Re:It’s easier and cheaper to use bank wires than Bitcoin
by turc1656 on Thursday September 29, 2016 @03:55PM
(#12608290)
sorry, i should have qualified that i was referring to FIAT money. otherwise, it would have no intrinsic value. The examples you give are all physical items that have intrinsic value because they can be used for something other than being money. what i said was directed at fiat only since that is what all modern economies use. without the 2 factors i described, fiat is nothing but useless paper with weird stuff printed on it.
Re:It’s easier and cheaper to use bank wires than Bitcoin
by smokeyj on Thursday September 29, 2016 @04:42PM
(#12608604)
> The examples you give are all physical items that have intrinsic value because they can be used for something other than being money
One could argue that's the definition of real money - but to say Bitcoin isn't real money is to move the goal post when what you mean is Bitcoin isn't a traditional fiat currency. There's no debate there.
Re:It’s easier and cheaper to use bank wires than Bitcoin
by eridius on Thursday September 29, 2016 @05:17PM
(#12608830)
I think the implication is that BTC has very little intrinsic value. Well, the BTC itself actually has zero intrinsic value, the only intrinsic value in the ecosystem is the blockchain (although the value of the blockchain itself is dependent upon the perceived value of BTC, as its ability to prove data existed at a point in time only works if a sufficient number of people are actually mining blocks, and people mine blocks in order to get BTC).
This is historically and factually inaccurate. Currencies typically originated as highly marketable commodities that are naturally scarce and fungible - salt, gold, silver, cigarettes in jail, etc.