire bitcoins for as long as they think they can sell them at a profit, if it's within their risk tolerance.  Those that already adopted under a false understanding of the system and later come to this realization would also likely change their strategy as far as accepting bitcoins.  And these adopters and potential adopters will likely realize that other adopters and potential adopters will eventually come to the same realizations.  This means we could end up with a larger and larger percentage of adopters anticipating the end of bitcoin, or at least a very serious decline in future bitcoin prices.  Some will decide they're done and cash out and leave.  Some will stick around and try to make some more money while it's still possible.  Many will remain in denial until it becomes so painfully obvious that it's over, and finally cash out losing almost everything they invested into it.  Many will be very vocal in claiming that bitcoin's future is bright and that those cashing out now will be sorry in a few years when they're worth thousands of dollars, not understanding (or worse, fully understanding) that's just speculation at the "wishful thinking" end of the spectrum of possibilities, and isn't even close to being supported by any facts or logic.  Some of these irrational attitudes towards bitcoin are very widespread in the community, and the degree of how widespread they are should be an additional hint at bitcoin being a bubble.

The market is doing it's thing, extracting money from those that perform poorly in their investing and giving it to those that perform better.  The bubble is going to end, and it's going to line the wallets of some, while the rest are left holding the bag.  I know this stuff isn't easy for many bitcoin holders to think about.  It would make me sick to my stomach if I were holding a lot of bitcoins bought a couple months ago when prices were much higher.

The Bitcoin developers have the power to change the software and allow bitcoins to possibly become a directly serviceable good.  That could give it potential to becoming a commodity and maybe a real money.  I wouldn't bet on them actually doing it, though.

You challenged my alleged belief that money can emerge only in one way.  So I provided you links to material that explains how money naturally emerges, and then I provided some simple explanations as to a couple of ways you could theoretically create an artificially determined money using the knowledge of how money emerges naturally, one way being through propaganda, and the other through impractical direct physical manipulation of the brains that you want to value your artificial money.

Knowledge of how money emerges is extremely important if you want people to adopt a specific money.  Having that knowledge helps you not waste your time on certain things, or make stupid mistakes.  And I have a hard time imagining someone that understands how money emerges would say that how it emerges doesn't matter that much when talking about the adoption of a supposed money, so the simplest explanation was that you lack some understanding of the topic.

When I say that the origin to money is not that important you lecture me with 'you do not have an adequate understanding of how money emerges'?  It's obvious that you are not paying attention to the arguments and only discuss with the straw man in your own head.

Going from bitcoin to dollars is easy...going from dollars to bitcoins is a whole different ball of wax (due to the problems of fraud and theft associated with all other methods of online transactions), but you're right...making it easy to go from dollars to bitcoins, engage in an irreversible, two party transaction, then go from bitcoin back to dollars is a great way to introduce bitcoin to people (without forcing them to hold bitcoin for any length of time and be exposed to exchange rate risk).  The more of these types of transactions that occur, the more people will have an interest in keeping some of their revenues in bitcoin instead of converting back to dollars.  This is because they'll find that they can spend bitcoins in various ways and will want to avoid having to incur exchange related fees.

I agree that type of object can be exchanged and have an exchange value prior to a discovery of a direct serviceableness (Bitcoin is an example of this).  However, I do not believe that such a type of item will, prior to it becoming a directly serviceable good, become more widely adopted than already existing directly serviceable commodities that have already been used as money for thousands of years.  I also do not believe it would gain any adoption at all in the first place without the first adopters either misunderstanding the concept of money, or intentionally deceiving others in order to acquire valuable goods from them in exchange for worthless items.

The value of the ledger service is dependent on whether the type of object the ledger is capable of keeping account of has a market value.

If a potential customer recognizes the type of object is not a directly serviceable good (a plain number that does not represent an actual good and has no other special meaning or interpretation) and no one else is willing to offer any goods for it, and they don't expect anyone to, they will have no reason to acquire any themselves, and the ledger service will have no customers as it is of no value to them (it is worthless, just like the numbers it keeps account of).

If a potential customer believes that they can benefit in some way by having a larger number in their account on the ledger, they may choose to offer goods to increase their number.  Because they believe they could benefit from having a larger number in their ledger account, they then value the ledger service.

What do you mean by "exchange of value"?  My understanding is that people exchange goods, not some abstract concept of value.

Bitcoin transactions have no value without "bitcoins" having an exchange value, as the only thing normal Bitcoin transactions can metaphorically be used for are to "send bitcoins to someone's address".  If no one was willing to exchange any goods for a "bitcoin", there would be no value in creating a Bitcoin transaction, and the whole Bitcoin system in it's current implementation would be worthless.

Hey Steve, while you're on this thread and because it's more relevant here, I'd like to share a snippet I wrote elsewhere:


My train of thought is that you provide an excellent currency agnostic service to merchants, but not to the customer.

With an account (or a pay-as-you-go, passive non-refundable "bitcoin" card), the customer could share the benefits with the merchant, perhaps loyalty rewards or 3% off all purchases. More agnostic, but far more complex/risky the user has a bitcoin/visa/mastercard whose stored value is denominated in bitcoin or dollars as preferred.

Having articulated my perma-bull treatise, my perma-bear is something like this:

Bitcoin units have no inherent value. Even if we accept them as a unit of account, the 35% monetary inflation puts massive downward pressure on prices. The hyperinflation we've experienced (50% depreciation per month) since June may be indicative. Because there is no inherent value, not only could bitcoin exchange prices go to zero, but even the possibility decreases confidence in bitcoin's use as a store of value.

Further more, the only aspect of the bitcoin system that has inherent value is the distributed record and transaction service. While transaction fees and block rewards are denominated in bitcoin and thus represent usage and inflationary taxes, the price in dollars does not reflect the utility cost of a transaction. Until transaction costs are negotiated through market forces, bitcoin should be considered over bought.

Having said that, I feel we are approaching the level of negotiation. I don't mine nor pay much attention to their industry, but I understand that bitcoin miners are finally capitulating, which is a good sign. Of course I enjoy free transactions, but for the health of the bitcoin economy, I would like to see users capitulate and offer transaction fees. When both miners and users negotiate the bitcoin price of a transaction "service commodity", then I believe bitcoin "money" will be fully born.

Well said.  As for log0s, I would suggest that you not take the writings of popular Austrian economists as dogma.  It is possible they weren't right about everything.  Also, it's possible they would disagree with you and point out that bitcoin is not inherently worthless.  They might see an inherent value in its ability to facilitate an electronic, irreversible, private exchange between any two parties anywhere in the world.  Is it that difficult to imagine that this quality is enough to give rise to its use as money?

While it's popular to believe barter of commodities came first, then currency, then credit, the evolution of money is in fact the opposite. The going school of thought in anthropological economics is that credit emerged from bonding and prestige, then currency for convenient accounting, and then when it collapses, barter. You actually know this is true among friends. "Hey thanks, I owe you one".

When we play a friendly game of poker, we may accept these silly plastic tokens as valuable. Even if we don't 'buy in' nor are rewarded with cash. We even we accept penalties and loans in chips. In fact, while it may be against the rules at many tables, it's entirely conceivable that the plastic tokens can be used to buy goods and services, "I'll throw 5 chips in the pot if we replace this music and play my CD".

We don't need to be 'fooled' that the chips are valuable. They are the accepted unit of account. As long as they are scarce and we believe no one is cheating we may rationally agree to use them for exchange and storage. We only require something more robust as the community of players expands.

what does it matter if somebody calls it money and somebody else doesnt, isnt this purely semantics.

those who understand its usefulness will use it (as we are doing) in peer to peer transactions. those who dont see the usefulness wont.

who gives a shit if soembody does not want to call it money. i would be happy if it wasnt called money any way, leave that to wall street and treasury crooks.

if it is not classed as money and i can take payment for services in it i wont be paying taxes with it and that makes me 20% richer straight away for using bitcoins.

Excellent analogy

It's obvious to me that you do not have an adequate understanding of how money emerges.

This book, especially Chapters 1-3, will be a good start: http://mises.org/rothbard/mes.asp

If you really want dig deeper, you can read this book: http://mises.org/resources.aspx?Id=3250&html=1

It is an emergent social phenomenon that arises out of the subjective values of individuals in the economy.  To create an "artifical money" would require somehow manipulating the subjective valuations of a huge number of individuals in an economy so that they now value the worthless object enough for it to gain widespread adoption.  The only potentially practical way (as the impractical way is to physically alter the brains of people directly) is by communicating false information to them about this object (whether it be convincing them it has some direct serviceableness, or just directly asserting it is a money, or hyping it, or whatever), yet this will almost certainly work for only a short time since more and more people will learn the true nature of this object and realize it's worthlessness, and from then on be less willing to accept it in exchange for something of actual value.  Once you cannot convince anyone that a worthless object is valuable to anyone at all, no one will give up something they value for it.

I have found no reason to believe a currency can emerge when it's valuation is based on false information.

I believe this to be what has been happening with Bitcoin (false beliefs of what it is, unfounded assertions that it is a money, hype, communicating the expectation of future high prices, etc).  Whether or not Satoshi was intentionally communicating false information about Bitcoin (asserting that it is money) is anyone's guess at this point (I think he, like most people in this day of fiat money, had some misunderstandings of money).  Regardless of his intention, his assertion that Bitcoin was a currency back then was incorrect and remains so.  As more and more people begin to understand the nature of what bitcoins really are (or aren't) and how that will prevent it from becoming widely adopted and highly marketable, as people become aware of the realities of bitcoin rather than believing the metaphors to be the reality, their valuations of bitcoin will change, and with that change will be a shift in bitcoin prices, and the bubble will go away as bitcoin prices begin to reflect reality for the first time ever.

Log0s, in the past 36 hours, here and elsewhere I've thought you saw something that I was trying to express, but we were using very different words from different angles of attack. But there's a step that I miss and your conclusions surprise me.

I can agree with you that a bitcoin unit was not first a good before it was declared a money and therefor has no inherent value as a commodity. I don't think the order of events matters very much. We could have a money and then discover that it's a wildly useful commodity. But the bottom could always fall out (just like fiat) if it's utility is solely based on its use as a money.

I think your emphasis on the ledger service is the correct perspective. But why don't you see the service as inherently valuable? There exist similar services in various shapes and sizes, but no service has the unique set of properties including a momentous network effect, that bitcoin currently enjoys.

Bitcoin may be a horrible storage of value (arguable), an unreliable unit of account (volatility makes this true), but the system provides a revolutionary exchange of value. So, perhaps today it does not act as money, nor is it a physical commodity. But if you will allow for a new coined term (pun intended) bitcoin transactions are already a valuable fungible "service commodity", from which we can hope the other properties of money will emerge.

namecoin fits that criteria. http://dot-bit.org

edit: i geuss whether namecoin is "highly marketable" remains to be seen at this point.

Because they think someone else will in turn exchange it for something valuable.  This is based on speculation just like with all other kinds of money and it is really the essence of money.  The use value of all gold in the world is much less then it's current exchange value - the difference is what makes gold money.  Bitcoin does not have use value at all and this is what makes it 'pure money'.

How money emerged naturally is not that important, believing that it can do it only in one way is like people believed that only nature can produce organic matter (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitalism) until  Friedrich Wöhler synthesised urea.

No one has created a decentralized digital system of highly marketable, directly serviceable goods, yet.  I suspect one will be created soon.

 What other options are there?

Gold? - gets confiscated at customs (the typical $10,000 allowance is getting smaller every day)
Other digital currencies - centralised. Remember eGold? Hmm...

 So is Bitcoin is the only option? Even if it's thought to be going down... it still has utility.

And therein lies the crux of the debate.  Some people, like yourself, believe this statement to be true.  Others do not.

I'm willing to trade all kinds of umarketable, worthless shi...err, I mean "pure money" for your real money.

Money can only emerge in an economy if it is first a directly serviceable good.  If something provides no direct service to anyone (meaning it does not provide a direct means to anyone's desired ends, and is therefore not valued by anyone), why would anyone buy it?  If people realize that it provides no direct service to anyone, and therefore has no value to anyone, and no one is willing to give up something they do value in exchange for it, how could it ever emerge as a money?  What business would accept it?  What person would accept it as a salary?  Social contract based "pure money", metaphorical goods, etc., only have exchange value when there are people buying them that do not fully understand what it is that they are buying.

Bitcoin is, and always has been a bubble.  It's price is disconnected from the reality that it is not a directly serviceable good.