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I'm actively looking for critics from the Austrian school and the libertarian community because I think they are more aligned with Bitcoiners than anyone else on most things. It's more fun to engage with their criticisms.

White, Selgin and Bob don't completely deny Bitcoin's value outright. But their criticisms are worthwhile to engage with.

For example, their claim that Bitcoin can't be money because it isn't widely accepted is interesting and fair, but falls apart when you start trying to define from first principles what 'widely accepted' means.

I could be using Bitcoin to earn and spend in my locality and it could become 'money' to me, while people I interact with don't have to use it as money in all their economic exchanges and calculations. Bitcoin wouldn't stop being money to me as a result.

I suppose so many years of legal tender laws have distorted that part of our brain that can conceptualise a free market in monetary goods.

Thanks for pointing out the issue with my LN address, will fix it.

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Discussion

Rock Paper Bitcoin 1y ago

The Austrian perspective has great power when its purpose is clear: to distinguish economics clearly from a science and debunk any scientific LARPs from the discussion of markets and price discovery.

When the Austrians begin to claim their principles are a science to use as Theorems like the Regression Theorem, they invalidate themselves and I dont find them useful anymore.

Sadly, the only help I think we get to understand Bitciun is from the Austrians even if it’s just to tell us what not to do. Luckily, there are thousands of pages of well written guidance from this perspective.

But for everything else, we’re on our own to discover it, which I would believe to be the most relevant Austrian perspective.

sachin 1y ago

Bitcoin does fit into Mises' regression theorem. In fact, it aids in explaining Bitcoin's value along with Menger's origins of money.

Initially, Bitcoin was being mined and exchanged among developers, cypherpunks and hobbyists for some reason. They thought it was worthwhile to spend their CPU resources and time in order to learn about it and obtain it.

Then, someone at some point was willing to voluntarily part with his dollars or goods he valued in exchange for some Bitcoin when its market value was $0.

This could be the person who thought its value was $0.0025 at bitcoinmarket(.)com while making the first trade or Laszlo who was willing to part with his pizza for 10,000 bitcoin whose value was $25 when he made the first real-world transaction.

But the transactions happened voluntarily without any authority telling them that Bitcoin is money or that it is valued at a certain price or that they should define it in a particular way.

And other people decided to part with their dollars in exchange for Bitcoin at other prices.

Why any of these people decided to participate in these exchanges or why they thought Bitcoin had value, only they know. It was their own subjective valuations of Bitcoin that gave it a price, and continue to do so.

Now, we have many market participants valuing it at different prices, looking at what it was in the past and forecasting it to be worth various amounts in the future to buy, sell, spend or earn it right now.

Check this out:

Bob Murphy on Bitcoin and Ludwig Von Mises’ Regression Theorem

https://consultingbyrpm.com/blog/2014/03/on-bitcoin-and-ludwig-von-mises-regression-theorem.html

Rock Paper Bitcoin 1y ago

I agree that it satisfies the “theorem”. I disagree that the theorem confers scientific truth about Bitcoin being a money. It’s just another solid data point, not a hill for Austrians to die on.

sachin 1y ago

I think Austrians mostly recognise that economics is not a science but a logical explanation for how economic exchanges happen in the real-world. It's a humanities discipline like psychology and philosophy.

You've probably had different interpretations from your interactions with them.