Re:MobileCoin: A New Cryptocurrency from Moxie Marlinspike
by snowwrestler on Friday December 15, 2017 @08:00PM
(#15936665)
To build on this comment, the purpose of a currency is to facilitate the transaction of value, not to store value.
If an instrument stores value, it's an asset, not currency. One can of course transact business with assets, but it's a lot more complicated because you have to agree to a valuation. And without a currency, how do you measure that?
Plus, the incentives for assets and currencies are opposed. Currency exists to be spent, but if an asset is appreciating, you'll want to hold it, not trade it.
Bitcoin was advertised as a currency but it's acting like an asset. (And it's regulated like an asset.)
If you create a new class of asset, you can buy in early, hold on, and get rich on appreciation.
But if you invent a new currency? It's like inventing the inch. Even if everyone uses it, that doesn't give you any more length of your own.
If an instrument stores value, it's an asset, not currency. One can of course transact business with assets, but it's a lot more complicated because you have to agree to a valuation. And without a currency, how do you measure that?
Plus, the incentives for assets and currencies are opposed. Currency exists to be spent, but if an asset is appreciating, you'll want to hold it, not trade it.
Bitcoin was advertised as a currency but it's acting like an asset. (And it's regulated like an asset.)
If you create a new class of asset, you can buy in early, hold on, and get rich on appreciation.
But if you invent a new currency? It's like inventing the inch. Even if everyone uses it, that doesn't give you any more length of your own.