[scotty79]

Assume that certain yellowish metal is worth nothing. It's pretty much useless. It's pretty but there are prettier materials. Has some nice physical properties (also some bad ones) but you can't use it in mass produced items in large quantities because it's too rare.

That is redeeming quality though. It's rare so you can be pretty sure people won't dig out 10 as much so its value won't drop rapidly. It's durable so it won't corrode away, combust or fly into space if you don't handle it carefully. You can hold it in your pocket or under your materace. This makes it excelent store of value. Not perfect though. If you own it you need to keep it physically secure. If you buy it you need to know how to not get duped. To sell it or buy it you need to physically meet with the buyer or a third party you both trust. Risk of all those operations grows with the value of your holdings.

Now this new thing comes up. It's also rare. You can store it perfectly securely without anyone knowing that you do. You can sell any fraction of it to highest bidder on Earth, from your home and that only requires you trusting sigle third party (that you can choose out of few) that trades over billion dollar's worth of this stuff every 24h.

I think you can easily see that half of value that humanity currently keeps in gold is very safe bet for bitcoin max market cap.

[ben_w]

> Now this new thing comes up. It's also rare you, can store it perfectly securely without anyone knowing that you do.

That doesn’t describe bitcoin

> You can sell any fraction of it to highest bidder on Earth, from your home and that only requires you trusting sigle third party that trades over billion dollar's worth of this stuff every 24h.

That describes gold — depending on what you count as a “single third party”.

That said, at least it is a number… just one I don’t agree with, because at $7.5 trillion I think that makes Bitcoin so valuable that it becomes worthwhile doing anything to gain 51% control, including high-altitude nuclear EMPs over everyone who isn’t you.

[scotty79]

>> Now this new thing comes up. It's also rare you, can store it perfectly securely without anyone knowing that you do.

> That doesn’t describe bitcoin.

Yes it does. You can buy it on exchange (or buy a miner and mine it yourself paying with electricity) and transfer it to your wallet. Encrypt the wallet and put it in multiple places online with cryptic name.

If you ever need money you can download it, decrypt it, send btc to exchange, sell it and get the money.

My point is that between the moment you buy bitcoin and moment you need the money nobody knows you have any bitcoins. Exchange or mining pool will know of course if you got your bitcoin from them but that's about it. Also you can mine other cryptocurrency with just your own hardware even just GPU that you conceivably could have bought to play games (no need for mining pool) and exchange it anonymously, then nobody knows you have any BTC.

>> You can sell any fraction of it to highest bidder on Earth, from your home and that only requires you trusting sigle third party that trades over billion dollar's worth of this stuff every 24h. >That describes gold — depending on what you count as a “single third party”.

Please elaborate. Let's say you are a student from Isfahan and have a gold coin under your materace. How would go about selling 1/10 of it and how it compares to process of cashing out 1/10th of 1 BTC in cold storage?

[ben_w]

> Yes it does. You can buy it on exchange (or buy a miner and mine it yourself paying with electricity) and transfer it to your wallet

Wherever you buy it, that purchase is traceable. Wherever you sell it, that sale is traceable. Oh, just realised now even though you didn’t say this: Unless the thing you use to buy it, or for which you sell it, is also anonymous… of course, at that point it is no longer a benefit of bitcoin compared to the other thing.

> Isfahan and have a gold coin under your materace. How would go about selling 1/10 of it and how it compares to process of cashing out 1/10th of 1 BTC in cold storage?

Physical gold? OK, but I was thinking gold in a bank account, which is a thing you can get (“Glint”, I think is the name).

1) go to cash-for-gold corner shop, of which there seem to be far too many at the moment 2) divide coin into 1/10ths 3) exchange 1/10th coin for other financial token

From my history lessons, this is pretty much how money worked in the old days when it wasn’t just backed by gold but literally made from it, except 1) wasn’t needed because the shops just weighed your coins.