So rich and yet so poor

[Skybird]

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/12/t...-fortunes.html

To me Bitcoins are just FIAT currency units without paper and central bank control. No real money. The features of the security technology might be interesting, but the economic interpretation of the phenomenon is most absurd.

The next wave of symptoms of the Fiat currency crisis promises to become so devastating ion scale and reach maybe that there will be sufficiently strong calls for a return to real money, hopefully, this would put chains both on recklessly spending governments, and companies alike. The road from here to there will be a most rocky one, however. We desperately need a real commodity money again, not this self-deception we currently "pay" with.

[JU_88]

Originally Posted by Skybird

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/12/t...-fortunes.html

To me Bitcoins are just FIAT currency units without paper and central bank control. No real money. The features of the security technology might be interesting, but the economic interpretation of the phenomenon is most absurd.

The next wave of symptoms of the Fiat currency crisis promises to become so devastating ion scale and reach maybe that there will be sufficiently strong calls for a return to real money, hopefully, this would put chains both on recklessly spending governments, and companies alike. The road from here to there will be a most rocky one, however. We desperately need a real commodity money again, not this self-deception we currently "pay" with.

Apologies for resurecting this zombie thread, but What is 'real money'? Do you mean Money backed by a comodity like the US dollar used to be backed by gold? Bitcoin is an effective digital store of value/asset for the time being, Its certainly not money and could never be money due to its many limitations, like fiat currency - its digital, but the similarities end there. In the current climate, it is far better to be invested in almost ANYTHHING but fiat currency. Gold, bitcoin, stocks, real estate, all of those despite their various risks and short comings, will likley all hold their ground far better than central bank issued currency, which, by design only deprieciates in value until it eventually fails and must be replaced.

[Skybird]

I meant a commodity money based on market goods and trading them, unmanipulated by politicians and governments.



I understand thn ehoes and ideas behind crypto currencies. I just disagree with the claim that these are comaoravole to lets say gold, since gold has a physical presence, bits and bytes have not. I also disagree with the implications made by money that with crypto currency "you are "safe form the state".



State monopoles for minting and money control are one of the very biggest evils in the world. Its hard to imagine anything that is as bad for man as this is. It is the root evil for a whole rat's tail of subsequent evils.

Politicians must not be given power over money. Never. Never. Never.

[JU_88]

Originally Posted by Skybird

I meant a commodity money based on market goods and trading them, unmanipulated by politicians and governments.



I understand thn ehoes and ideas behind crypto currencies. I just disagree with the claim that these are comaoravole to lets say gold, since gold has a physical presence, bits and bytes have not. I also disagree with the implications made by money that with crypto currency "you are "safe form the state".



State monopoles for minting and money control are one of the very biggest evils in the world. Its hard to imagine anything that is as bad for man as this is. It is the root evil for a whole rat's tail of subsequent evils.

Politicians must not be given power over money. Never. Never. Never.

Gold and Bitcoin both have their distinct advantages and disadvantages.
The term 'crypto currencies' is very misleading now as they are for most part not currencies what so ever, more like very speculative tech and meme stocks, and yes, with exception of Monero and the Privacy chains all (including bitcoin) are very transparent and every transaction on their block explorers can be veiwed by anyone.

[Skybird]

I speak of crypto currency regarding the intended function. But it is no commodity whatever. "Bitcoin" is a (security) tehcnology.



Centrla banks, aka states and national govenrments, will never accept crypto currency to become a real rival to state's counterfeit money. And yes. It can be banned and controlled.


Gold cna be taken and hidden away. It is materially exoitsnt. crpyto currency is just an idea, a flow of electrons in a wire, bits and bytes. Nothing. The astronomical ammount of energy used to "mine" (how wrong) bitcoins, is perverse.



Its an interesting security technology, the blockchain. But it is no material commodity at all.



Many people seem to fundamentally misunderstand this.



Also, how criminal syndicates can secretly control and manipulate crypto currency systems.


If you want to comoare crypto currencies and metals, then comoare not to metal itself, but the paper form of it, whcih is no metal at all. People accepting to buy paper gold for protection reasons, have a very fundamental flaw in their tuunking: a piece of paper is no solid gold.
States and governments know this, thats why they so often try prohibit private possession of gold. I fear its only a question of time before they do it again in our countries.


Because, as you maybe remember: "Niemand hat die Absicht, eine Mauer zu bauen." (Walter Ulbricht, June 1961, two months before the wall in Berlin was built).

[em2nought]

Real money is what I have in my safe deposit box, although I don't like the idea that I might not be able to get to it should I really need to. I am thinking of living in a country that is way more friendly to "real" money.

Good luck stopping wasteful spending by power hungry governments.

[JU_88]

Originally Posted by Skybird

I speak of crypto currency regarding the intended function. But it is no commodity whatever. "Bitcoin" is a (security) tehcnology.



Centrla banks, aka states and national govenrments, will never accept crypto currency to become a real rival to state's counterfeit money. And yes. It can be banned and controlled.


Gold cna be taken and hidden away. It is materially exoitsnt. crpyto currency is just an idea, a flow of electrons in a wire, bits and bytes. Nothing. The astronomical ammount of energy used to "mine" (how wrong) bitcoins, is perverse.



Its an interesting security technology, the blockchain. But it is no material commodity at all.



Many people seem to fundamentally misunderstand this.



Also, how criminal syndicates can secretly control and manipulate crypto currency systems.


If you want to comoare crypto currencies and metals, then comoare not to metal itself, but the paper form of it, whcih is no metal at all. People accepting to buy paper gold for protection reasons, have a very fundamental flaw in their tuunking: a piece of paper is no solid gold.
States and governments know this, thats why they so often try prohibit private possession of gold. I fear its only a question of time before they do it again in our countries.


Because, as you maybe remember: "Niemand hat die Absicht, eine Mauer zu bauen." (Walter Ulbricht, June 1961, two months before the wall in Berlin was built).

Fair enough, you do you, I do agree with about half of your points but perhaps not the point about governments ability to easily enforce a ban on something global and decentralised, its already been tried multiple times by China and Inda, failed miserably and nobody cared. Doubtful a US or EU ban would fair much better in the long term.

and also where criminal syndicate manipulation of BTC is concerned, that honestly sounds abit like Chrisine Lagaurda propaganda. So i have ill to pass on that.

Also dont quite agree you need to be able to physically touch something for it to hold value, other wise by the same logic, stocks of big tech companies like Open AI, MS, Alphabet or Meta dont really hold any value either. since that too is all just a bunch of 1's and 0's

I dont doubt that at some point this century Bitcoin will either, fade in to irrelivance, or implode horribly when a quantum computer cracks it and somehow mints a 21,000,001th bitcoin.
but so what? Everything is finite, everythign has risk, is all that paper gold (which most gold poeple own Im afraid) backed up one to one and accounted for? probably not and what happens if the lid gets blown off that one during a run on gold?, plus more of it is mined everyday and when earth runs out there is more in space, so even Golds reign as a store of value will have end one day. But once again - so what? There is no such thing as 100% safe asset/security/store of value what have you. Gov can sieze your gold, or seize your house just as easily as seize your bitcoin.

We only need to really concern our selves with the present and perhaps a 10-15 year time span when it comes to investments, because 20+ years down the road is near impossible to accuratly predict. Even if you nail the right events, the timing of them will probably be some way off.
And in this case, BTC has quite simply outperformed everything, So it makes more sense to hold a little bit than wave an angry fist at the new thing which doesnt make sense, from the side lines. That usually doesnt pay off very well when it comes to new innovations. Im willing to wager both gold and bitcoin will out live me, Bitcoin is 'probably' going to pay off my mortgage by next year, the same investment in gold almost certianly would not have Unless we fiat collapes this year, but think there is still abit more can kicking road left than that.


So i guess it just depends what you want. If we are talking of an epic collapes, (since the lights need to be on to transact in bitcoin). then gold is almost certainly a safer bet, food and guns even safer. For me personally, Bitcoin did its job.