> Fundamentally, it's nothing. They are sold for cash & then that cash is gone. Spent. The currency doesn't retain anything on it's own. The burden of maintaining the ecosystem stability is passed on to those who now have the money.
This is why the real world currencies which arent "backed by anything" still make people wake up at 6 every morning, drag around for 9-10 hours of the day and then spend those on food and cover. The us/eur currencies have the value of the social contracts that are based and exchanged due to these currencies. The value comes from making people do things for it, and cash seems to be doing that quite well even if it isnt backed by anything.
What Im trying to get at, its the social contracts that exist in the millions - employer employee government - that make up and back up the value of any currency.
For BTC to succeed as a currency, people need to exchange their goods and services for it, especially their time, their work. It isnt enough to buy or sell ready-made goods, its the producers that need to be payed in bitcoin, only then a real revolution can happen.
Frankly, I have a hard time seeing how such a transformation could or would happen - for people to start getting payed in BTC. A company cant just do that, they have taxes and laws to follow.
yep agreed here. a lot of the responses i've been getting are intelligence-insulting "that's how all money works" "economics is flawed blah blah" but i think the fact is -- these things are taken into account.
Currency can exist purely through the means of social contract, I'm in total agreement with that. But Bitcoin's volatility is not exactly "good PR" unless people are actually delusional enough to believe that the value is massively increasing because it's "clever and people are beginning to understand it". It's soaring because it's clever and people don't get it at all.
Given all of the shady baggage and investment scheming associated with the ecosystem I don't think it will ever reach the level of widespread social contract.
it's not that I love the dollar or anything it's just that the dollar is an agreed upon currency and Bitcoin is still just a trading market. Since it's yet to be proven that it's performing its stated purpose (transactional currency), there's no reason why the market for it won't just disappear one day with a crash so bad that selling at a loss isn't even possible -- the faith is just gone.
Thinking more about this, I find a good measure of a success of a currency is to just look at how much of your monthly transactions are conducted with said currency.
Now I believe a persons wage is the biggest monthly transaction they perform - work and monthly wage pays out, in what currency?
When bitcoin reaches that point, if ever, where employers pay their employees and taxes in BTC. Then its a currency. Now its a speculative bubble - for which it may still be a good idea to get behind and compete with all the other gamblers.
you may be able to make some money it's true but I think if you believe it to be a ponzi scheme it is immoral to get involved. that's my basic stance. I can live life just fine without it
This is why the real world currencies which arent "backed by anything" still make people wake up at 6 every morning, drag around for 9-10 hours of the day and then spend those on food and cover. The us/eur currencies have the value of the social contracts that are based and exchanged due to these currencies. The value comes from making people do things for it, and cash seems to be doing that quite well even if it isnt backed by anything.
What Im trying to get at, its the social contracts that exist in the millions - employer employee government - that make up and back up the value of any currency.
For BTC to succeed as a currency, people need to exchange their goods and services for it, especially their time, their work. It isnt enough to buy or sell ready-made goods, its the producers that need to be payed in bitcoin, only then a real revolution can happen.
Frankly, I have a hard time seeing how such a transformation could or would happen - for people to start getting payed in BTC. A company cant just do that, they have taxes and laws to follow.