American Economics Thread

Tam

Brigadier
Registered Member
Gold will probably always have value, but in the long run bitcoin is almost certain to go to zero

I am not sure about bitcoin whether it will go up or down. Are you familiar with inputed value? This means value is artificially created and not inherent. For example with some people in the Pacific Islands, they use these huge stone rings as a form of currency. Bitcoin is a good example of inputed value. Gold may also be inputed value rather than inherent.

Gold is not always, nor is the sole currency of ancient times. People in the past have used cattle, bushels of grain, slaves, horses, rolls of silk, stone tablets, jade, gemstones, as a form of currency. It doesn't mean we still use these today. We have also used tin, nickel, silver, copper, iron as currency in the past, and only silver remains used in that value.
 

BlackWindMnt

Captain
Registered Member
I am not sure about bitcoin whether it will go up or down. Are you familiar with inputed value? This means value is artificially created and not inherent. For example with some people in the Pacific Islands, they use these huge stone rings as a form of currency. Bitcoin is a good example of inputed value. Gold may also be inputed value rather than inherent.

Gold is not always, nor is the sole currency of ancient times. People in the past have used cattle, bushels of grain, slaves, horses, rolls of silk, stone tablets, jade, gemstones, as a form of currency. It doesn't mean we still use these today. We have also used tin, nickel, silver, copper, iron as currency in the past, and only silver remains used in that value.
People should give "Debt the first 5000 years" by the late david graeber a read, you had medieval kings that could just proclaim one gold coin was 10 silver coins and 50 bronce coins etc. Money has always been a political invention.
 

9dashline

Senior Member
Registered Member
I am not sure about bitcoin whether it will go up or down. Are you familiar with inputed value? This means value is artificially created and not inherent. For example with some people in the Pacific Islands, they use these huge stone rings as a form of currency. Bitcoin is a good example of inputed value. Gold may also be inputed value rather than inherent.

Gold is not always, nor is the sole currency of ancient times. People in the past have used cattle, bushels of grain, slaves, horses, rolls of silk, stone tablets, jade, gemstones, as a form of currency. It doesn't mean we still use these today. We have also used tin, nickel, silver, copper, iron as currency in the past, and only silver remains used in that value.
Gold like oil is stored energy... oil is captured sunlight mineralized... it is like an energy dense capacitor ... and gold is an elemental metal created in the furnance of a supernova, with many other unique properties that make it condusive as a form of proxy for trade (essential what fiat paper money is supposed to symbolically represent)

Bitcoin does not contain any energy. Mining bitcoin is not like mining uranium. or coal. Bitcoin is an accounting system, just like an excel spreadsheet, but only difference is that its an online ledger that is globally kept in sync (distributed peer to peer)

It takes more and more real energy to mine less and less bitcoin, but bitcoin does not provide any energy back in return, worst than ethanol which is already a negative energy sink, for bitcoin its EROEI is negative infinity.

A bitcoin is nothing more than a tally, a purely abstract symbol token that is supposed to represent resources/energy out there in the real world but without itself being a real resource/energy and without any corresponding real energy, resources, value creation that accompanies the creation of a bitcoin...

Lets say some day a whole bitcoin gets to one million USD or higher. Miners will be willing to spend almost a million dollars in real energy and resources, effort and time to conjur up another fake excel spreadsheet cell?

Some people who timed it right got rich during height of tulip mania but most people lost... it was a reshuffling of wealth like football squares, no real wealth was ever created into the system. Bitcoin is akin to buy and selling futures contracts of a flower that isnt real and never even existed in the first place!
 
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Tam

Brigadier
Registered Member
Gold like oil is stored energy... oil is captured sunlight mineralized... it is like an energy dense capacitor ... and gold is an elemental metal created in the furnance of a supernova, with many other unique properties that make it condusive as a form of proxy for trade (essential what fiat paper money is supposed to symbolically represent)

Bitcoin does not contain any energy. Mining bitcoin is not like mining uranium. or coal. Bitcoin is an accounting system, just like an excel spreadsheet, but only difference is that its an online ledger that is globally kept in sync (distributed peer to peer)

It takes more and more real energy to mine less and less bitcoin, but bitcoin does not provide any energy back in return, worst than ethanol which is already a negative energy sink, for bitcoin its EROEI is negative infinity.

A bitcoin is nothing more than a tally, a purely abstract symbol token that is supposed to represent resources/energy out there in the real world but without itself being a real resource/energy and without any corresponding real energy, resources, value creation that accompanies the creation of a bitcoin...

Lets say some day a whole bitcoin gets to one million USD or higher. Miners will be willing to spend almost a million dollars in real energy and resources, effort and time to conjur up another fake excel spreadsheet cell?

Some people who timed it right got rich during height of tulip mania but most people lost... it was a reshuffling of wealth like football squares, no real wealth was ever created into the system. Bitcoin is akin to buy and selling futures contracts of a flower that isnt real and never even existed in the first place!

Gold isn't stored energy. Prior to industrial use as an electrical conductor, its value to society is that of an aesthetic. At least copper and tin can be made to bronze and copper and zinc can be made to brass which can produce useful tools that can be used to produce agricultural commodities or turned to weapons to fight wars that will gain you land territory. Same with iron. Iron, copper, tin and zinc helps you in the acquisition (conquest) of land and later its cultivation. They can also be used for weapons and tools in the hunt of animals for food and for processing (butchering) their meat. These metals are still heavily used in modern civilization for the creation of infrastructure and engines, and copper as the main electrical conduit. We have supplemented these metals with others such as aluminum and magnesium.

For the most part, taxes from ancient to the medieval times, are collected in bushels of grain. The accounting and inventory system was invented for the management of this resource.

The value of bitcoin comes from its usefulness in international transfers, bypassing formal banking systems like as SWIFT. The transfer of wealth is actually how paper currency came to replace other forms of currency because of its ease to aid transactions. Fiat currency began as paper notes used to representing holdings of gold and silver kept in secure places which travelers can carry for their journeys safely and lightly, and can be used to transact in the place of destination. While Song Dynasty China has a separate story with the creation and use of paper currency, medieval Europe has another. The Crusades and the capture of the Holy Land moved Europe, the Mediterranean and the Middle East into a new era.

At this time, people began to travel much more than they did, from Europe to the Holy Land for pilgrimage. The Holy Land was in the control and management of the Knight Templars. Since pilgrims cannot carry metal currency with their to their long journey, especially if said pilgrim is rich nobility, the pilgrim would deposit their currency to the nearest Knight Templar office. The Knight Templar would in return, hand the pilgrim a note stating the value of what was deposited with the Templars, redeemable in value when the pilgrim reached the Holy Land. When the pilgrim reached the Holy Land, he brings the note to the local Knight Templars branch, where he would redeem the wealth stated in the note.

This is the first operational banking system and international wealth transfers in history. Those notes were to become the basis for Western currency.

To say that gold is "God's money" should check to see history because fiat currency was invented by religious institutions.

That's where money's true value is --- it makes transactions easy.

Just holding gold and silver doesn't make transactions easy. How do you transact gold and silver? Paper notes are used to represent gold, until we have decided to detach the value of paper dollar currency from gold in 1972 to petroleum instead.

The problem of bitcoin is that it makes international transfers simpler, which is of key importance with globalization, it has yet to prove in a way as a means of transaction in common places like the grocery story, the supermarket and the gas station. If Amazon is going to accept bitcoin, bitcoin is going to leap.

This is why Alipay and WeChat themselves have become so valuable before the government clamped down on them and introduced the Digital Yuan. Digital currency is going to make a new leap in the way making money so convenient to use and transfer, and that this by itself will make the currency valuable.
 

9dashline

Senior Member
Registered Member
Gold isn't stored energy. Prior to industrial use as an electrical conductor, its value to society is that of an aesthetic. At least copper and tin can be made to bronze and copper and zinc can be made to brass which can produce useful tools that can be used to produce agricultural commodities or turned to weapons to fight wars that will gain you land territory. Same with iron. Iron, copper, tin and zinc helps you in the acquisition (conquest) of land and later its cultivation. They can also be used for weapons and tools in the hunt of animals for food and for processing (butchering) their meat. These metals are still heavily used in modern civilization for the creation of infrastructure and engines, and copper as the main electrical conduit. We have supplemented these metals with others such as aluminum and magnesium.

For the most part, taxes from ancient to the medieval times, are collected in bushels of grain. The accounting and inventory system was invented for the management of this resource.

The value of bitcoin comes from its usefulness in international transfers, bypassing formal banking systems like as SWIFT. The transfer of wealth is actually how paper currency came to replace other forms of currency because of its ease to aid transactions. Fiat currency began as paper notes used to representing holdings of gold and silver kept in secure places which travelers can carry for their journeys safely and lightly, and can be used to transact in the place of destination. While Song Dynasty China has a separate story with the creation and use of paper currency, medieval Europe has another. The Crusades and the capture of the Holy Land moved Europe, the Mediterranean and the Middle East into a new era.

At this time, people began to travel much more than they did, from Europe to the Holy Land for pilgrimage. The Holy Land was in the control and management of the Knight Templars. Since pilgrims cannot carry metal currency with their to their long journey, especially if said pilgrim is rich nobility, the pilgrim would deposit their currency to the nearest Knight Templar office. The Knight Templar would in return, hand the pilgrim a note stating the value of what was deposited with the Templars, redeemable in value when the pilgrim reached the Holy Land. When the pilgrim reached the Holy Land, he brings the note to the local Knight Templars branch, where he would redeem the wealth stated in the note.

This is the first operational banking system and international wealth transfers in history. Those notes were to become the basis for Western currency.

To say that gold is "God's money" should check to see history because fiat currency was invented by religious institutions.

That's where money's true value is --- it makes transactions easy.

Just holding gold and silver doesn't make transactions easy. How do you transact gold and silver? Paper notes are used to represent gold, until we have decided to detach the value of paper dollar currency from gold in 1972 to petroleum instead.

The problem of bitcoin is that it makes international transfers simpler, which is of key importance with globalization, it has yet to prove in a way as a means of transaction in common places like the grocery story, the supermarket and the gas station. If Amazon is going to accept bitcoin, bitcoin is going to leap.

This is why Alipay and WeChat themselves have become so valuable before the government clamped down on them and introduced the Digital Yuan. Digital currency is going to make a new leap in the way making money so convenient to use and transfer, and that this by itself will make the currency valuable.
Gold is indeed stored energy, it was created in the intense explosion of star that went supernova... atomic bond energy like chemical bond energy is still stored energy. Try creating gold in a particule accelerator and see how many ounces of gold you can fetch from bitcoins....

Dont confuse bitcoin with blockchain. Just like myspace was A social networking service that used TCP/IP protocol, it was not The social networking service and did not represent all uses of Internet, BGP, OSI layers etc....

Likwise bitcoin is A form of virtual digital cryptocurrency that uses the blockchain mechanisms... anyone can create their own digital currency, and it may or may not need to use blockchain technology, and even digital currencies that do use blockchain do not necessarily require high energy intensive "mining" process for more coins...many are initialized with all coins from the getgo

Im all for digitalizing money, to make money "software defined" and with programmatic API etc... this is already what Chinese gov is doing...

But bitcoin itself is going the way of xanga, secondlife, livejournal, friendster, orkut, myspace and google wave/buzz/plus. and the dodo bird
 

9dashline

Senior Member
Registered Member
Also, bitcoin is not "easy transaction", have you checked the transaction fee rate? the way the bitcoin was arch'd its essentually a digital peer to peer decentralized general ledger. so instead of everyone sharing a popular mp3 song everyone is pirating an excel spreadsheet that holds every transaction that every happened on that same sync'd spreadsheet... except everytime there is an update to the spreadsheet (new transaction) there must be a proof of work verification process that takes place involving up to 6 different peers before it gets canonized and replicated to all nodes. this verification process is not "free" infact it consumes a lot of time and energy and a while back a single verification in the system costs like $50 USD....

No one is going to be using bitcoin to buy a pack of gums thats for sure...

So you say just do payment aggregation and bypass hitting the blockchain for nonhuge transactions... but at that point bitcoin is again controlled by the corporations and governments.... Sure I can transfer 0.0001 bitcoin to your cashapp from my cashapp without incurring a transfer fee since it doesnt need to hit the blockchain, but then that means cashapp has the power to stop, or reverse the transaction and to hold both our accounts hostage.

If you use bitcoin just for large sums then it becomes yet another multilevel ponzi scheme which is to say its a speculative bubble... "cold storage", "generational wealth" they say, or sign up with an exchange and do day trading, but then again you are at the mercy of governments that control and regulate the third party coin exchanges

No one is using bitcoin for its actual intended purpose of what a currency is supposed to be used for....
 
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