Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by frank2 2042 days ago
Bitcoin has proven to be a poor "medium of exchange", but that is OK because buying and selling Bitcoin is easy enough for it to be a practical place in which to park money. I.e., it has proven to be a satisfactory "store of value".

Gold is a poor medium of exchange, too, but that has not prevented it from being a satisfactory store of value.

(Yes, I know that gold actually was a common medium of exchange at one time; it was displaced centuries ago by the greater convenience of paper money.)

Some visionary types hoped Bitcoin would disrupt government-issued (paper) money and governments and banks generally. The fact that these hopes were dashed does not mean Bitcoin will not remain an OK place to park money.

1 comments

IMO, Bitcoin is not a satisfactory store of value, it is a speculative investment. It is: a) not liquid b) extremely volatile

Most people would not want their asset prices to swing like Bitcoin's value does.