Force Majeure wrote:Semantics game? Not my intention. Honest money, gold and silver, is honest because it can't be defaulted on, can't be inflated away, and has intrinsic value. BitCoin doesn't have intrinsic value beyond its utility and a few electrons, and its utility is far from exclusive. Intrinsically it's about as valuable as a text file, but speculatively the price has gone far beyond that. Gold and silver have intrinsic value not because of their utility, but because of their composition.
There are no semantics around the definition of intrinsic. Feel free to look it up, and I would request you stop interjecting ambiguity into my statements which are quite clear. In one side of your mouth you say it's a matter of opinion, yet out the other side you say I am wrong. Which is it? You are all over the place with blind fervor in defense of your blind devotion.
Whether or not miners can get some dividend from performing processing after no more BitCoins can be generated, they will most certainly get a higher dividend from a cryptocurrency that can generate new coins vs. one that must pull from existing supply (someone must relinquish vs. creation from thin air). This is just common sense based on the path of least resistance.
Market share not being an important metric is purely a matter of opinion. You seem to engage in the very behavior you are attempting to project onto me. What you don't seem to have acknowledged is that there is no limit to the number of cryptocurrencies that may come into existence, and there is only so much global utility for the cryptocurrency space. Again it is simply common sense that something profitable will have copycats, and there is nothing to stop them from diffusing the market share among an ever growing number of competing protocols vying for the same space.
Big scare argument? I'm not familiar with that. Again you seem to be conflating what I am saying with your own separate perceptions. I read an article about how a neighboring county of mine is having to increase prices because miners are literally moving into the area and driving up prices for locals. Higher prices aren't anything to be afraid of, but they aren't exactly convenient. It's not a prediction, simply a fact of life for my community in the present. Crypto has the ability to be private, sure, but it also has the ability to be fully tracked. The fully tracked part can't exist without the underlying infrastructure. And you can't use the underlying infrastructure without a contract with an ISP. If you think ISPs are somehow immune from government coercion, my opinion is that they are not.
The reason I liken BTC users to debt slaves is because only a debt slave would require on-the-grid capabilities to maintain their standard of living. In other words a debt slave will require the use of BTC or its ilk to survive once fiat currency is no more whereas those of us with real wealth will be perfectly functional and viable without dependency on electricity or an ISP or an external group of online users to validate a transaction. None of this is required with honest money. Honest money doesn't require checks and balances.
I find it ironic that you have such confidence that BitCoin will have value in a couple hundred years, when we have proof that precious metals have had value for far longer than that, and yet BitCoin is barely 10 years old. That's a lot of confidence without much track record. Not something I would feel comfortable putting my hard earned wealth into, but if people are going to gamble with their money they could certainly do worse than cryptos.
If you haven't read the bitcoin beginner thread, I would recommend starting there:
http://www.bullionstacker.com/viewtopic.php?f=108&t=28780 as many of the issues you are bringing up have been discussed already.
Your biases are flashing brightly. Your statements: "[I have a] blind fervor in defense of your blind devotion" and "a debt slave will require the use of BTC or its ilk". One can search all my posts here at BS. I was into PMs long before bitcoin, and I still believe in stacking both as I can't know the future or how society will adapt. Some believe we might go back to bartering PMs, and others believe we are on the verge of a technological breakthrough with crypto, AI, virtual reality, artificial reality, nano-technologies, etc. Go talk to anyone under 25 years old about going back to bartering PMs to trade goods. That will be an interesting conversation. But talk to them about an honest money, where no central authority (corrupt government) controls it, no third party (bank) can stop a transaction, and show them how to digitally set up an online wallet on their phone. That they can understand. So what is the future?
While one can't default on gold or silver, it can be faked, diluted, clipped, or many other methods of scam as many here are well aware. You can drone on about intrinsic value all you like, but unless a person, or businesses wants to trade other currencies, goods or services for the silver or gold you hold, it is essentially worthless. Yes, silver is used in numerous industries, and therefore businesses need it - but if silver did not exist or became too cost prohibitive, companies would switch to the next best element (where possible). For another view on intrinsic value of bitcoin, see this post (specifically point 4, from part 2):
http://www.bullionstacker.com/viewtopic.php?f=108&t=28780&start=60#p560471Point #6 in that post also elaborates on value. Specifically network value. Your objection about an infinite number of cryptos can be easily created seems valid. As I've previously noted however in this post:
http://www.bullionstacker.com/viewtopic.php?f=108&t=15864&start=1460#p546239 and others - the value is in the network. If nobody is using 95% of the cryptos created, they have little to no value. Not all crypto is trying to act as money (medium of exchange). Money is merely the first application of blockchain technology.
You talk of miners moving on to mining other cryptos as "common sense" because they can potentially make more money. Perhaps. But money isn't the only concern for a miner. They need to worry about market depth, liquidity, and long term viability. Bitcoin is the backbone of this space and the miners know that. If some abandon mining bitcoin, it merely becomes more profitable for those who remain mining. This dynamic model of incentives was created on purpose and there is a team of open source developers who can adapt the network with consensus when necessary. See all the developments thus far (bitcoin improvement proposals):
https://github.com/bitcoin/bipsDo I have confidence that bitcoin will be around in 100 years? Yes. I don't know what the price will be, and why I always suggest that nobody put any more money into bitcoin than they are 100% comfortable losing completely. Fortunes can be made and lost when disruptive technology upends the status quo. Most people will be skeptical and watch it happen, and adopt to it after the masses have jumped aboard. I was lucky to get into crypto earlier than most because it has a large libertarian draw. That was the second wave after the tech nerds brought it into existence. I wasn't sold on it at first due to many of the same objections we see today. I passed on bitcoin when it was about the price of one ounce of silver over five years ago. That was a costly mistake, but I didn't stop researching. The information is out there for those willing to do the deep dive.