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Re:Bitcoin and almost every other cryptocurrency crashed har... by Cthulhu_ on Friday December 22, 2017 @10:08AM (#15987922)
Things you can walk to a shop to and buy things with. Things employers will pay you for. Things that are backed by a government and guaranteed by a national bank. Things that are protected by laws and monitored to prevent large value shifts. Things that can be transferred in many transactions (like, more than four per second) Things that don't need the energy production / consumption of a small country just to function.

Cryptocurrencies can have all that, but they need to have a high transaction volume (tens of thousands / second), regulation, protected / monitored exchange value, etc. Which defeats the original purpose of an "open source", unregulated currency.

But you get what you ask for.

Re:Bitcoin and almost every other cryptocurrency crashed har... by lloyd-christmas on Friday December 22, 2017 @10:49AM (#15988278)
The cowry was used as an international currency for thousands of years and wasn't backed by any government. All it was was seashells that were a limited supply resource. In major usage, it was used all the way from Africa to Hawaii. I think most people look at currencies with an incredibly narrow view of history.

^ Worth noting, that this is relatively modern history. It's usage stopped as a currency in the mid 20th century. At the beginning of the 20th century, some african countries still accepted it as taxes

Re:Bitcoin and almost every other cryptocurrency crashed har... by stinkytaco on Friday December 22, 2017 @10:17AM (#15988014)
> Things that are backed by a government and guaranteed by a national bank. Things that are protected by laws and monitored to prevent large value shifts.

I'm no crypto-anarchist, but plenty of currencies do not meet this definition, and have failed as a result. Indeed, it's a time honored method of spurring growth to simply create money, and it's a time tested cause of instability. Certainly a well managed central bank is an asset, but it's hardly a reliable method of keeping currencies useful. There are plenty of reasons to be concerned with bitcoin's deflationary nature, but arguing that it's not as inflationary as government backed currencies is an argument that can damage both side of this debate.