Governmental monetary systems are usually founded on hopes and prayers (and military might).

Government monetary systems are all inflationary, for a lot of very good reasons.

Military Might ( and hopes and prayers)

Depends on the particular government. The ones that are heavy on hopes and prayers usually don’t do well though.

Governmental monetary systems have been used by every government for what now? 3000 years?

Humans didn't have the technology to build a decentralized currency for 3000 years. That tech was invented only 17 years back

3000 years from now what would be the store of value would be the question to ask.

I'm fine with letting decentralized currency maturing for say, 300 years, in some small corner of the world, before letting it loose on the rest of us.

They're founded on the shared illusion that the money they create is worth something, and the fact that this works pretty well is arguably one of the most important achievements of human civilization.

Don’t forget buying drugs online! Which is mostly what I use it for…

Well, for buying Monero to buy drugs online right?

Don't try to reason with them. Their minds are as closed as a MAGA.

Sorry what?

I said "Don't try to reason with them. Their minds are as closed as a MAGA."

And what was your point?

My point is: Don't try to reason with them. Their minds are as closed as a MAGA.

Yes. First I buy bitcoin from the X, then I transfer it to my bitcoin wallet.

Next I transfer it to kraken, convert it to Monero and deposit it on my drug market of choice.

It used to be simpler but this is how I do it nowadays.

kraken must have some from of KYC, right?!? meaning that you're buying drugs online without trying to be anonymous. impressive...

It’s barely illegal where I live.

I suspect Ransomware is a key part of its value

Everything is a speculative asset.

Your marriage is a speculative asset that your wife doesn't cheat on you in future and actually loves you.

S&P is a speculative asset that it will perform like it has been performing in last 30 years.

USD is a speculative asset on US not going bankrupt.

Your career is speculative asset that you don't get fired tomorrow and you can find another job if you do get fired.

Bitcoin is a speculative asset that a decentralized cryptocurrency is better than relying on coins issued by bankruptable nations.

You are a speculative asset of your ego.

Yeah, that’s true. We invest in a lot of things, hoping for future value. But I guess I still treat those differently. I only hold enough USD for upcoming purchases. And I struggle to understand how investing in my marriage is speculative. For a variety of reasons I can’t (or wouldn’t want to) manage that risk like I would in normal speculative investment. I can’t hedge, size up, size down.

So I think I’m missing something. I feel like you’re suggesting that we should be more comfortable speculating because we do it all the time, but I’m not seeing how those are all the same.

In my POV it's all the same since all of them are essentially beliefs with various probabilities.

You don't know what will happen in any of the cases. You just choose to believe one more over the other based on what has happened in the past.

I think that's right. At some level, any anticipation of a future state has to be measurable in some kind of confidence level.

I suppose where I get lost is that, at least subjectively, I end up treating different anticipated return distributions differently. I want a mixture of risks, both in terms of their covariance and the absolute properties.

When I think of "speculation", I am intentionally shaping only a small portion of my personal portfolio toward high risk, high reward activities. And I only really feel comfortable doing that because a larger fraction of my personal risk is in safer vehicles.

Atop that, I also think a lot about liquidity time bounds. I want access to a reasonable amount of highly-liquid, low-risk investments. I need that flexibility to be safe in the event that I need to buy something.

To my eye at least, I qualitatively differentiate between speculative investments and these liquid/low risk ones. If I felt I only had one kind of risk, I would seek out the other in some proportion.

>Everything is a speculative asset. >Your marriage is a speculative asset that your wife doesn't cheat on you in future and actually loves you.

Spouses are not very fungible though, not that I've ever tried ! ...

Spouse is an idea in your head though. Very hard to measure.

>Your marriage is a speculative asset that your wife doesn't cheat on you in future and actually loves you.

Because you wouldn't do either?

Nothing in this world is certain/forever, but that doesn't mean you should completely disregard probability distributions of possible futures.

Risks vary based on the mitigation strategy and the time available for preparation. Only S&P can distantly resemble the volatility of a pure speculative asset which depends on psychology and the amount of extra money in the markets. But even S&P depends on a lot of factors which don't trigger overnight for a knowledgeable investor. It's a snowball but not an avalanche.

BTC has shown itself magically profitable indeed, but its value could only be kept by the ability of holders to keep the asset. Most marriages and some jobs will endure even in the toughest times.

> Your marriage is a speculative asset

I’m guessing that you had a divorce /and/ that I know the reason why she left you

You are a smart man.