Texas Proud
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
- Joined
- May 16, 2005
- Messages
- 17,383
[Disclaimer: I hold a fractional share of a bitcoin, which I purchased a couple/few years ago ($100 worth at the time) to play with. I promptly forgot about it until this past summer. I've sold off $500 of it when bitcoin first hit 17K or so to "guarantee" a 5x return on my original "investment". As of this post, my holdings in bitcoin and the spin-off bitcoin cash are valued at approximately $4000 (down from 8k or so at the peak). ]
Finally, an interesting answer. What is the "value" of a dollar bill? It's value is in trust, that it can be redeemed for goods and services, and represents a store of wealth.
There is a lot of distrust of governments who issue fiat currencies. Not only in the United States but across the world. Thus the hunger for some place where wealth can be stored without as much government interference.
Look, I have no idea of the future of bit coin or any other crypto currency. What I do know is if there were some way of 'locking in' my wealth in terms of buying power for real goods and services, I would jump on it in a nanosecond. Unfortunately no such beast exists, and I am doubtful that anything could exist.
First, all money is 'fiat'... so there is no currency on this planet that is not fiat... I would argue that bitcoin is even more fiat since the only value it has is what somebody else is willing to pay..
Fiat money is an intrinsically worthless object, such as paper money, that is deemed to be money by law
One of the things you fail to realize is that the gvmt 'interference' is the main reason that people trust money... IOW, you want something that stores money to actually keep it safe... if you put a gallon of something in a jug, when you come back to use it you still want it to be a gallon... now, there could be some evaporation (inflation), but if you know what rate that is you can live with it...Bitcoin is no store of money.... it is so much like tulips or beanie babies where a hysteria has occurred that just makes it impractical for someone to store their wealth there...
I am sure that at some point in the future it will steady out and maybe act more like gold, but for now it is a place to lose wealth IMO....