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by awt 2950 days ago
Btc value increased not due to scams - neither the scammers nor the scammed ever hold the stuff (that is, off an exchange in a secure wallet), but due to long term holders, to whom it will continue to be attractive until some state goes back on the gold standard, which is not happening.

EDIT:

Also, the number of people to whom btc is attractive is less important than the type of people. It may be that there is never mass adoption of Bitcoin - it is also the case that throughout history most people never had any money at all. And even though most people never had any money, sound money has been extremely valuable nonetheless because most people don't know what to do with money anyway.
1 comments
spookthesunset 2950 days ago
Nobody knows why the value of BTC decided to spike like it did last year. Just like nobody knows why it is sliding back down to earth.

It is one of the many reasons it makes a piss-poor store of value.

(Of course the answer to the spike could very well be “somebody fired up the tether printer” plus “super shady exchanges did tons of wash trading/oughright made up fake transactions”.

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awt 2950 days ago
It is indeed a piss-poor store of value for people who have high time preference, but unmatched for those with low time preference.
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tptacek 2950 days ago
There is no insane investment you can't say that about. Those metallic-cover special issue Marvel X-Men comics they used to "limited collector release" in the early 90s will eventually be of enormous value to archaeologists in the future, too.
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awt 2949 days ago
Although this is a true statement it is not persuasive in that Bitcoin (unlike a special issue comic, or any other rare thing) has specific, meaningful properties (fungibility, divisibility, durability, etc.) that interact with the world according to well known principles (Gresham's Law, Lindy Effect, Theory of Computation, Network Effect, etc.) that must be shown not to apply in order to disqualify it as the best available store of value.
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tptacek 2949 days ago
https://tinyurl.com/Special-Pleading
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awt 2949 days ago
What principle is not being universally applied? Or do I misunderstand?
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