Quote (El1te @ 17 Sep 2024 00:22)
How can Bitcoin protect wealth against a crash of fiat currency, when the only value it has is to be traded for said fiat currency? It's present value is derived purely as a speculative "asset" - people hoping to trade it for more fiat money than they paid for it.
/e it is absolutely tied to the economic well being of a country - if the internet or electricity stop being maintained it ceases to exist period
/thread
Quote (datajunky @ 16 Sep 2024 23:12)
Bitcoin was designed to be different. It gives people control over their own wealth, independent of banks or governments. It’s not just a speculative asset; it’s a store of value that many are turning to in times of uncertainty.
All modern currency has zero inherent value*, its value is exclusively determined by its ability to be converted into goods or services. The tldr is that what props up modern currency is the strength of the underlying economy and country. For example, the US dollar has practical value because it is the legal tender in a huge, strong country which produces a ton of shit (and has the military to defend it if necessary). It is also a central finding of economics, backed up by both theory and empirical data, that in the long run, exchange rates between two economies are determined by the development of their relative productivity and monetary policy.
Bitcoin, just like all other kinds of inofficial currency, relies on market participants being willing to trade in them and has the drawback of not being the legal tender in any relevant economy. Furthermore, while bitcoin is less exposed to the perils of expansionary monetary policy than regular currency, it is more exposed to legal risks. In particular, there is fundamentally nothing stopping the governments or central banks from just banning bitcoin. If that happens in a major market, the bitcoin value will nosedive.
To use a practical and sligthly hyperbolic example: it would take 2/3rd majorities in both chambers of Congress to ban the US dollar; it would take years of Jerome Powell going rogue with ultra-inflationary policies to crash the USD via inflation - but he could essentially go "haha bitcoin go poof" with a simple regulatory act.
*Well, okay, paper money has marginal fuel value because you can use it to lit a fire when you're sitting under a bridge and freezing to death during the apocalypse...
This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Sep 16 2024 06:17pm