The be clear, I understand what you're saying. The issue isn't my comprehension. I don't agree with your perspective. If I had 100 btc, and I spent 50 btc, even if I obtained 50 additional btc to "replace" what I spent, the end result is that I'm still down 50 btc that I would have had if I hadn't spent it. You can replace the instrument, but you can't replace the value. Even if I got 1000 btc, I would still be down the 50 btc I spent on pizza.
Discussion
Okay now I'm absolutely sure one of us is retarded, but I'm not absolutely sure which. (Though I do have a guess 😉)
I don't think you're retarded. You just have a different perspective, which is totally fine. This is really a matter of viewing the glass as half-empty, or half-full.
If you buy anything with bitcoin, just buy 10x the amount of bitcoin you spent to replace it. That way, you get paid in generational wealth every time you eat a pizza.
this require to have MUCH fiat
Even 2x or 1.5x should be plenty.
agree, even if still require to own and think in fiat... The ideal would be to have 100% bitcoin in every moment, so to spend bitcoin everytime we need to buy goods and services. At this point is easier to solve the "hodl or spend-and-replace?" dilemma, cause is just a matter of time preferences and monthly income/expenses.
A softer and most applicable version of this solution is to own just a little amount of fiat specifically for expenses that would be to inefficient to be conducted in bitcoin, with merchants that want fiat.
xapo bank makes that pretty smooth, holding in bitcoin and only selling for fiat when you pay in fiat, and if the merchant accepts LN you can do that as well, and of course SWIFT/SEPA and on-chain bitcoin
they are the first neobank to go full bitcoin and i'm so glad to finally have this option... i first had a "crypto" card back in 2016 and their service was awful (wirex) and i got robbed by them again, with the cooperation of a bulgarian bank who i had an account with back in 2013, refusing to verify my identity to the bank and the bank refusing to give me back the card their "eject money first" ATM swallowed while i was busy paying immigration fees
wow didnt know xapo was pioneering on this, will give it a look!
ok, too expensive for me, maybe in 1 or 2 cycles, who knows...
yeah, i was almost not gonna do this year because of that fee
but because i can, i will, even if i have to live a bit poorer
out in the boondocks here anyway there's not a lot to spend it on, and ecom is a pain... i have to walk an hour to go collect my deliveries so i'm not keen on doing that much of it
and speaking of which, the insanity of portuguese post strikes again
supposedly they tried to deliver it but failed, according to their bullshit
but probably some other shit happened because they never are clear about anything
i'm just gonna go to the place where it's expected to arrive in a couple of days, a nice 2 hour out-and-back and my 2.5kg of hydrolysed beef powder will be there, almost certainly
i have had a very consistently bad experience with european postal systems... bulgaria was only good when it was one of the several private courier companies, they were brilliant, had collection points everywhere and always called you on the spot when they arrived
portugal everything goes through the government monopoly post office and it's a joke, they are so incompetent and slow
rich west european country vs "corrupt" poor east european country, who will win
bulgaria is sliding downwards though, every year i was there it got steadily worse
i bet it wasn't actually much worse when it was communist, it's probably now worse than the typical communist days of the 80s.. they destroyed their money in the 90s and then it was reset and everything was cool for another decade and by 2020 it was already reverting to communist grade bullshit
annual fee is steep tho, really you have to have stacked to be able to use it now, was 150 euro a year now 1k... so far they have been pretty solid, only complaint in months last week the payment card was misbehaving, but most of the time zero problems
Bitcoin is $0.02. you started with 100 btc, spent 50 Bitcoin and immediately replaced your 50 btc right away with a cash purchase. You're out one DOLLAR. The US Dollar you spent to replace the 50 Bitcoin.
But you still have 100 btc!
If you presume that IF you HADN'T bought the $1 pizza then you WOULD HAVE spent that US Dollar on MORE bitcoin, then sure - in that world you would have had 150 btc. but if you instead just BOUGHT ZERO PIZZA and did nothing else, you'd still have 100 Bitcoin. Not 150!
Where am I wrong here?
By the way I'm not yelling. It's emphasis.
First, just to make this known, I'm not arguing that I'm out $400k because I bought the pizza.
I'm arguing that had I not bought the pizza, the coins I retained by not spending them at that time would have made my current stack value $400k more than what it is. Because the only two things I have actually purchased with Bitcoin in my whole life are that pizza, and some gold bullion. Otherwise, I still have all the bitcoin I've purchased from 2011 thru the present.
That means my current stack today would have been worth +4 BTC had I not purchased the pizza. Whether I bought more to replace the 4 BTC is irrelevant.
The bottom line is that my stack is currently 4 BTC less than what it would have been had I not bought the pizza, and that translates to $400k less in value at current prices. That is the totality of my claim, and perspective.
You can't just say "whether or not I replaced the Bitcoin is irrelevant" - that is *specifically* the topic we're talking about...Namely, IF spend and replace would have kept your stack unchanged.
And the answer is very clearly "yes, it would have been unchanged" as you can see in my directly above illustration.
The only way that would not hold is if you were, back then, planning on buying Bitcoin INSTEAD of pizza (as opposed to **in addition to** - which is the definition of spend and replace) with those same dollars that went to the pizza (the timing of the dollars is highly relevant, of couse).
And this is exactly where it's about a difference in perspective. I my view, whether or not you replace what you spent, the value of your current holdings will always be minus whatever you have spent.
But in your perspective, if you replace what you spent, you're in the same position that you would have been had you not spent it.
Its two equally valid ways to look at the situation, and the difference in perspective isn't a basis for an oppositional argument, because both can be seen to be factually correct.
We don't need continue arguing about it because what we are arguing is a matter subjective perspective.