But you can go to 'India', conquer the Aztecs, steal all their gold and silver, and depress the European gold economy for the next century.

-----

You can also subtly alter the composition of your gold and silver coins to leverage your reputation and squeeze more money out of your gold reserves.

Turns out that most people don't have a habit of checking the density of gold coins. As long as they weigh the same, you can trick the scales.

500 years ago, they'd mix cheaper metals into their coins. Today, we'd just use tungsten, which has very similar density to gold.

You can do the first thing with a chain coin but I don’t think you can do the second.

For Blockchain, you just invent a new coin (DOGE, Shibu, whatever). Every new Blockchain is a new group of people printing a trillion / quadrillion crypto tokens and throwing into the market.

As long as cryptofans buy up new coins or NFTs, you can keep printing new tokens.

Holds true as long as "cryptofans buy up new coins". But eventually, they won't. For these types of get-rich-quick gamblers, they usually shift their money around to the next thing, but an equal amount of them lose their money as well.

Those that invest in Bitcoin tend to be more conservative, and are more willing to hold their coins and use it as a long term investment/store of value. They aren't easily convinced a new coin can replace Bitcoin either.

“A fool and his money are soon parted”

Fool’s gold has always been a thing. Similarly, there will always be some who cannot distinguish between Bitcoin and the latest dog coin. Few Bitcoiners are selling Bitcoin to buy NFTs or altcoins.

What are they selling it for?

Most are Hodling. The rest are selling for USD or USDT mostly is my guess

So basically, no one is actually buying the story of "digital gold" or "store of value". They are either playing the game of greater fool, or trying to cash out of it.

Call me back when Bitcoiners actually start using the thing as a currency. At least that was more interesting.

Call me confused, but my understanding is that pretty much everyone is currently using it as digital gold, a store of value, a powerful hedge against inflation.

Why is store-of-value not a valid use case, especially with central banks printing money so aggressively?

Who cares if it is used as currency? It is used by millions and that's what matters.

As long as governments insist on taxing Bitcoin as property, it will never be a medium of exchange. As long as it continues to grow at 10-20x the S&P500, it will not be used as a unit of account.

So what?

It is a $1 Trillion asset class that has proven itself as a store of value over the past 12 years. It offers unique technology, game theory and network effects relative to all alternatives and it is protected by a forcefield of hashpower called Proof-of-work that is impenetrable to even nation-state level attacks.

Bitcoin is amazing. I believe it is the most remarkable innovation of the 21st century. Prove me wrong. Tell me about a superior innovation invented this century.

> everyone is currently using it as digital gold, a store of value, a powerful hedge against inflation.

You and I have a different idea of "everyone" means, but anyway...

> Why is store-of-value not a valid use case

Because if it's value depends on a large number of people agreeing to its value, then it's not a store of value. All it takes is for the miners to decide to dedicate their resources to something more profitable, and suddenly the network is worth zero.

> It offers unique technology.

It's so unique, it has spun how many forks already?

> It is a $1 Trillion asset class that has proven itself as a store of value over the past 12 years.

You are literally using circular logic here.

> Tell me about a superior innovation invented this century.

"Blockchain, not Bitcoin". ;)

And even blockchain still needs to prove itself. I believe it can be very useful for some cases, and I am working to see it succeed. I just don't think that "digital gold" is one of those cases.

BTC was a good prototype. That's it. We should continue in the drawing board instead of pretending that we have a finished product in our hands.

BTC already failed as a currency, the activists and cypherpunks that first got into it would be mortified to see how now current proponents end up cheering for a dictator in a Banana Republic that is pushing "their" coin. The "digital gold" narrative switch was an attempt to save it and now we are all playing this game of "Emperor has no clothes" with something because some people are trying to be rich without building any wealth.

> You and I have a different idea of "everyone" means, but anyway...

I misspoke, everyone who is investing in Bitcoin, ~100 million individuala, is doing so because of it's store of value and inflation-hedge properties

> Because if it's value depends on a large number of people agreeing to its value, then it's not a store of value. All it takes is for the miners to decide to dedicate their resources to something more profitable, and suddenly the network is worth zero.

Can you tell me a single asset or commodity (including USD) whose value does not depend on a number of people agreeing to it? Yes the US gov determines that fiat has value by accepting it for taxes, but how much value it has to purchase real goods is determined by the market.

> It's so unique, it has spun how many forks already?

Often imitated, never replicated. No one has ever come close to replicating the hashpower that makes Bitcoin secure.

> You are literally using circular logic here.

It is a $1 Trillion asset that started out as a worthless technology experiment almost 13 years ago

> "Blockchain, not Bitcoin". ;)

No, just no. Blockchain without Bitcoin, meaning the game theory that led to the rise of the network and the supercomputer network that protects it, is just a nice academic theory. Other Blockchains do not enjoy the hashpower or the security budget of Bitcoin and are therefore not competitive. (Name one other Blockchain that is more secure than Bitcoin)

> BTC was a good prototype. That's it.

A prototype that is now worth $1 Trillion in market cap, moving more value than Visa every day.

How can we call that a prototype?

Are there any competitive blockchains that are aiming to replace this Bitcoin 'prototype' and providing a decentralized digital currency with a fixed a pre-determined monetary policy, protected by the most secure super-computer ever created?

> BTC already failed as a currency, the activists and cypherpunks that first got into it would be mortified to see how now current proponents end up cheering for a dictator in a Banana Republic that is pushing "their" coin.

I'm sorry Bitcoin didn't conform to your 'allowed' definition of a 'currency'. Bitcoin is no more a currency than the automobile was a mechanical horse. Bitcoin is a radically different way of solving the same problem traditionally solved with money. There is overlap, but it isn't going to be 100%.

I think you are overly focused on the medium of exchange and unit of account use case. These unfortunately are dead on arrival for any country that taxes Bitcoin as property rather than treating it like a currency. In El Salvador, Bitcoin can be a currency, not in the US or Europe.

> The "digital gold" narrative switch was an attempt to save it and now we are all playing this game of "Emperor has no clothes" with something because some people are trying to be rich without building any wealth.

I appreciate your perspective. Have fun staying poor.

- USD is not a commodity or an asset.

- "security by hashpower" assumes that PoW is the only way to go, when the important feature of blockchain is that it works to BFT consensus.

A security system that is expensive to maintain and consumes so much resources in a non-renewable fashion (and I am not talking about energy production, I am talking about energy itself) is a bad system, period.

We should not be looking at how much hashpower it is using and thinking "that's a good thing", we should be thinking "how can we have a consensus system that is more efficient and less wasteful".

- USD is not a commodity or an asset.

And yet the point stands. The value of the USD depends on a large number of people collectively agreeing that x dollars are worth y loafs of bread.

- "security by hashpower" assumes that PoW is the only way to go, when the important feature of blockchain is that it works to BFT consensus.

Yes, security by hashpower assumes that PoW is the only way to go because so far that is the only thing proven to be resistant to a wide range of attacks that made previous attempts to solve the Byzantine General's problem fail. Do you really believe that Satoshi Nakamoto didn't consider PoS as an option?

> A security system that is expensive to maintain and consumes so much resources in a non-renewable fashion (and I am not talking about energy production, I am talking about energy itself) is a bad system, period.

Bitcoin mining is one of the most concentrated sources of renewable energy demand in the world today. The game theory economics unlocked by the availability of a high demand for low-cost electricity without regard to it's location or proximity to a population center is a game changer. It will reshape nations and society over time.

> We should not be looking at how much hashpower it is using and thinking "that's a good thing", we should be thinking "how can we have a consensus system that is more efficient and less wasteful".

I agree. Until we find those solutions we have Bitcoin and PoW.

> USD depends on a large number of people collectively agreeing that x dollars are worth y loafs of bread.

Hum, no. That is horribly reductionist. USD is a currency, who has a central bank enacting monetary policies. It also has a very big government behind it that wants to have some oversight over the economy.

> PoW (...) is the only thing proven to be resistant

Again, no. PoS is doing just fine, it allows for a much larger and diverse pool of nodes. Meanwhile in PoW systems you have hardware manufacturers who "test" their equipment on mainnet before delivering to the buyers and quite frequently gets scared with the concentration of hashpower by one pool or another.

> mining is one of the most concentrated sources of renewable energy demand

Can you provide one example of a place where has cheap, renewable energy and that can make the energy distribution more profitable than bitcoin mining?

Do you understand that it doesn't matter if the energy production is 100% clean (which is not, and likely will never be given that energy is cheaper in countries with bad environmental records), the problem is that if mining is more profitable than selling the energy, any excess energy will always go to mining and all of the "advantage" you are talking about is ending up in a closed-loop system?

> Until we find those solutions we have Bitcoin and PoW.

Let's pretend for a moment that there are no better alternatives today: suppose that there will be one day in the future (2, 5, 10 years? Doesn't matter...) where there is a chain that demonstrated to be more efficient, can make more transactions and is just as secure as PoW. Let's for the sake of argument assume that the new tech is so undeniably superior, even BTC's core team announces plan to adopt it.

How do you think the transition will happen?

(a) BTC users will continue using only BTC's until the devs manage to create and implement a migration plan? (b) BTC users will slowly migrate away to the new chain? (c) BTC devs will just freeze the old chain and make a new genesis block on the new chain? (d) BTC users will panic-sell and move to the new currency on the new chain? (e) BTC users won't even be able to notice the new chain resurgence until it is too late?

For the question above: what about the miners? Are they just going to dump their mining rigs and get on board with the new system, or do you think that their operation is just too profitable for them to let it go?

What I am trying to show is that - if you assume today that there can be something better than BTC and can supplant it - then the future price of BTC is ZERO. Given that BTC does not pay any kind of dividends, and that the future price of BTC is ZERO, then there is no point of holding it. Every bag holder is just playing a game of chicken now.

During the gold standard central banks would engage in sterilising operations to prevent large fluctuations in the money supply, which was the equivalent of open market operations in modern central banking (what some people call "printing money")

Well, technically you can. You can "print" gold by using other elements with simply changing number of protons to match 79. I believe this has been done already, if my memory serves me right reading some article years ago. Its just that the cost of doing so even on small scale overweight the cost of the resulting gold, even if the price would be of a 10-fold what it is today.

tldr: its possible, just not worth it.

But it's interesting, because it sets an upper limit for the gold price.

Yes very interesting. Gold was originally formed within supernovae, which is a sure sign that our planet is formed from molecules that have been through at least one or two supernovae already. Another fund gold fact, the reason gold appears in "veins" is that it's actually big blobs, but over time water runs through the blob, dragging along little bits of dust with it down the same channel. Those little bits of dust build up and become veins of gold.

Ha, yeah technically you can grind the chain too, but it requires unreasonable amounts of resources.

You can't print bitcoin, but you can mine more gold.