This is such a big backtrack from your last post that I’m not sure if there’s any need to continue. You went from “never understood…” to “i understand it”. Then followed that up with a broad statement about people. Yes, if you have a big enough swath of people, some of them will do whatever you’re claiming they will do. In this case, I suppose some people will act like it’s fool proof. No argument to be had there. Yes, there will always be competition. Yes, nothing is certain, it could crash or it could not crash. Yes, the US dollar is backed by gold and oil. I’m not sure where you’re going with this. I think this would be a good video for you to watch:
I said I don’t understand using real money (that is accepted everywhere) to purchase digital money that can’t really be used, to only have to sell that for real money to be able to use it. I never said I didn’t understand how it works.
It reminds me of tulips.
And I’ll say again, bitcoin is just as much “real money” as usd. The very definition of money is as follows: Money is any good that is widely used and accepted in transactions involving the transfer of goods and services from one person to another.
Money serves three functions:
1 - A means of exchange.
2 - A store of wealth.
3 - A unit of account.
What you’re wanting to argue is that one type of money is somehow “more real” than another type. Money has continually evolved as time went on. Originally, people used commodity money. Gold coins are a good example of commodity money - a good whos value serves as the value of money. Commodity money was used for thousands of years, but eventually people began to use fiat money. The US Dollar is a good example of fiat money - a good, the value of which is less than the value it represents as money. I’m sure there were plenty of people resistant to printed slips of paper rather than gold and silver, but guess what, both are “real” forms of money and life moved on. Now we live in a digital age and fiat has been largely been replaced by what some refer to as “bank money” or “credit money”. Essentially, a store of wealth in the form of 0’s and 1’s (digital) that will be paid out to it’s depositors. Checks, credit cards, paypal, venmo balances, cryptocurrency, could all technically fall under this form.
So are you trying to argue that crypto isn’t money, or that one form of money is less volatile and resistant to value flux? I think we can agree that all money is volatile, whether it is measured by gold, silver, oil, usd, yen, bitcoin, ether).
Money has evolved
But I can’t go buy seomthing and expect to pay with bitcoin. There maybe a few places that accept it, but those are rare exceptions. It’s not accepted globally and doesn’t look like it will ever be. People used to take tulips as payments also. But most of the time they were sold for real money. It is more a stock than a currency.
Bitcoin seems to be taking a dump. I’m late to actually buying BTC, but I remember when it was spiking upwards and people thought it would go to $100k+. People were scrambling to buy it hoping to ride the train upwards. Kind of reminds me of the stock market and current pokemon explosion.
Many people have talked about how BTC has shown a drop in price following the halvening. Followed by 6-12 months later it having large increases in price. The people that wanted to get rich quick, short or make a quick profit seemed to have fallen out. I’ve only been involved in pokemon so I don’t know much about investments. Do most investments see, for lack of a better term, “bandwagoners” who hop into a specific market that’s getting notoriety because of it’s current market move. Only to be followed by price dumps because people aren’t getting rich quick. That’s what it appears like with BTC atm.
Yes you can. I pay for a ton of stuff with bitcoin as do many people. You’re letting your personal exposure to the money set the tone for its use. I bet you can’t personally go around spending the british sterling pound on your day to day, but that doesn’t mean others don’t use it all the time. I’d argue that more people use crypto to purchase shit than commodity money. You don’t see people walking around with gold and silver coins these days making purchases, though it does happen. But at one time, people were saying the same thing when fiat was introduced. That’s why countries had to literally make laws forcing people to accept it as “legal tender”, people were resistant to accepting paper bills rather than commodity money back in the day.
That is because a lot of those people are still viewing the currency as a digital commodity or stock that they are “investing in” rather than looking at the practical use and future of cryptocurrency as an actual currency. It’s drawing in some get rich quick people who never intend to use the currency how it was intended to be used. Some of those bigger spenders are hoping to manipulate the “market” to change the exchange rate; something you can’t do so easily with government backed currencies these days, though it does happen. Regulations will continue to tighten up as these cryptocurrencies age though, and those that survive and show their practical use should become less volitile. Think of it this way, the exchange rate of the phillipine peso to us dollar is 50 to 1. To set the tone, imagine this currency and country was relatively new, freshly independent with a new government. You and some friends notice that the peso is strengthening, so you buy into it, exchanging usd for a shitload of pesos in a digital ledger/“wallet”. That money only continues to strengthen as the country strengthens. Lets say they start getting good trade deals going, their infrastructure starts booming, they become a financial hub competing with other eastern countries. Suddenly, you’ve made some money, but at the end of the day, that peso isn’t a stock, it’s a currency that you were treating as if it were a stock.
Crypto talk is always cult/conspiracy vibes. Crazy fallacies left and right, “Us currency isn’t real money”. We can sit here and nitpick how money is backed, but the ultimate reality is the value of Crypto is based entirely on what it can be exchanged for in US currency.
Also most people in crypto have their finger on the sell button, just waiting for the right price to dump. No one is collecting imaginary internet coins. They are trying to create wealth by increasing its value to ultimately cash out into actual money. It doesn’t serve either intended purpose well (currency and/or investment).
I’m just glad it exists because it inherently makes collectibles less speculative.
And this is what has always gotten me about crypto. The people in my life who are the most excited about crypto are all hoping it will make them rich in USD. And the way they tell me it will do that is by providing something USD cannot. But they’ll still take the USD?
The current exchange rate of usd to btc is 8,866 to 1 and will very likely always be worth significantly more than USD. Price “resistance” tanking the exchange rate is notoriously high as it dips towards 4,500 to 1. People can trash talk it all they want, but they just look dumber (in relation to this specific topic) as time moves on.
BTC is used by many people (with a higher rate of monthly transactions than some country-backed currencies) and it has and will continue to retain high value. It’s a very tough argument to claim otherwise, but some will.
My point in my last 3 or 4 posts is that it’s a currency retaining value and that can be used in exchange of service or goods just as much as fiat currencies such as the yen or dollar. That was the entire premise of the charts I posted. One showing an increase and stabilization in exchanges made over time and one showing an increase and stabilization of value over time. You’re claiming that a retrace of a bitcoins exchange rate against the US dollar looks “horrible” in a 5 year position in which it’s grown and remained strong against the dollar.
I’m showing you that ALL of these fiat currencies constantly retrace and fluctuate in value when it comes to their exchange rates with one another. And the interest comment is a joke in what banks offer today. Trying to squeeze money out of one currency against another as if it were a stock is just a bad, largely outdated investment strategy.
Yes, there was a point in the coins history where a bunch of “whales” hopped on board and hyped the shit out of the currency as if it was a tesla stock and the value went to 19k for a very brief blip of time until they ultimately cashed out. Overall though, the currency has shown the ability to stabilize at high value over usd.
The reason the other currencies have depreciated against the USD is because USA increased the interest rate and experienced higher inflation over the last 2-3 years. Something which bitcoin doesnt have.
I think you’re oversimplifying dozens if not hundreds of factors as to why various currencies have depreciated or appreciated against USD but the fact remains that there is a large degree of volitility involved whenever comparing currencies against each other.
I value bitcoin and ether primarily as currency rather than as an investment. I’ll accept it as compensation instead of usd if I am owed money, and I’ll use it to purchase goods or services when the option is avail. Do I occasionally cash it out against USD? Yes. There are exchange rate cycles it shares with commodies. I’ll sometimes buy more when they’re trading at what I think is a “low” price against USD. Then I’ll spend, trade or hold it until it reaches what I perceive to be a “high” exchange rate over usd, at which point I’ll cash out until I’m comfortable with the value again. I think there are certain value marks you can be comfortable that ether,bitcoin, etc will stay at or above throughout a fiscal year. Anything higher is a bonus.
Calling cryptocurrency a conspiracy theory and a cult isn’t an argument. If you have a reason why those ideas aren’t worth looking into, make the point. Don’t just lazily say I don’t like what you’re saying but I have nothing to say against it so I’ll throw a dirty word towards it. It’s making people jump through hoops without providing anything concrete yourself.
It’s also one of the major reasons the system exists the way it does. People accept it, even though there’s no reason to accept it. I’m not saying it’s going to change, it probably won’t, but going around saying here’s the system, and not having a problem with it pushes more people to not want change.
Honestly, tell me what a Ponzi scheme is, why it’s bad, then tell me how the central banking system is any different.
Tell me why some individuals get to pay taxes after their expenses while others have to pay taxes before their expenses. The main argument is that people who are paying after are stimulating the economy and helping creating jobs, to which I say how is someone buying something not stimulating the economy, and a lot of those jobs being created are overseas, yet we still give them tax breaks for it?
I don’t think there’s a single crypto on the market right now that’ll be the currency of the future, but if you think the problem with crypto is anything but government intervention you’re wrong. If you live in Korea, you very well could pay for a lot of things in stores with crypto. In the USA and I assume most of the modern world we had no issues going from a cash-only transaction to mostly credit card transactions, why would it be any different for crypto? It’s because the government can’t track crypto to you, so it’s easier to not pay taxes. All you people saying how you want friends and family payments because Paypal doesn’t report it to the IRS, maybe you should set up a crypto wallet, I know I’d be willing to take crypto as payment for my cards.
