"Do you actually think that the physical nature of gold is what gives it value?"
Yes, absolutely. The physical nature of gold is 100% responsible for humanity selecting it (and not some other commodity) as money.
The only reason fiat "beat" gold is Gresham's law.
Bad "money" [when artificially valued at par by threat of force] drives out [of circulation and into hoards] the good.
"Do you think the digital units in your bank account don't have value?"
Correct, and every day that gold hits a new all-time high other people are realizing it too.
I think the only rational thing to do with fiat or pure credit instruments is to spend or invest the purchasing power in something else as quickly as possible. This includes the pure credit instrument called Bitcoin.
Bitcoin is not a credit instrument. Energy was invested in the unlocking of even the first of the available units. Now each additional unit requires the expendature of a significant amount if energy to unlock. Generally a pretty significant investment in tools/hardware is required too (much like gold mining).
The properties needed for something to be an ideal money do not include physicality. In fact pysicality increases transaction costs to such a degree that fiat tokens will always replace physical gold & the trust in said tokens will always eventually be violated.
Gresham's law is not some eternal absolute. It actually primarily applies to sound money vs cheap money with the same face value. People may always prefer to give away trash instead of good money, but producers are not always willing to accept it. Thier's law is the flip side of the coin. The growth of Bitcoin adoption & gradual increase in the transactional use of Bitcoin demonstrates this.
"I dug a hole, GDP must go up"
"I wasted electricity, this ledger entry must be valuable"
More begging the question (assuming the thing you are supposedly arguing for).
If Bitcoins were valuable, the energy cost would be a constraint on their supply. If Bitcoins were not valuable, the energy cost would be just a further element of waste.
You might insist (rightly) that Bitcoins enjoy a market value above zero. So does the US dollar. So did Enron. So did FTX.
So at what point & by what metric will you admit that the growing value of bitcoin as a result of volubtary adoption is real & that it has nothing to do with company stocks or fiat money?
I feel about Bitcoin and the US Dollar the way you feel about the US Dollar.
What would make you admit the US Dollar is in some way valuable or excellent?
If the US dollar stopped being printed, stopped falling in value, & the system ceased to be centrally controlled & could be audited by everyone at any time then I would have no problem with dollars. But the printing & inflation & centralization are basically the entire reason for its existence. It was literally designed to have a central bank & to be a tool to enslave people.
Thread collapsed
Thread collapsed
Thread collapsed
Thread collapsed
Thread collapsed
