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Was just pointing out it's easy for people to copy to digital currency and just keep making different versions of it since it's not physical. There's only 1 gold that exists and can't be copied
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Bitcoin compared to gold and actual limitation vs artificial
- Thread starter BlueManifest
- Start date
Im having trouble tracking your point. Are you talking about groups of people using alchemy/chemistry to create/design different metals? Why would it matter? We have already explained that even if you do, its not valuable unless consensus agrees it is. It's just like the dollar. It has its value because many people agree it has value. You could parade around rocks from your backyard (or meteorites or whatever) and proclaim they have value if you want, but its meaningless unless other people agree,
And we are pointing out that its irrelevant if you make a crypto copy because it isn't the original. Consensus and widespread adoption and agreement is what gives the crypto its 'value'. Not how similar the code is underneath the hood.
You cannot create more bitcoin. Bitcoin is bitcoin. Just because another crypto has similar traits doesn't make it bitcoin any more than Silver being similar in some fashion to gold makes it more 'gold'.
There is an incredible amount of gold on (or rather, within) this planet.
https://www.worldatlas.com/articles...uld-cover-the-earth-in-a-knee-high-layer.html
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There's also more than one metal out there. For whatever reason, you are looking at other cryptocurrencies as if they are other bitcoins. There's gold, silver, platinum, aluminum, etc just as there is bitcoin, litecoin, bitcoin cash, etc.
Just like gold, you can't create more bitcoin. Making a new cryptocurrency based off of bitcoin code is not creating more bitcoin. You can't create more bitcoin.
People in a lab can probably create some new metal variation, but that doesn't mean anything with regards to gold. Similarly, developers can code all they want, but that doesn't affect bitcoin.
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Something that is physical should be valued higher than something that's digital that requires a power source to exist
I've also had a similar thought but it makes the case for bitcoin even worse. Imagine someone creates a blockchain called bitcoin2. It would be its own blockchain. It would have all the same rules and source code as regular bitcoin. So why wouldn't this have value? If the american government introduced a 250$ note, that wouldn't affect anything really. You can make as many arbitrary blockchains as you want so long as enough people start using it that it resists attacks. So then what is the value of bitcoin? Same thing as gold or fiat currency. A bunch of people think it will have the permanent value a currency does.
That's not how it works. You should read a bit about the basics of economics.
After all this digging this is what your OP should have been titled. Because this appears to be your real motivating statement. It's a lovely opinion but..... 'value'/worth clearly doesn't work that way.
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Let's say the whole world lost power for whatever reason, no one had access to bitcoin. What's it worth now
There are already plenty of other cryptocurrencies with similar rules and code as bitcoin. Bitcoin cash is pretty much the same exact code except for some tweaks to the protocol.
The market decides the price. Adoption decides the price. It doesn't mean anything if no one mines your coin or no stores/businesses even interact with it. It's just there.
Say there is no food left on this planet, what's gold worth now?
(Sorry, but this is ridiculous.)
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There was currency and trading before electricity existed, yes food is more important but I'm talking currency
but what if there's a machine that turns gold into food? the only caveat being that the world is without power. what would n*sync collection be worth then?
Let's say the whole world's supply of gold is contaminated by radiation. What's it worth now
You understand that all currency will be worthless in such a scenario.
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If the whole world is covered in radiation most if not all people are dead
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Like I said in another post currency and trading existed when there was no electricity
Bad example. Your real comparison would be imagine someone other than the U.S. Government makes a $100 U.S. note. Uses the exact same paper, exact same ink, exact same cut, everything is mimicd perfectly. In fact, let's imagine some foreign government did this for every bill the U.S. has and put it into circulation.
All the ingredients are exactly the same, why doesn't it hold the same value as the dollar?
Yes, and that currency was once probably a single currency as more came up over time. They sure as hell didn't use US dollars 10k years ago. All this proves is that as the world economies grow more and more currencies come into existence; their creation aided by the technology of the time. Presses and factories that produce the dollar, to electricity and the internet used to sustain cryptocurrency. Again you are going to go in circles until you take the time to seek the answer to your base issue. You don't think non physical things should have value above physical, that's wrong as a foundation economically speaking. With that as a base anything you build on top of it is shaky at best.
And?
What is your point? If the world loses power crypto is worthless, as well as the majority of of currency if not all.
We live in a world with electricity, so what's your point?
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Digital currency requires power to exist gold doesn't require anything to exist
Exactly. And if cryptocurrencies ever "catch on" what's there to stop new cryptocurrences from emerging and being adopted? See, a lot of reasoning concerning cryptocurrences is driven by motivated reasoning. I think that if we are operating under the assumption that cryptocurrencies have value, then it would be true that you would have cryptocurrency expansionism over time. More and more people would start buying in alternate currencies once the main ones become too expensive for speculative purposes. This will consistenly drive the market to a constant churning of new cryptocurrencies. Of course, you could argue this is already happening.
You're right that my example was bad. I really just wanted to put forward the following analysis. Either cryptocurrency does, or does not have inherent value. If it does have inherent value, then so does every other cryptocurrency. If it doesn't then the value comes from the set of people agreeing to use it. Well, people agreed to use bitcoin, what's to stop them from using any other cryptocurrency.
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If something requires something else for it to exist couldn't some argue that makes it worth 0?
What's a car worth without wheels or an engine?
What's a car worth without wheels or an engine?
Don't even try. The OP isn't asking a question, he's looking for validation on his own personal thoughts. It's the same over on gaming side.
Food for thought: you require air, water, food, etc to exist.
A cryptocurrency's success (it 'catching on' for real) in the long term will be completely dependent on its ability to actually be used as a functional currency globally. If a cryptocurrency actually reaches this height (whether it is bitcoin or another currency), no coin will be able to simply replace said coin. It's about adoption.
There are already over 1000 cryptocurrencies in this space competing. Not all want to be currencies, but a lot do, and all of those are competing with bitcoin to be that currency.
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It's worth it's frame and other parts that can be sold.
Do you have any grasp of how modern markets work
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Doesn't appear to be able to grasp how bitcoin works let alone how the market works.
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I never said replace. For what reason could there never be only one global digital currency? Why couldn't there be two? Legitimately curious for your take on this.
Edit: Changed my post from For what reason would there be only one global digital currency? to For what reason could there never be only one global digital currency?
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I don't think (assuming its success) that there would be only one global digital currency. Even now with as advanced as we are, look at how many currencies we have. I think there's a significant chance it would work out the way things are today. Where there is most certainly a dominant currency that sees the highest use worldwide, but it would by no means be the only one. This is especially the case in crypto where things like VEN/Ether/WTC have uses beyond solely being currencies. Digital currencies aren't as one dimensional as fiat so there's really no way to completely predict what it will evolve into.
Thankfully however digital currencies make things like exchanges so much more convenient as they can be done in real time. Crypto credit cards like TenX let you spend your crypto at retailers today, and the exchange rates from the crypto you choose to spend to US$ or British Pound or whatever is done in real time at the time of transaction. So multiple digital currencies wouldn't be an issue with instant conversion that are allowed by digital currencies. Someone can pay you with whatever currency they have, but when it hits your account it will be in Bitcoin, Fiat or whatever currency you "accept".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMFzTWIiVmM
Right. I agree. So this is what I see happening. Let's start with a single digital global currency, Acoin. There are some transaction fees x. New crypto comes out with transaction fee y called Bcoin. y < x. Some proportion of the population who wants to use the currency as something other than speculation will have a vested interest in new crypto because they can use it as a currency with reduced fees. This will reduce fees of x and y's fee will slowly rise. Well now there is room for some Ccoin. Then a Dcoin. So long as making payments with arbitrary xcoin can easily be integrated into some payment terminal system (and given the public nature of cryptos I don't see why this wouldn't be the case) we should theoretically have a steady influx of coins exerting a price presure on the transaction fee.
Again, if you see flaws with this line of thinking, point them out.
A government printing more money does not necessarily decrease the value of that currency, because there are more factors at play than supply. A lot of people think the supply-demand spectrum exists in isolation, so if the total number of dollars increases by 1% then the value of $1 will decrease by 1%. That's a misconception because there are so many factors at play in determining a currency's value. Essentially the value of a currency is determined by people's confidence in the currency, so if the US prints 5% more dollars the value may stay the same if investors feel the situation is stable.
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Your also saying what may have created gold
I'm saying what requires the gold that's already here to exist
Your talking about creation I'm talking about continued existence of what's already here
Gold that is here now does not require anything to continue to be here, digital currency requires power to exist and will always require power to exist unless they make it physical some how some day
A currency that has dependence to exist is worth 0
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that makes no sense? there are hypothetical scenarios for both gold and bitcoin where they have no value. why does "dependence" make something have no value?
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Yea same for the USD, if the USA didn't exist in the future then the usd wouldn't exist either of course, that's why I think gold or things like gold are the only thing that have true value