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by RestlessMind
1591 days ago
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Bitcoin, specifically, has the following advantages: 1. "store of value" - no single entity (US Fed, Chinese dictators, De Beers etc) controls its issuance. Supply is fixed and cannot be monkeyed around. 2. ease of transfer - we can transfer $10 or $1B worth of Bitcoin easily in 10min for a relatively little cost. While Gold also satisfies #1, it is not easy to transfer. 3. programmability - bitcoin can be wrapped and opens up a lot of possibilities (lending, collateral etc) on other chains like Ethereum. 4. other people believe in it too - I can trivially fork and create my own ShitCoin. But a harder step is getting other people to adopt it. Bitcoin adoptees, on the other hand, range from gen-Z WSB-ers to staid institutions. The later bucket - US senators, S&P500 companies (MSTR), countries (El Salvador), hedge funds, HNWI's - in particular is providing critical momentum. |
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Ten years down the line, I see new arguments. Store of value is very common. My understanding of digital currency is as follows, You get a small file that's encrypted, and you give someone large sums of money. I can have a 10 year old write up gibberish in Word, and encrypt it for you, if you want to give me money. Digital currency has no value, but what people are willing to pay for it. So if you want small, gibberish files with a password, please ask, I'll give you as many as you want as long as the price is right.
Digital currency is scarce. There are thousands of forms of digital currency out there, and thousands more will be created, making a unlimited amount of files with nonsense in them, that people want to buy. I remember there was a site on HN several years back that you could create your own digital currency. I created one. I never checked it out afterwards. Digital currency is not scarce.
Ease of transfer. I don't know how it is today, but back in the day, it was not easy. You had to set up a wallet, they had to set up a wallet. Information had to be exchanged. Just no. When a mom and a dad, can hand a 2 dollars to a clerk and get a gallon of milk. Ask that same person to try that with a digital currency. Ease of use in a big no.
Digital currency is secure. I just saw a post on HN that someone hit the wong button and delete 1/2 million dollars of digital currency. I remember Mt Gox. I see stories every week about how insecure digital currency is, and not 100s or thousands of dollars, but millions and billions. No not secure.
Digital currency is not subject to inflation. Lol, you drank the cool aid. Big players like investment institutions have gotten in the market. Everything that can't do on the stock market they can do in the digital currency market. You don't think they can be manipulated. Digital currency go up and down every day. In otherwords, if you actually think this is a currency, which it is not. Then, you have deflation and inflation in extreme amounts, daily.
On a side note, the energy use for creating these worthless files is not good for the planet, and should be used somewhere else with a real purpose.
I hope I'm wrong, and digital currency unites the world, ends poverty, homelessness, war, and hunger. But until then, miss me on this insecure, difficult to use, worthless, gibberish files.