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I still think the distiction is retarded. Debt is debt. But maybe we can agree that with a money, work has to be done upfront to produce it... Like the costs associated with mining bitcoin or gold.

a source familiar with the matter 9mo ago

No I don't agree to that at all.

If I'm lying on the river bank catching fish and a gold nugget happens to wash into my pocket it's no more or less money than an equivalent gold nugget mined from an asteroid.

Bitcoiners often default to a labor theory of value or energy theory of value, both of which are absurd. Value is subjective (meaning it relates to the subject, not that I just make up whatever I want). I value an additional unit of a good equivalent to the highest-valued new use to which I can put that good.

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Jeff Swann 9mo ago

It's not a labor theory of value at all. There is no specific amount of work that has to be done. You could run mining software on your phone for 5 minutes and find a block which rewards you with bitcoin. It just generally requires more effort than that to acquire scarce things. If gold was just freely available it would not be money.

a source familiar with the matter 9mo ago

Yes, scarcity is a requirement for something to have economic value.

That does not mean that work has to be done or that the scarce thing derives its value from the work done to obtain it. Those are fallacies.

I agree that making up records of new Bitcoin units is expensive. So is digging a hole and filling it back up. If I could prove that I had dug a hole of a certain size and filled it back up, would that receipt be a candidate to use as a money unit?

Jeff Swann 9mo ago

If the only way to reverse the transaction history is to do more work than was done to record the history in the first place then the setrlement assurances provided are a function of the cost of the work done.

a source familiar with the matter 9mo ago

settlement of what?

it's easy to build a better mousetrap when the mice are all in your head

Jeff Swann 9mo ago

Money is valuable because it can facilitate trade. It has nothing to do with how tagible it is. Gold's tangibility has nothing to do with it's value as money. All other metals would be money too if tangibility had anything to do with it. Tangibility actually makes it worse at being money in a digital economy.

But the reality is that none of this bullshit matters. Bitcoin is going to keep working & keep being money whether you understand or agree or not.

a source familiar with the matter 9mo ago

I tried to warn you.

Jeff Swann 9mo ago

Warn me of what? That you are not interested in learning at all?

a source familiar with the matter 9mo ago

in the long run there is no contest between reality and delusion