You don't understand money – and it's a good thing for Bitcoin

Re:You don't understand money – and it's a good thing for Bi... by kd5bjo on Friday November 15, 2019 @04:52AM (#21543626)

I’m less concerned with philosophy and how people “should” be managing their assets than I am observing what people actually choose to do. The exchanges exist, their actions affect the value of bitcoin, and the value of bitcoin affects them. Therefore, any analysis of the bitcoin ecosystem must take them into account in one way or another.

Similarly, there’s no fundamental barrier to promising to pay someone bitcoins later that you don’t currently possess. That’s the seed of a credit-based economy, and also the piece of the fiat system that makes things so complicated. It is disingenuous to make a comparison that includes this complexity on one side but not the other without giving justification.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:You don't understand money – and it's a good thing for Bi... by knocte on Friday November 15, 2019 @09:23AM (#21544998)

It's no longer "philosophy" but education and awareness. The longer bitcoin exists, the more custodial exchanges get hacked and consequentially the better knowledgeable bitcoin users we will have.

You cannot bring points against bitcoin which actually happen more in centralization-backed entities than in decentralized scenarios.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:You don't understand money – and it's a good thing for Bi... by kd5bjo on Friday November 15, 2019 @09:48AM (#21545208)

There are plenty of examples of bank runs and other crises pre-regulation and pre-fiat currency, dating all the way back to the 1600s— that’s about as decentralized as you can get. If you want to argue that there’s something fundamentally different this time around, that’s fine, but I’d appreciate evidence rather than assertions.

In fact, the least problematic time in terms of bank runs appears to be the years of the highly-centralized Bretton-Woods system post-WW2 (1).

It’s also not like holding bitcoins yourself is entirely risk-free. You can accidentally expose your private key and have your money stolen or you can lose your private key and have it locked away forever. Either scenario means you no longer get to use your money, and any defense against one makes the other more likely; it’s a difficult balance to ask people to get right.

(1) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bretton_Woods_system

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:You don't understand money – and it's a good thing for Bi... by knocte on Saturday November 16, 2019 @11:10AM (#21553302)

Giving me an example of decentralisation set in the 1600s? Dude... The best way to finish this convo is the way Satoshi replied once: "If you don't believe it or don't get it, I don't have the time to try to convince you, sorry"

[ Parent | on HN ]