Bitcoins utility is in your ability to receive and transact with it without a trusted third party, regardless of amount or geographic distance, and store it in a secure medium like a sheet of steel or even your own memory. Its fair to point out it has no industrial use case, of course, we hope that its superior monetary qualities are the utility in it of itself.
Discussion
It's better than FIAT but in my opinion stays just there.
It will never be useful in production.
It will indeed never be used in production, but the value of gold isn't supported by its industrial use cases either.
Yes it is - monetary regression theorem - gold's value ultimately comes from "industrial" use, fiat's value ultimately comes from gold, and crypto's value (including Bitcoin) ultimately comes from fiat
I put industrial in quotes because it's really pre-industrial, but my point stands
Except this theorem depends on the asset in question being a commodity. The question is what a commodity is. Based on our last discussion you called into question whether bitcoin was real or not, which seems to be a key factor in determining whether its a commodity; you seem to believe that the absolute scarcity of bitcoin is fictitious, and I'm happy to continue that conversation whenever you feel up to it. That seems to be the basic predisposition you base your case on, so that might be best to root out. I promise the next step after where we last left off is very fun, what happens when nodes start trying to change the code? Heck it, I'll buy you an audio book that covers it in deeper detail if you are interested.
This is a wholesome thread.
I don't exactly know what it is, something about me committing to this as my digital identity for general use, not wanting to make myself seem like a bafoon before people I respect, the platform not amplifying "engaging" content, but I find myself very interested in good conversations here. You guys are also willing to debate it out and we all come from the same school of thought so that helps.
What are the industrial uses of Bitcoinium?
Oh I sure wish there were some, I'd throw it on a kiln and forge it into a family crest, or maybe use it as a near infinite battery for all the energy required to create it. Unfortunately there are none, I just don't think a thing requires a physical presence to be "real" or a commodity.
Commodity - standardized material (commonly defined as raw material but clearly that's inaccurate as gasoline is not raw, agricultural products are not raw)
What do you mean by "real" that can encompass the non-physical?
As in I know this is an actual and precise fraction of all bitcoin on the one and only bitcoin network, that no one can steal or diminish my share given the relevant assumptions hold true (like seeds were generated with the appropriate amount of entropy, and I maintain physical custody of my keys at all times). By contrast, the same cannot be said for any other digital item unless your assumption is that the trusted can be trusted.
So when I say my golf clubs are real, you would accept that because they're physical? But for digital "things" we need a whole other definition about the process used to create them?
Huh, damn I should lead with that next time I'm debating a shitcoiner, "how do you define when a digital item is real?".
I think that's an excellent question, if a digital item was to be considered real then we certainly would need a different definition than a physical item where you can touch it. So could a digital item be considered real in the first place? Is it worth creating a definition of realness for something that isn't possible? This really is the heart of what bitcoin is intended to represent, the very first (and foreseeable only) instantiation of digital scarcity, could that be extended to a new definition of realness fit for the digital realm? I think so, but I'll have to spend some time tonight thinking about the metaphysics of what it means for something to be real.
How do you define if something is real? The golf club is real, and the obvious reasoning is that you can touch it, but is that sufficient? It could be made of the wrong material and be totally deficient as a golf club, a nice bottle of wine or a famous painting could always be a forgary. A video of a person online can be real, it is a real video, and just like a physical object it could be a forgery. At any rate, I am inclined to think a things realness can only be determined subjectively. What about you? Even if bitcoin is real though, that casts a wide spread of what is considered real, so I understand this isn't immediately a justification that bitcoin is a commodity.
There's a difference between real (vs imaginary or theoretical) and genuine (vs imitation), although we do often use the term "real" to cover both
A real golf club vs a genuine tiger woods PGA winning golf club, alright. Would genuine be an abstraction built on real, or can something genuine also not be real ie "bitcoin is genuine but not real"?
I don't buy this. You take the rarity away and make it as common as a common metal you still have:
1. A soft metal (not all are)
2. A high conductor of electrical current
2 will be sought after more and more and more in our age.
It's really not that I care about it being some thing that rappers can put in their teeth but more that it has a use.
I fully acknowledge that having more of it would devalue it, but it's not valued solely on its rarity.
Well, maybe I should have been more precise with my language, its not based *solely* on its industrial use cases. It will always have value for the reasons you outlined, that seems like a guarantee. Though, how much faster is it extracted today than it is used in those industrial use cases? (I acknowledge that gold production would slow and gold use would increase in that hypothetical, but the value would still be far lower than today)
Better hope you never run out of fellows then (and also that digital technology doesn't ever allow gold to do all these wonderful things)
The same goes for gold, your store of value depends on someone wanting to actually buy it from you for something else. If we could send gold through an Ethernet cable that would be absolutely magic, imagine how wonderful the world would be if gold could teleport over the internet, hide it behind a VPN, divide it up into a billion bite sized chunks and transact with it at the speed of light. If that's the fate of bitcoin then I'll happily concede that I chose wrong and join the new sound money world, I just highly doubt that will happen.
Claims on gold can be digitally transferred already
And no, gold's value does not depend entirely on chains of speculation. I can bring my gold to a dentist and have him fill a tooth. Or trade it to someone with a cavity for that purpose.
Where Bitcoin you will only ever trade to another speculator.
Which is all well and good in fiat world where everyone is a speculator.
But don't you see the problems with fiat world?
Claims, yes, which require trust, who's currency is BRICS going to trade in, seems like a big basket of bad deals. Maybe they'll follow through on using gold, maybe the CIA sinks a tanker carrying a pallet of it.
Do I see a problem with it ultimately being based on speculation? I do on something of a risk adjusted basis, I did more so before it had any trading value, less when it entered common sentiment, less when countries started using it as a currency, and less now that its in contention as an option for international trade in a world where countries can't trust each other and the world reserve currency hangs in the balance. I'll be evermore satisfied as further developments come, be it geopolitical or code.