Topic: Why is bitcoin (crypto) worth anything at all?? - page 4. (Read 765 times)
Only Elon can make that meme coin holder richer. But once they understand that it has no use case at all but just for gambling like Doge, they will see that holding just 100 of it won't make them rich. The max supply and its allocation are just for the corrupt teams meant to just grab the BTC of the users who are buying these meme coins. They are not going to succeed eventually.
This is indeed a strange world, very strange. But not only strange, it is also a mad world. But what is actually strange and mad is humanity. When I was a kid, and until now, I cannot really understand how people buy a family's few years' worth of food for just a piece of shoulder bag. Until now, I'm still baffled at how one man goes to sleep hungry while a neighbor feasts on unbelievably expensive food, how a father losses a child only for not having that small piece of paper they call money, and so on.
Why is Bitcoin or even a mere meme coin worth something? Because we are a strange species.
Why is Bitcoin or even a mere meme coin worth something? Because we are a strange species.
I think what makes people give value (and that's pretty much the reason why it grows in price) is that it's a currency open to everyone as you said, both in code terms and in its transaction terms. Not to mention that not one group could really control it, and even if they tried, it'd use up a LOT of resources. It's worth something because people give worth to it, not just because it's a ponzi scheme, but because it truly has worth. Just like how the development of space exploration wasn't really realistic waaaay back then, people still invested in it since they think it has its worth.
The wrong idea that may seem why Bitcoin is worthless here is that you look at Bitcoin as Bitcoin only, not as a cryptocurrency to be used. It's like looking at a coin as metal, paper as well, paper. When coin can be used to transact, while paper can be used to store info, communicate, etc.
The wrong idea that may seem why Bitcoin is worthless here is that you look at Bitcoin as Bitcoin only, not as a cryptocurrency to be used. It's like looking at a coin as metal, paper as well, paper. When coin can be used to transact, while paper can be used to store info, communicate, etc.
I think there's an unwritten requirement for states mining fiat currency in a stable and reliable format. The public must be educated and informed for good money printing standards to remain standardized. That day people forget what happened the last time excessive amounts of fiat were overprinted. Is the day the history of hyperinflation repeats itself.
We see it throughout history where people are angry and upset over economies and financial markets crashing. Eventually people forget the conditions and policies which led to the big collapse. And it happens again. In the current era most don't know or remember what caused the 2008 economic collapse. Which leaves them powerless. The state could mandate whatever it wanted and few would know whether it paralleled past policy that led to severe economic downturn.
Education and information are the critical components that are hardest to come by in the discussion of maintaining stable markets and economies.
Bitcoin is the "so easy a caveman could do it" solution to these issues. Deflation is built in. People don't have to be educated or informed. The currency is fundamentally designed to be as stable, cost effective and reliable as it could be. Its everything car insurance commercials promise to be, except it delivers on every level.
We see it throughout history where people are angry and upset over economies and financial markets crashing. Eventually people forget the conditions and policies which led to the big collapse. And it happens again. In the current era most don't know or remember what caused the 2008 economic collapse. Which leaves them powerless. The state could mandate whatever it wanted and few would know whether it paralleled past policy that led to severe economic downturn.
Education and information are the critical components that are hardest to come by in the discussion of maintaining stable markets and economies.
Bitcoin is the "so easy a caveman could do it" solution to these issues. Deflation is built in. People don't have to be educated or informed. The currency is fundamentally designed to be as stable, cost effective and reliable as it could be. Its everything car insurance commercials promise to be, except it delivers on every level.
Bitcoin is not "nothing but 'data', bits and bytes arranged in a specific manner". Bitcoin is a protocol and you can do something with it. In order to use Bitcoin, you must have bitcoins. And if Bitcoin is useful to you, you will be willing to pay for those bitcoins.
If I were being nitpicky, I would say "bitcoin" in this context, I am referring to the actual amounts stored and signed in the ledger. This is technically what I 'own', that which I have signed (I think anyway? still a newbie). I understand bitcoin can also refer to the protocol which transfers those bits across a decentralized network, but I do not 'own' the protocol just the portion of data in the ledger that belongs to me. ..but again that's just being nitpicky.
In short, bitcoins have value because Bitcoin is useful.
Bitcoin facilitates ownership of an intangible thing in a way that conforms to social norms dictating ownership of tangible things. That is one of the breakthroughs of Bitcoin, and also why it is a difficult concept to grasp.
Furthermore, Bitcoin is difficult to grasp because it is based not on the laws of physics or mathematics (though they are an integral part), but on an innate notion of value shared by everyone. It works in a way that does not require artificial constructs -- just basic economic incentives.
None of that matters. Tangible or not, Bitcoin ultimately has value because it is useful. For example, knowledge of economics is not tangible, yet you would pay someone for that knowledge.
Okay fair enough, knowledge of how a car works is not necessary to drive the car, and I will pay a mechanic to fix it because that has value to me. It just seems a strange world that people find bits and bytes so valuable (but as I said bottled water in the 80's seemed foolish to me too)
Quote
Bitcoin is not "nothing but 'data', bits and bytes arranged in a specific manner". Bitcoin is a protocol and you can do something with it. In order to use Bitcoin, you must have bitcoins. And if Bitcoin is useful to you, you will be willing to pay for those bitcoins.
If I were being nitpicky, I would say "bitcoin" in this context, I am referring to the actual amounts stored and signed in the ledger. This is technically what I 'own', that which I have signed (I think anyway? still a newbie). I understand bitcoin can also refer to the protocol which transfers those bits across a decentralized network, but I do not 'own' the protocol just the portion of data in the ledger that belongs to me. ..but again that's just being nitpicky.
But you don't "own" anything. That's my point. If you buy a piece of art with a banana taped to a wall, at least you have something tangible. You can invite your friends over and say Look everyone at this picture I purchased for a ridiculously amount of money to hang on my wall. You can touch it, smell it, eat it maybe?
Bitcoin is nothing but 'data', bits and bytes arranged in a specific manner, you can't do anything with it.
Bitcoin is nothing but 'data', bits and bytes arranged in a specific manner, you can't do anything with it.
None of that matters. Tangible or not, Bitcoin ultimately has value because it is useful. For example, knowledge of economics is not tangible, yet you would pay someone for that knowledge.
Bitcoin is not "nothing but 'data', bits and bytes arranged in a specific manner". Bitcoin is a protocol and you can do something with it. In order to use Bitcoin, you must have bitcoins. And if Bitcoin is useful to you, you will be willing to pay for those bitcoins.
All of that message could be summed up as "because we are willing to pay to own it" and that's it.
But you don't "own" anything. That's my point. If you buy a piece of art with a banana taped to a wall, at least you have something tangible. You can invite your friends over and say Look everyone at this picture I purchased for a ridiculously amount of money to hang on my wall. You can touch it, smell it, eat it maybe?
Bitcoin is nothing but 'data', bits and bytes arranged in a specific manner, you can't do anything with it. Well, I suppose you could make image in Microsoft Paint, and sign it with your wallet private key, print it and put public address and hang it on the wall in my living room? (hmm, now that I've written that, kind of sounds like a fun idea to try
All of that message could be summed up as "because we are willing to pay to own it" and that's it.
If people want to own a certain thing that means it has value and that is the end of it. There was a funny thing about an art showing having a banana basically taped to wall and it was sold for god knows how many thousands of dollars and some guy just took it and ate it as a fun thing, he was jailed for like a day or two, went to court and something happened, I didn't follow the story after that.
Basically we all know that banana didn't worth that much but people called it art and gave that much valuation. It is not the same in bitcoin, we actually have a reason to use it, but at the end of the day the only thing that makes something valuable is the fact that people are willing to pay for it and that's it. Which is why bitcoin worths something, because we find it valuable.
If people want to own a certain thing that means it has value and that is the end of it. There was a funny thing about an art showing having a banana basically taped to wall and it was sold for god knows how many thousands of dollars and some guy just took it and ate it as a fun thing, he was jailed for like a day or two, went to court and something happened, I didn't follow the story after that.
Basically we all know that banana didn't worth that much but people called it art and gave that much valuation. It is not the same in bitcoin, we actually have a reason to use it, but at the end of the day the only thing that makes something valuable is the fact that people are willing to pay for it and that's it. Which is why bitcoin worths something, because we find it valuable.
But If everyone in the world had just 1 'meme' coin at $0.01, and then one tech celebrity/business person sends 1 tweet about ‘WOW SUCH AMAZING CURRENCY’. That $0.01 suddenly increases by 10 (or 100, or 1000) times its worth, people literally become millionaires without any fundraising at all ..just a TWEET.
So countries can’t print more money that solves nothing.... but somehow one person can make hundreds of people rich simply by a tweet?? I don't get it..like I said a strange, strange world indeed.
So countries can’t print more money that solves nothing.... but somehow one person can make hundreds of people rich simply by a tweet?? I don't get it..like I said a strange, strange world indeed.
I think you're wrong about that.
A simple tweet doesn't give value to some meme coin, at least not directly.
There is a saying I read somewhere: "If people value something, it has value." Therefore, it makes no difference what someone tweets, what matters is whether anyone wants to buy (exchange for a generally recognized medium of exchange) the said meme coin.
Bitcoins have value because they can be a store of value and can be used for exchange of services or products. Same principle as fiat currency, they have a value and they can be used for services and products.
Where I am from, people work hard to earn money.
"Working hard" does not guarantee any money at all. People pay you what they think you deserve for the work you provided, if they thought the service was useful to them.
I have no artistic (drawing/painting) talent , and I could spend years of my life practicing, taking courses, drawing, painting, doing art sculptures and never make enough money to survive off it, not because I didn't work hard enough, but because enough people simply did not want to buy my work.
On the flip side, I could make just one painting in a million and possibility become a huge star, it would spread like the doge meme, people could come from all around the world just to admire it. It would be auctioned to charity and help millions of starving children. [not that I'm holding my breath for that day]
And I would further argue the purpose of my work was never to 'earn money'. It was to earn a living, the ability to buy other foods and products. As noted in the other thread, the money is not the end goal, it is not 'the thing of value', it is merely the exchange mechanism.
I am sure Elon Musk worked hard to make his billions of dollars, but no way would I believe he work hard to send a tweet that created a surge in the value of dogecoin.
There is a story of Picasso doodling while having a coffee, as he was about to throw it away, a man walks up and asks if he could have his doodles, Picasso responds, Sure, for $25,000' ..the man was like, 'but you only doodled for a few minutes, and were about to throw it away ??', to which Picasso responds... "No, those doodles took me over 40 years!"
Read this to understand money better, and why they have value. https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.54987665
Where I am from, people work hard to earn money. They have to work to solve problems, customers pay the amount of money the solutions to the problems deserve. In my place, it's actually unheard of to depend on government for handout like you see mainly in advanced societies and they manage to build standard homes, eat sufficiently etc. It's actually a shameful/strange thing to depend on government or others for handout as a able-bodied person.
A real money (hard money or money based on hardwork) is a representation of solutions to problems and that can be exchanged in a community/communities that value and accept it as good money.
When you print money out of thin air just make sure it paid to people who deserve it, don't use it to pay for things that aren't safe/useful to people, and try not to overpay or underpay.
Bitcoin or true cryptocurrency increases in price because of its deflationary feature that is aimed to help preserve values/assets/money stored in the system. It's actually a hard money because you can't over print and hand it out to people who don't deserve it. It a better financial system due to its Decentralizion, Transparency immutablity, public consensus-driven, permissionless/trustlessness, censorship resistant, privacy-friendliness/anonymity-friendliness. Fiat system or system that tries to copy it can't be trusted as they are centralized and secretive/opaque.
Where I am from, people work hard to earn money. They have to work to solve problems, customers pay the amount of money the solutions to the problems deserve. In my place, it's actually unheard of to depend on government for handout like you see mainly in advanced societies and they manage to build standard homes, eat sufficiently etc. It's actually a shameful/strange thing to depend on government or others for handout as a able-bodied person.
A real money (hard money or money based on hardwork) is a representation of solutions to problems and that can be exchanged in a community/communities that value and accept it as good money.
When you print money out of thin air just make sure it paid to people who deserve it, don't use it to pay for things that aren't safe/useful to people, and try not to overpay or underpay.
Bitcoin or true cryptocurrency increases in price because of its deflationary feature that is aimed to help preserve values/assets/money stored in the system. It's actually a hard money because you can't over print and hand it out to people who don't deserve it. It a better financial system due to its Decentralizion, Transparency immutablity, public consensus-driven, permissionless/trustlessness, censorship resistant, privacy-friendliness/anonymity-friendliness. Fiat system or system that tries to copy it can't be trusted as they are centralized and secretive/opaque.
Price for money comes from the demand and need of that stuff in the market. Thats what demand and supply formula tells us.
Since you cleared that why we can't just print money and give it away to everyone, the inflation would be disastrous and nothing else. We will literally have to rest the whole economy if that ever happens. God knows how that day would be for every government in the globe.
Tweet is part of social dilemma that causes people to think about the investments in different way.
Everyone wants money, everyone want to be millionaire so they do not leave a chance behind to invest whenever the opportunity is right. Tweets or News on the CNBC does not matter, what matters is how people consider that news for themselves - Profitable or Non-profitable.
Since you cleared that why we can't just print money and give it away to everyone, the inflation would be disastrous and nothing else. We will literally have to rest the whole economy if that ever happens. God knows how that day would be for every government in the globe.
Tweet is part of social dilemma that causes people to think about the investments in different way.
Everyone wants money, everyone want to be millionaire so they do not leave a chance behind to invest whenever the opportunity is right. Tweets or News on the CNBC does not matter, what matters is how people consider that news for themselves - Profitable or Non-profitable.
But the tweet won't work if no one will believed it. Somehow it only came out good because he has the background of a billionaire which also defines what he does and people will try to do the same.
Bitcoin didn't start with that, that's what I love about it.
It crawled its way to being the top cryptocurrencies by letting people decide if it will be good for them.
No one is forcing, no popular personality actually tweet about it before. It got ups and downs.
But when a meme coin was tweeted by a billionaire it reacts so fast but it also went down in a rush. What I am saying is, trust was built in bitcoin and became the backbone of crytocurrencies. Without it, who would know what will happen to this industry. That's it's worth now.
Bitcoin didn't start with that, that's what I love about it.
It crawled its way to being the top cryptocurrencies by letting people decide if it will be good for them.
No one is forcing, no popular personality actually tweet about it before. It got ups and downs.
But when a meme coin was tweeted by a billionaire it reacts so fast but it also went down in a rush. What I am saying is, trust was built in bitcoin and became the backbone of crytocurrencies. Without it, who would know what will happen to this industry. That's it's worth now.
If Bitcoin is just bunch of code then fiat money are just a bunch of paper.
Bitcoin is being used by criminals and fiat money are being used by criminals as well.
The price of every financial asset is determined by supply and demand.If the people trust an asset,they will buy it.If nobody trusts Bitcoin,the Bitcoin price would be zero.
The same thing applies to fiat money.The government forces the people to trust the national currency,but sometimes the governments fail(uncontrolled money printing,budget deficits,etc.)and the people lose their trust in the value of the currency.
Do you think that anyone in Venezuela trusts the national currency of Venezuela?
Bitcoin is being used by criminals and fiat money are being used by criminals as well.
The price of every financial asset is determined by supply and demand.If the people trust an asset,they will buy it.If nobody trusts Bitcoin,the Bitcoin price would be zero.
The same thing applies to fiat money.The government forces the people to trust the national currency,but sometimes the governments fail(uncontrolled money printing,budget deficits,etc.)and the people lose their trust in the value of the currency.
Do you think that anyone in Venezuela trusts the national currency of Venezuela?
But If everyone in the world had just 1 'meme' coin at $0.01, and then one tech celebrity/business person sends 1 tweet about ‘WOW SUCH AMAZING CURRENCY’. That $0.01 suddenly increases by 10 (or 100, or 1000) times its worth, people literally become millionaires without any fundraising at all ..just a TWEET.
So countries can’t print more money that solves nothing.... but somehow one person can make hundreds of people rich simply by a tweet?? I don't get it..like I said a strange, strange world indeed.
So countries can’t print more money that solves nothing.... but somehow one person can make hundreds of people rich simply by a tweet?? I don't get it..like I said a strange, strange world indeed.
You are thinking the wrong way.
A tweet from elon musk saying he is going to accept bitcoin as a payment method has an impact on price because it may change the future of bitcoin
Price doesn't generate new free money. It is more like a wealth distribution. Price reflects the future of an asset. Stocks and cruptocurrency are very volatile because the sentiment about the future is always changing.
People do not price stocks based only in past revenue, but in future revenue and sells as well.
When tesla says it will accept bitcoin, it changes the short term future of bitcoin. When a tweet changes it , bitcoin loses value because its short term future is not so bright as it was an hour before.
Alternate Title: why I will never understand economics
Back in my younger days I had a brilliant idea to solve world poverty it went something like this:
a) Countries 'print' money. The money in my wallet is just paper printed by the government
b) Countries can simply 'print' as much as they want.
c) If every country simply printed and gave out $1 million dollars to everyone in their country (and all countries did this) no one would any longer be poor
..Seemed simple enough for me right?
--
Of course I was naïve in my thinking and it has since been pointed out to me hundreds (thousands?) of times, this idea simply doesn't work. If you give everyone 1 million dollars, then due to supply/demand and inflation your $1.25 can of coke will now cost $25,000. All that happens is being a 'millionaire' no longer makes you 'rich' it takes $100,000 million to be 'rich' and those with only 1 million become the 'poor class' in society.
I only started getting really interested in bitcoin (and concurrency in general) about 2 years ago. A work colleague had "a lot" of it and was trying to get me to buy into it. Actually he was looking to start a local trading exchange of sorts in my local community.
Now at this point I heard of bitcoin before (since I do not live under a rock), but I never really paid any attention to it for a few reasons:
1) It's not tangible - it's just data, it's not like I am collecting rare stamps or set pieces from a Sci-Fi movie
2) It is used by criminals (to hire hit men, extortion, etc) why would I want to be part of that?
3) There was not a lot of ways to 'buy' and 'sell it' (at least not 10+ years ago compared to today)
When I looked into it a little deeper, this 'data' which I saw as 'worthless' and as little $0.1 grew to an absolute ridiculous number ! and is still growing !!!
No wonder, that colleague wanted me to buy his 'data', His original $200.00 investment was now worth millions! (okay well actually more like $35,000 at the time)
So after cursing myself for not buying into the craze earlier, I spent some time learning about the technology and how it works, I still remain confused of why it is 'worth' anything at all?
Back in the 80's if someone came up to me and tried to sell me a bottle of water, I would have told them they were foolish!. Today bottle water is worth then gasoline (per volume) !!
My point is the world is a strange, strange place, and continues to grow stranger everyday.
In my opinion data cannot be a commodity it is not tangible, it is not something you can "own". At least bottled water is something I can use.
From my rudimentary understanding of economics, my work colleague "the seller" wants me to buy his bitcoin because the price is so high (law of supply)
but because the price he wants to trade at is so high, I don't really want to buy it (law of demand)
Back to the simple example of gasoline. If the seller demands too high of a price for gas, people won't pay and will look for alternative solutions, if the buyer demands too much gasoline for too little $$ the seller will likely won’t accept the deal and sell to others who are willing to pay more.
The 'value' of Gasoline (or any product) is relative to a) its usefulness (utility) b) its scarcity (harder to come by items have more value) and c) what someone is willing to pay for it.
So the same house in one area may cost $250,000 maybe worth $1million if in another more 'high end' community.
Money, however, is not the 'thing' of value, it is the 'promissory note' that if you give me $$ to buy my house, I can later reuse those $$ to buy something else, it is simply a convenience to the trade. (Because paying a house with sheep would just be silly)
I find myself struggling to understand the role of bitcoin / altcoins in this equation.
Now I realize people will likely point out a couple of obvious flaws in my reasoning.
a) Money (hard cash) has value, and really isn't tangible either, It's just a piece of paper (or coin)
b) People sell software (Microsoft), and software is data, as is the movies. TV Shows on DVD's, e-books, etc. So data has been a commodity long before bitcoin/crypto.
Any my responses
a) Money - doesn't actually have 'value'. It is a promise. It represents convenience of a trade. This is why my belief that just printing more would make people rich cannot work. The ‘value’ of money is relative to it’s ‘value’ across other currencies. As a simple thought experiment, trying to give cash to an alien from another planet would not make any sense - they would look at you strangely and say - ⍙⊑⏃⏁ ⏃⋔ ⟟ ⌇⎍⌿⌿⍜⌇⟒⎅ ⏁⍜ ⎅⍜ ⍙⟟⏁⊑ ⏁⊑⏃⏁? (Translation: What am I supposed to do with that?)
b) Software, DVD, Movies, technically you do not 'own' the data, your buy a 'license to use the data' under specific contexts, the data is protected by copyright to try and prevent you from 'copying it'. I would argue the value is not actually within the data but within the work that went into producing the data (programmers, actors, etc) who would otherwise not preform their jobs if they were not able to trade them for other commodities. (using money as the exchange mechanism)
What makes bitcoin/crypto particularly fascinating is that unlike closed source software, the bitcoin software is COMPLETELY OPEN SOURCE for anyone to view and copy. The bitcoin chain (ledger),in fact, is constantly copied to all the participating nodes. It literally 'works' by copying it across the network (which seems pretty ironic, since generally value is related to scarcity). If a million people copy 'star wars episode 1' and share it will all their friends, no one will need to buy it and its value will decrease. Thousands of people 'copy bitcoin transactions every single minute, and as they do so, the VALUE INCREASES!
And here is the kicker that really 'blows my mind'
People spend hundreds of hours doing fundraising to help the homeless, fund disease research, provide fresh water to third world countries
But If everyone in the world had just 1 'meme' coin at $0.01, and then one tech celebrity/business person sends 1 tweet about ‘WOW SUCH AMAZING CURRENCY’. That $0.01 suddenly increases by 10 (or 100, or 1000) times its worth, people literally become millionaires without any fundraising at all ..just a TWEET.
So countries can’t print more money that solves nothing.... but somehow one person can make hundreds of people rich simply by a tweet?? I don't get it..like I said a strange, strange world indeed.
Back in my younger days I had a brilliant idea to solve world poverty it went something like this:
a) Countries 'print' money. The money in my wallet is just paper printed by the government
b) Countries can simply 'print' as much as they want.
c) If every country simply printed and gave out $1 million dollars to everyone in their country (and all countries did this) no one would any longer be poor
..Seemed simple enough for me right?
--
Of course I was naïve in my thinking and it has since been pointed out to me hundreds (thousands?) of times, this idea simply doesn't work. If you give everyone 1 million dollars, then due to supply/demand and inflation your $1.25 can of coke will now cost $25,000. All that happens is being a 'millionaire' no longer makes you 'rich' it takes $100,000 million to be 'rich' and those with only 1 million become the 'poor class' in society.
I only started getting really interested in bitcoin (and concurrency in general) about 2 years ago. A work colleague had "a lot" of it and was trying to get me to buy into it. Actually he was looking to start a local trading exchange of sorts in my local community.
Now at this point I heard of bitcoin before (since I do not live under a rock), but I never really paid any attention to it for a few reasons:
1) It's not tangible - it's just data, it's not like I am collecting rare stamps or set pieces from a Sci-Fi movie
2) It is used by criminals (to hire hit men, extortion, etc) why would I want to be part of that?
3) There was not a lot of ways to 'buy' and 'sell it' (at least not 10+ years ago compared to today)
When I looked into it a little deeper, this 'data' which I saw as 'worthless' and as little $0.1 grew to an absolute ridiculous number ! and is still growing !!!
No wonder, that colleague wanted me to buy his 'data', His original $200.00 investment was now worth millions! (okay well actually more like $35,000 at the time)
So after cursing myself for not buying into the craze earlier, I spent some time learning about the technology and how it works, I still remain confused of why it is 'worth' anything at all?
Back in the 80's if someone came up to me and tried to sell me a bottle of water, I would have told them they were foolish!. Today bottle water is worth then gasoline (per volume) !!
My point is the world is a strange, strange place, and continues to grow stranger everyday.
In my opinion data cannot be a commodity it is not tangible, it is not something you can "own". At least bottled water is something I can use.
From my rudimentary understanding of economics, my work colleague "the seller" wants me to buy his bitcoin because the price is so high (law of supply)
but because the price he wants to trade at is so high, I don't really want to buy it (law of demand)
Back to the simple example of gasoline. If the seller demands too high of a price for gas, people won't pay and will look for alternative solutions, if the buyer demands too much gasoline for too little $$ the seller will likely won’t accept the deal and sell to others who are willing to pay more.
The 'value' of Gasoline (or any product) is relative to a) its usefulness (utility) b) its scarcity (harder to come by items have more value) and c) what someone is willing to pay for it.
So the same house in one area may cost $250,000 maybe worth $1million if in another more 'high end' community.
Money, however, is not the 'thing' of value, it is the 'promissory note' that if you give me $$ to buy my house, I can later reuse those $$ to buy something else, it is simply a convenience to the trade. (Because paying a house with sheep would just be silly)
I find myself struggling to understand the role of bitcoin / altcoins in this equation.
Now I realize people will likely point out a couple of obvious flaws in my reasoning.
a) Money (hard cash) has value, and really isn't tangible either, It's just a piece of paper (or coin)
b) People sell software (Microsoft), and software is data, as is the movies. TV Shows on DVD's, e-books, etc. So data has been a commodity long before bitcoin/crypto.
Any my responses
a) Money - doesn't actually have 'value'. It is a promise. It represents convenience of a trade. This is why my belief that just printing more would make people rich cannot work. The ‘value’ of money is relative to it’s ‘value’ across other currencies. As a simple thought experiment, trying to give cash to an alien from another planet would not make any sense - they would look at you strangely and say - ⍙⊑⏃⏁ ⏃⋔ ⟟ ⌇⎍⌿⌿⍜⌇⟒⎅ ⏁⍜ ⎅⍜ ⍙⟟⏁⊑ ⏁⊑⏃⏁? (Translation: What am I supposed to do with that?)
b) Software, DVD, Movies, technically you do not 'own' the data, your buy a 'license to use the data' under specific contexts, the data is protected by copyright to try and prevent you from 'copying it'. I would argue the value is not actually within the data but within the work that went into producing the data (programmers, actors, etc) who would otherwise not preform their jobs if they were not able to trade them for other commodities. (using money as the exchange mechanism)
What makes bitcoin/crypto particularly fascinating is that unlike closed source software, the bitcoin software is COMPLETELY OPEN SOURCE for anyone to view and copy. The bitcoin chain (ledger),in fact, is constantly copied to all the participating nodes. It literally 'works' by copying it across the network (which seems pretty ironic, since generally value is related to scarcity). If a million people copy 'star wars episode 1' and share it will all their friends, no one will need to buy it and its value will decrease. Thousands of people 'copy bitcoin transactions every single minute, and as they do so, the VALUE INCREASES!
And here is the kicker that really 'blows my mind'
People spend hundreds of hours doing fundraising to help the homeless, fund disease research, provide fresh water to third world countries
But If everyone in the world had just 1 'meme' coin at $0.01, and then one tech celebrity/business person sends 1 tweet about ‘WOW SUCH AMAZING CURRENCY’. That $0.01 suddenly increases by 10 (or 100, or 1000) times its worth, people literally become millionaires without any fundraising at all ..just a TWEET.
So countries can’t print more money that solves nothing.... but somehow one person can make hundreds of people rich simply by a tweet?? I don't get it..like I said a strange, strange world indeed.
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