[nossim]

Bitcoin itself is a flawed and dangerous idea. What makes the value of money is the trust you put into the economics institutions of some territory. Value of money should not be derived from some computational tricks but should be the reflect of the real economy. The other explanations including some from Wall street (remember Subprimes ?) are just big misredirections some conmen invented to take a lot of money from your pockets. Bitcoin is just a modern version of a pyramidal scheme. Think of it as pyramidal scheme 2.0

[venomsnake]

Bitcoin the system and the blockchain is brilliant. The adaptable difficulty and the hashcash chaining can be used for a lot of stuff where for various reasons you don't trust a central authority.

Bitcoin the currency is a different beast. Well if you have to rope the value of money to something - computational power is not the worst thing possible in an increasingly. digital world

[nossim]

I agree with you when you say "Bitcoin the system and the blockchain is brilliant." this is a brilliant misdirection like when a magician distract your attention to hide the real trick.

Why do you want to rope the value of money to something else than trust ? I know this is low tech and very old but a trust based system can work even for the digital economy. Of course to work properly a trust based system need some conditions which are not met today : transparency and dissuasive sanctions if someone cheat.

I think we need to upgrade our financial system but we need more transparency not more opacity.

[venomsnake]

Have you by any chance read the Sten (Cole, Bunch) series? There the currency is pegged to the antimatter because it is the perfect fuel and is the only thing moving the economy.

The problem with trust based systems is that trust is a fickle thing. If it was up to me I would peg a currency to the kWh. It will create dynamic equilibrium because it will be constantly consumed to create GDP.