...
As for the argument that you cant buy much using bitcoin. Well, what can you buy using gold? Yet gold has retained its value over time, much more so than fiat, which is primarily used for purchases and paying taxes. Therefore, utility for buying things is not what gives a money its value. ...
Gold has stopped being money a long time ago. Maintaining value over time doesn't make it money. No more than baseball cards/houses/cows/stuff_you_buy_with_money is money.
That's why it's hard to buy things with gold.
Like bitcoin, gold could be sold for money. Money, according to wikip, is "...any object or record that is generally accepted as payment for goods and services..." The ability to buy ("To acquire in exchange for money or its equivalent; purchase." --Free Online Dictionary) is exactly what gives money its value.
Hopefully i cleared up some of the confusion.
Explain why the dollar has lost over 95% of its purchasing power (
value) since the federal reserve was created in 1913 and gold has not. Do dollars buy 95% less than they did in 1913?
The phenomenon you're curious about is called
inflation.
The money you're trying to understand is *
designed* to be inflationary to discourage
hoarding.
It works.
Only fools hoard money. The rest invest it, spend it, or give it away. Fools get punished for being hoarders, their money becomes worthless over time.
That's a good thing.
The fools who get punished are not the generous fools who give away everything they have and share too much. No. They're the
greedy fools who never learned to
share.
Greed is a *bad thing*, no matter what
stupid money hoarders say.
So now you know
Gold, bitcoin, and dollars are all money because they can be used as a medium of exchange but the limited supply and confidence as a store of wealth is what gives money its value
You're confused.
Everything may be used as a medium of exchange -- money, white elephants, kind words. Not all of these things are money.
If i have to sell something for money to buy a gallon of gas, it's not money as far as the gas station is concerned -- your opinion doesn't count. They want dollars from me -- not white elephants or kind words.
My house is a great store of value, turned out to be far better than gold. It's not money, nonetheless. I can
sell it for money, but
money it is not.
This is meant to illustrate that things may retain value without being money. Even my house, which made an awesome job of it, is not money. Neither is gold.
This is it -- your last chance:
