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Re:Did Bitcoin just prove it can't scale? by jstanley on Saturday December 09, 2017 @09:48AM (#15886003)
> The value of the US dollar comes in part from our ability to pay taxes with it (and perhaps ultimately from the US military).

It doesn't come from either of those things. It only has value because people believe it does, otherwise they would all try to get rid of it as quickly as possible.

Re:Did Bitcoin just prove it can't scale? by laurus on Saturday December 09, 2017 @10:28AM (#15886177)
> It doesn't come from either of those things.

Yes it does. You have to pay your taxes in U.S. dollars, so people have to use it. That's one of the purposes of taxes: so that the government-issued currency is used.

Re:Did Bitcoin just prove it can't scale? by jstanley on Saturday December 09, 2017 @10:45AM (#15886261)
It's quite obvious that the value of USD comes from much more than the taxes people have to pay. If the only demand for USD was from people paying taxes, it would be worth only a small fraction of what it is actually worth.
Re:Did Bitcoin just prove it can't scale? by laurus on Saturday December 09, 2017 @10:55AM (#15886309)
The "demand for USD" is really demand for goods and services that are priced in USD. Because everyone living in the U.S. uses USD because that's what we pay taxes in in the U.S., most people in the U.S. offer their goods and services in exchange for it.
Re:Did Bitcoin just prove it can't scale? by betterunix2 on Saturday December 09, 2017 @11:50AM (#15886600)
The demand for USD comes from the legal structures that exist in the United States for things like debts, torts, taxes, etc. Basically, if you take out a loan to buy a house, you have a legal obligation to repay it regardless of how it is denominated by your bank; but if you fail to meet that obligation, you will need to deal with a bankruptcy court, which will only deal in USD. So if you take out a 40BTC mortgage and fail to pay, the judge will first convert the value of the house into USD and work out a way to repay (all or part) of the debt in USD. By forcing you to convert what assets you have to USD, the court is creating demand for USD.

Of course, banks know this (it is the core of their business) and will therefore denominate loans in USD to avoid the risk of an unfavorable conversion during such a proceeding. Such an unfavorable conversion is exactly what the creditors in the MtGox bankruptcy are facing, because the proceeding involved converting their BTC accounts into JPY according to the exchange rate in 2014. Due to the change in BTC prices recently, that means that under the law the creditors will be fully repaid using what BTC assets MtGox still has, despite the fact that the creditors would receive a far greater payout if they received the amount of BTC that had been in their accounts at the time of the hack.

Beyond debts, there are also torts. Suppose I crash my car into your house and you sue me for the damage I caused. The courts will order me to pay in USD; so again, the courts are creating USD demand by creating an obligation to pay with USD.

So the demand for USD is only indirectly due to demand for goods and services; after all, there must be some reason why merchants are pricing their wares in USD. The direct driver of demand is the law itself, hence "fiat" currency.

Re:Did Bitcoin just prove it can't scale? by laurus on Saturday December 09, 2017 @03:42PM (#15887997)
> So the demand for USD is only indirectly due to demand for goods and services; after all, there must be some reason why merchants are pricing their wares in USD. The direct driver of demand is the law itself, hence "fiat" currency.

That's exactly what I was saying: the goods and services are priced in USD because the legal structures require USD. I just used taxes as the most simple example.

But the whole point of the legal structures requiring USD is to get people to offer goods and services for sale in exchange for it. That way the government can purchase goods and services from the private sector to use as public goods, without having to first "get the money" from somewhere else.

Re:Did Bitcoin just prove it can't scale? by jcranmer on Saturday December 09, 2017 @11:09AM (#15886380)
That you have to pay taxes to the US gov't in USD, and you have to treat all transactions as if they were denominated in USD, gives it intrinsic value. But if the US gov't were to print USD indefinitely and destroy people's expectations of its value, its value would correspondingly collapse--aka hyperinflation.

If you want a challenge, try explaining why the Somali dollar still held its value despite being a fiat currency that lacked a government to back up its value for well over a decade.

Re:Did Bitcoin just prove it can't scale? by betterunix2 on Saturday December 09, 2017 @11:38AM (#15886538)
The value of anything depends on demand; the demand for USD comes in part from the need to pay taxes to a government that will only accept USD (and more generally, from the fact that in the United States, the law only recognizes USD as money -- so things like debts, torts, etc. wind up being measured in USD, so anyone who has a legal obligation to make such payments will add to the demand for USD).
Re:Did Bitcoin just prove it can't scale? by jacobush on Saturday December 09, 2017 @11:07AM (#15886364)
And they believe that because a team of police will descend on you if you don't pay your taxes for long enough. You can even get your whole country messed up if you make too much noise about switching oil denominator from USD to something else.
Re:Did Bitcoin just prove it can't scale? by username223 on Saturday December 09, 2017 @10:42AM (#15886236)
> It only has value because people believe it does,...

Have you ever asked yourself why they believe that? It's because they can pay their taxes with it, but also, as it says right on the front, "this note is legal tender for all debts, public and private." As long as the US government is still a thing, this phrase means what it says. I haven't seen anything so far to convince me that BTC has more stability or longevity than the US or EU (or Britain...).

Re:Did Bitcoin just prove it can't scale? by jstanley on Saturday December 09, 2017 @10:44AM (#15886255)
You're confusing the value of 1 US dollar with the agreement that a dollar bill is worth 1 US dollar.

The dollar bill is worth 1 USD because the government asserts that.

That doesn't make 1 USD anything. It just means the dollar bill is worth 1 USD.

The government has no power to prop up the value of the USD if the world decides it's worthless.

Re:Did Bitcoin just prove it can't scale? by username223 on Saturday December 09, 2017 @11:51AM (#15886616)
> The government has no power to prop up the value of the USD if the world decides it's worthless.

I don't see "the world" deciding USD is worthless anytime soon: people in third world nations keep pristine US cash in their closets as a store of value; a lot of international trade uses dollars as a common currency; etc. If "the world" decides that dollars are worthless, that will be the least of my problems while I'm cowering in the bomb shelter I don't have.

Re:Did Bitcoin just prove it can't scale? by jstanley on Saturday December 09, 2017 @11:58AM (#15886653)
Agreed. I think the USD only has value because enough people believe it does, and I think that will continue to be the case for quite some time.

Same for BTC.

Re:Did Bitcoin just prove it can't scale? by scotty79 on Saturday December 09, 2017 @01:41PM (#15887256)
It might be different if Middle East decides it prefers to be paid in yuans not usd. Of course you can then rain a bit more democracy on them but then again China might take offence.
Re:Did Bitcoin just prove it can't scale? by jacobr on Saturday December 09, 2017 @02:51PM (#15887710)
> The government has no power to prop up the value of the USD if the world decides it's worthless.

The US government has plenty of military power that it can and does use for this exact reason.

Re:Did Bitcoin just prove it can't scale? by seppin on Saturday December 09, 2017 @02:43PM (#15887656)
How would they pay their taxes? Or how would two countries buy oil from each other (when USD was agreed upon)?