Paper currency has the backing of the state that issues it; cryptocurrency has the backing of.... shared illusion?
The other troublesome issue with cryptocurrency is that its primary use seems to be terrorist states, extortionists, black market deals and other criminal enterprises.
No state will ever surrender control of its currency to an anonymous, opaque entity. When cryptocurrencies gain any traction ( which I highly doubt), countries will start banning them outright and make it a crime to conduct transactions in cryptocurrencies.
If you think cryptocurrencies will ever gain wide usage and acceptance, you need to start reading fewer graphic novels and more mainstream newspapers.
I haven’t heard anything that would convince me cryptocurrencies are viable.
Coin mining takes the energy of a small city, yet they can only handle seven (7) transactions per second.
Cold fusion and cryptocurrencies are have a lot in common.
Agreed. In ten or fifteen years we will look back and laugh at the suckers that fell for the scam. I’ve said cryptocurrencies are a Ponzi scheme and I still think that’s accurate. Somebody creates one and advertises the hell out of it. They quietly hold onto a bunch of the worthless things. Suckers buy in and bid the value up. Then the founder unloads his holdings and pockets the real money he made. Classic Ponzi scheme.
you won’t catch me using or owning any of that s***.
Not really. A Ponzi scheme is using the investment of later investors to pay returns to earlier investors. That isn't bitcoin, which is value based on scarcity. Only so many bitcoins can be derived and their value comes from that. This is more akin to currency based on scarcity of minerals like silver or gold. Lots of people trade in gold.
As for "worthless things", how is paper currency not worthless things? Again, it's not about the physical medium of the thing, it's the value it's the market value of the thing it represents. If people are willing to trade for special paper, it has value. If they're willing to trade for special numbers, it has value.
There are a lot of Ponzi schemes that don't have a product. That just use later investors to pay off earlier ones.
Your comment about paper currency being worthless is the falsehood that I hear a lot from promoters of cryptocurrencies. Yes the Dollar, the Pound, the Yen ARE different. They are different in a fundamental way. They have a Central Banker, a head of the Federal Reserve, A Finance Minister, whole departments in fact who's job is to maintain the value of the currency. It is supported because the people in government don't want to see harm come to their countries economies. Why do you think the Zimbabwean dollar collapsed in value? Because nobody was minding the store. Why do you think China is continually accused of manipulating their currency? Because that's what governments do. The US dollar is the medium of common exchange so all the major countries seek to maintain its value. That is why real currencies put out by real major countries are different. They have real value because people work very hard to maintain and stabilize their value.
Cryptocurrencies are worth nothing. They are worth only what some sucker is willing to pay for it. There is a term in finance "a flight to quality" it happens whenever there is a major crisis internationally, a war, a disaster, a major financial collapse. People dump their risky, unsupported investments for something real, real gold, real silver, real Dollars, real Pounds, real Yen. The next time there is a major crisis you will see the value of Bitcoin and all the rest collapse to pennies because there is NOTHING to back them up. Nobody is minding the store.
I haven’t heard anything that would convince me cryptocurrencies are viable.
Coin mining takes the energy of a small city, yet they can only handle seven (7) transactions per second.
Cold fusion and cryptocurrencies are have a lot in common.
Agreed. In ten or fifteen years we will look back and laugh at the suckers that fell for the scam. I’ve said cryptocurrencies are a Ponzi scheme and I still think that’s accurate. Somebody creates one and advertises the hell out of it. They quietly hold onto a bunch of the worthless things. Suckers buy in and bid the value up. Then the founder unloads his holdings and pockets the real money he made. Classic Ponzi scheme.
you won’t catch me using or owning any of that s***.
Classic criticism without understanding what has been happening in the crypto space. Yes, there is a lot of volatility with many ‘coins’ because each one is like a startup. A startup has to bring something useful to their offering or they quickly become a tiny player. Bitcoin and Ethereum are the top two players, but Bitcoin alone has a market cap of
$188,858,342,346. That isn’t the profile of something that’s “going out of business” anytime soon. You should learn more about how it is being used today.
I know how cryptocurrencies work. I was aware of them from shortly after Bitcoin came out. Bryan over at The Mac Observer has been very enthusiastic on them from the start and ran a number of articles about how they work. I did a lot of independent reading about them early on. The difference is I can smell fraud a mile off. And that's all they are, a way to get suckers to invest real money in nothing so the founders can profit before the bubble bursts. The current "Market Cap" is really meaningless. It's just whatever people have been willing to pay for these imaginary things. I suppose I could start selling jars with invisible wish giving fairies in them. It would be on a par with Cryptocurrencies.
I won't touch cryptocurrencies with a ten mile pole. In ten or fifteen years people will laugh at this idiocy.
Again, value is agreed upon. There is nothing valuable about paper (now that we have decouple US currency from gold & silver), anymore than your claim that bitcoins are "worthless things". Nope. The value is what people decide it is. And in bitcoins, as in most currency, it's based on scarcity. Bitcoins are mathematically rare items. Just like in online video games people purchase rare items; if the game world produced a million of them they'd decline in value. Just like US currency is regulated, and if the feds started printing money its value declines.
Gold itself is just a shiny metal. It doesn't assist in life or survival in a meaningful way, other than the value society has agreed upon, based on its scarcity. If you could dig up gold anywhere in your backyard it wouldn't be worth more than sand.
The other troublesome issue with cryptocurrency is that its primary use seems to be terrorist states, extortionists, black market deals and other criminal enterprises.
Uh oh! Better tell Woz he's a criminal terrorist! And the owners of my local coffee shop! LOL. By that logic cash, gold, and diamonds are also troublesome. And water, and oxygen, and...
Ugh, if Apple does this then the shark is well and truly jumped.
Considering almost every major initiative they pursue rewards them with such fantastic wealth that they are a titan of industries and sectors, I doubt Apple will be jumping the shark anytime remotely soon.
Paper currency has the backing of the state that issues it; cryptocurrency has the backing of.... shared illusion?
The other troublesome issue with cryptocurrency is that its primary use seems to be terrorist states, extortionists, black market deals and other criminal enterprises.
No state will ever surrender control of its currency to an anonymous, opaque entity. When cryptocurrencies gain any traction ( which I highly doubt), countries will start banning them outright and make it a crime to conduct transactions in cryptocurrencies.
If you think cryptocurrencies will ever gain wide usage and acceptance, you need to start reading fewer graphic novels and more mainstream newspapers.
I can think of only 1 country which is actively pursuing a state cryptocurrency plan. Blockchains are decentralized. They don’t need a state, which is why strongly centralized governments and their monetary systems are threatened by the model. In the US, cryptocoins are treated like stocks or precious metals, not like currencies.
Discussions on the merits of Crypto and valuable metals aside, I am really looking forward to one day Apple providing some kind of Driver Licence/Passport functionality. One less thing to carry around!
Paper currency has the backing of the state that issues it; cryptocurrency has the backing of.... shared illusion?
The other troublesome issue with cryptocurrency is that its primary use seems to be terrorist states, extortionists, black market deals and other criminal enterprises.
"Shared illusion"? No, it is based on the same principle as gold: scarcity.
But, I stay away from both because the worth of both is, like stocks or art, based on what people are willing to pay for it. At one time in my life gold went for $32 an ounce. Now it's around $1,500. But the question is: "Why the increase?" Is gold more valuable or the dollar less valuable?
The dollar is less valuable. If the dollar had remained backed by physical assets, as a fiat currency it would at least have something of value backing it up. As you may already know, the US Dollar has lost some 95+% of its value since 1913, when the Federal Reserve was established.
I'm sure that it has -- although I would not pin that on the Fed -- particularly since the alternative is / was to have Wall Street Banksters in charge
Serious devaluation of the dollar started when Nixon took us off the gold standard.
True, Although I've heard arguments that he did so because it was already unstable. I don't know, I was too busy drinking beer and chasing girls at the time to care.
Paper currency has the backing of the state that issues it; cryptocurrency has the backing of.... shared illusion?
The other troublesome issue with cryptocurrency is that its primary use seems to be terrorist states, extortionists, black market deals and other criminal enterprises.
"Shared illusion"? No, it is based on the same principle as gold: scarcity.
But, I stay away from both because the worth of both is, like stocks or art, based on what people are willing to pay for it. At one time in my life gold went for $32 an ounce. Now it's around $1,500. But the question is: "Why the increase?" Is gold more valuable or the dollar less valuable?
The dollar is less valuable. If the dollar had remained backed by physical assets, as a fiat currency it would at least have something of value backing it up. As you may already know, the US Dollar has lost some 95+% of its value since 1913, when the Federal Reserve was established.
I'm sure that it has -- although I would not pin that on the Fed -- particularly since the alternative is / was to have Wall Street Banksters in charge
The alternative was that people hoarded their money. Value is released when goods are exchanged, so to stimulate activity the currency was made more flexible. The downside is inflation, the upside is greater economic activity (which is viewed as "growth").
Paper currency has the backing of the state that issues it; cryptocurrency has the backing of.... shared illusion?
The other troublesome issue with cryptocurrency is that its primary use seems to be terrorist states, extortionists, black market deals and other criminal enterprises.
"Shared illusion"? No, it is based on the same principle as gold: scarcity.
But, I stay away from both because the worth of both is, like stocks or art, based on what people are willing to pay for it. At one time in my life gold went for $32 an ounce. Now it's around $1,500. But the question is: "Why the increase?" Is gold more valuable or the dollar less valuable?
The dollar is less valuable. If the dollar had remained backed by physical assets, as a fiat currency it would at least have something of value backing it up. As you may already know, the US Dollar has lost some 95+% of its value since 1913, when the Federal Reserve was established.
I'm sure that it has -- although I would not pin that on the Fed -- particularly since the alternative is / was to have Wall Street Banksters in charge
The alternative was that people hoarded their money. Value is released when goods are exchanged, so to stimulate activity the currency was made more flexible. The downside is inflation, the upside is greater economic activity (which is viewed as "growth").
Well, no.... Prior to the Fed 's creation in 1913 the banks had total control and could do what whatever they wished -- or not. That was pure free market capitalism and it wasn't working well as the U.S. was experiencing frequent dangerous swings and depressions. The Fed was put in place to smooth things out. We still have recessions even a depression and a near one -- but they have done their job in smoothing things out. Unfortunately, now that people have forgotten how bad it was before the Fed existed, the Fed is now blamed for all problems -- including not supporting Trump's re-election.
Paper currency has the backing of the state that issues it; cryptocurrency has the backing of.... shared illusion?
The other troublesome issue with cryptocurrency is that its primary use seems to be terrorist states, extortionists, black market deals and other criminal enterprises.
"Shared illusion"? No, it is based on the same principle as gold: scarcity.
But, I stay away from both because the worth of both is, like stocks or art, based on what people are willing to pay for it. At one time in my life gold went for $32 an ounce. Now it's around $1,500. But the question is: "Why the increase?" Is gold more valuable or the dollar less valuable?
The dollar is less valuable. If the dollar had remained backed by physical assets, as a fiat currency it would at least have something of value backing it up. As you may already know, the US Dollar has lost some 95+% of its value since 1913, when the Federal Reserve was established.
I'm sure that it has -- although I would not pin that on the Fed -- particularly since the alternative is / was to have Wall Street Banksters in charge
Serious devaluation of the dollar started when Nixon took us off the gold standard.
True, Although I've heard arguments that he did so because it was already unstable. I don't know, I was too busy drinking beer and chasing girls at the time to care.
The reason that’s important is obvious. A Federal Reserve Note (also known as a US Dollar) represented the ability to exchange that note for gold corresponding to the value indicated on the note itself from the government. Today’s currency isn’t backed up by anything. It’s a shared fantasy, but that fantasy continues to lose value.
Paper currency has the backing of the state that issues it; cryptocurrency has the backing of.... shared illusion?
The other troublesome issue with cryptocurrency is that its primary use seems to be terrorist states, extortionists, black market deals and other criminal enterprises.
"Shared illusion"? No, it is based on the same principle as gold: scarcity.
But, I stay away from both because the worth of both is, like stocks or art, based on what people are willing to pay for it. At one time in my life gold went for $32 an ounce. Now it's around $1,500. But the question is: "Why the increase?" Is gold more valuable or the dollar less valuable?
The dollar is less valuable. If the dollar had remained backed by physical assets, as a fiat currency it would at least have something of value backing it up. As you may already know, the US Dollar has lost some 95+% of its value since 1913, when the Federal Reserve was established.
I'm sure that it has -- although I would not pin that on the Fed -- particularly since the alternative is / was to have Wall Street Banksters in charge
Serious devaluation of the dollar started when Nixon took us off the gold standard.
True, Although I've heard arguments that he did so because it was already unstable. I don't know, I was too busy drinking beer and chasing girls at the time to care.
The reason that’s important is obvious. A Federal Reserve Note (also known as a US Dollar) represented the ability to exchange that note for gold corresponding to the value indicated on the note itself from the government. Today’s currency isn’t backed up by anything. It’s a shared fantasy, but that fantasy continues to lose value.
It's backed by the "full faith and credit of the United States" -- for whatever that is worth these days now that "debt doesn't matter".
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Gold itself is just a shiny metal. It doesn't assist in life or survival in a meaningful way, other than the value society has agreed upon, based on its scarcity. If you could dig up gold anywhere in your backyard it wouldn't be worth more than sand.
Bitcoins = scarcity = value.
Uh oh! Better tell Woz he's a criminal terrorist! And the owners of my local coffee shop! LOL. By that logic cash, gold, and diamonds are also troublesome. And water, and oxygen, and...
Considering almost every major initiative they pursue rewards them with such fantastic wealth that they are a titan of industries and sectors, I doubt Apple will be jumping the shark anytime remotely soon.
One less thing to carry around!