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by H8crilA 1702 days ago
I mean, what is it if not a worse gold? All assets can be roughly divided into few categories: currency, debt, equity, derivatives/bets, collectibles. It's not an equity or debt instrument, it's not a derivative, and it's not a currency as nobody settles transactions in it. It's a collectible (like gold or paintings), with a short history (unlike gold), that delivers zero value for the holder in the meantime (unlike paintings).

(And please spare the tech; people really do understand it, at least to the level that matters)
2 comments
ur-whale 1702 days ago
> All assets can be roughly divided into few categories: currency, debt, equity, derivatives/bets, collectibles.

Says who? Your Econ. 101 book?

You flippantly decide that no new class of asset can ever come into being and decide to present it as one of the fundamental laws of nature?

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H8crilA 1702 days ago
Essentially, yes, except that: 1) this is a rough categorization, there's a lot of things out there that do not fit into any single one of the categories (a convertible bond is debt, equity, derivative? a little bit of all), 2) there could be something genuinely new, outside of all the previously known categories, but it hasn't appeared so far in thousands of years (yes, I mean thousands).

Also see this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8iNeXCAM_Ik

Just to be clear: bitcoin (or some other existing or future crypto) could become for example a currency one day. But it clearly isn't one now.

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jerry1979 1702 days ago
How do you classify gold using your categories?
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H8crilA 1702 days ago
Gold is a collectible, with a marginal use as a commodity. A commodity is an input to industrial processes, not really an asset though you can call commodities assets too if you want to.

It used to be a currency quite a while ago - people would actually use it in contracts, most importantly long term debt contracts (long term contracts is where the value/acceptance of the currency really shows; imagine taking or issuing a 30yr mortgage in Bitcoin, as in the homeowner is obliged to pay fixed X Bitcoin per month, lol). A big part of the great depression fighting/relief was to make debt contracts denominated in gold unenforceable.

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