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KenchMeeshe 5mo ago 💬 5

I have been studying #bitcoin and I always compare it to #gold. After reading many books and articles, watching and listening to hours of videos and podcasts, I have two conclusions that bother me:

1. Bitcoin is less #fungible compared to gold.

With bitcoin UTXOs, we know complete history of a #satoshi. If for any reason, my sats were once held by an individual now blacklisted by the #state or simply if it was mined by a country state doesn’t like, my bitcoin could be #tainted. So, my bitcoin then doesn’t enjoy the same tradFi and #fiat privileges as some other bitcoin. With gold, your gold is always same as anyone else’s gold.

2. It is easy to lose your bitcoin.

Gold is hard to destroy. It is easier pass on to your next of kin, and every ounce of it mined thousands of years ago still exists today somewhere. While bitcoin offers better security than gold, the flip side of that is losing your private keys.

2.5: Another consequence of #2 might be that there will be less and less bitcoin available to use as years pass by and if #elasticity of #money is important for #economy bitcoin will never be functional money.

Can someone comment on these #criticisms and let me know if I am missing something? Thank you!

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Discussion

Turtlesallthewaydown⚡️ 5mo ago

I think you are missing the limitations of gold.

There are no prefect solutions and people who think Bitcoin is the future, think it possesses better trade offs than gold.

To directly address your criticisms

1. You are kind of correct and also wrong at the same time. Bitcoin is designed to be digital peer to peer cash. So if you had a $100 bill that you wanted to pay me with, I’m not particularly interested in whether that same $100 bill was used in an illicit transaction previously. Plus, the UTXOs history can be hard to follow through mixers, consolidation/splitting and through layer 2 mechanisms.

2. Bitcoin is no easier to lose than cash or gold. It requires user carelessness or stupidity to lose.

The main reason lots of Bitcoin have been ‘lost’ is because, in the early days, it was worthless and the people playing with this new toy did not value it as it cost them nothing to acquire. So these early holders often threw away or sold the laptops where their Bitcoin keys were stored.

I’d even suggest, the more valuable it becomes the harder it is to lose.

Happy to engage further in good faith if you have more questions.

KenchMeeshe 4mo ago

Thank you for taking the time to engage. My concern with money being not #fungible is about bad actors and #oppressive regimes.

Even in the free world, we see aggressive attacks on projects like #monero and #tornadocash.

FreeYoda 5mo ago

On your first concern:

Krugerrand gold coins where a long time tainted by many governments.

So your concern about goverment overreaching can't be solved by Money and shouldn't be silved by money.

It must be solved by you.

Your second concern:

Welcome to life.

Everything you care for or appreciate is something you need to be willing and being capable of preserving/protecting/defending or be prepared to loose it.

Your last concern:

#Bitcoin is technically limitless divisible.

So even a last Satoshi can serve as the world monetary basis.

Please let these things sink in before you reply with the default follow-ups.

#Bitcoiners appreciate if others do some thinking of their own.

KenchMeeshe 4mo ago

Thank you for taking the time to engage. So, do you think #bitcoin is just as fungible as #gold? Does that require one to use privacy tools like #coinjoin?

ede3d957... 3mo ago

You are ready to discover Monero. Natural evolution after asking the right questions.