Crypto Bitcoin and Fiat

For the Bitcoin believers out there

What problem does Bitcoin solve, and how ?

 

Well, Bitcoin is the first cryptocurrency.

- What cryptocurrency does is enables peer-to-peer transactions to happen without a middle man taking a piece of the money to cover the security regarding who the payment came from and who it went to.

- There is a finite amount of Crypto. So you can't devalue it by printing more (fiat) or mining more (gold).

But that's just the beginning, it is being developed and will solve problems you don't even realise are problems right now.

When the internet was produced it wasn't exactly solving many problems, but people got creative and utilised it's capabilities to solve problems over time.

 

Well I think, look I don’t have or use bit coin, but I do have a wallet which is obviously empty.

But it seems that bitcoin is a means of hiding money, be it from a legal or illegal source. So dealers or people evading family court settlements or even your average tax evader has a means to hide money.

So there are benefits for sure.

However, I believe Bitcoin should market it’s product more extensively. Perhaps some prime time 30 second ads on TV.

You could have an ad showing a tradie with a “10% discount when you pay by Bitcoin” sticker on his ute. Or a dealer at Mt Druitt station touting “I accept Bitcoin.. don’t leave home without it...I’ll be checking later on” lol

 

I understand the fiat problem. We had a Gold standard, which eventually was dissolved, and slowly but surely got to where we are today.

What I'm trying to understand is, how is Bitcoin going to be different ?

Agree with that. It seems we are only just scratching the surface of blockchain technology

 

lol. Funny you say that. There was a documentary on Netflix of how Bitcoin saved the day for a webcam lady who was shut out of PayPal and would have had no way of getting paid otherwise

And who saw early on the potential of the Internet, and Virtual Reality, that funded a lot of the early research and development ? Yep, the pornographic industry

 

Well gold used to be used for trade. That is what Bitcoin offers in the modern online era.

It's gold that is difficult to be stolen, easily transferable, accurately tracked

 

The Biggest Cryptocurrency Heists of All Time | Comparitech

 

Sorry I thought you were talking about the cash you've been hiding under the table. Not only is it used to evade the ATO and buy drugs, it's also involved in the biggest ponzi scheme in human history. The one where the central bank prints more cash to get themselves out of debt, ensuring the banks and government get richer, and devaluing the cash so the citizens get poorer.

Keep holding onto your cash mate.

 

Never underestimate the dynamics of cash.

 

Oh and I'll let you know institutions are buying bitcoin hand over fist. Most notably Grayscale and Microstrategy.

Microstrategy, listed on the NASDAQ, recently spent half their balance sheet, $250 million, to buy bitcoin.

MicroStrategy Just Sent Green Light To Corporate America On Bitcoin

Who owns Microstrategy? The biggest stock etf companies in the world, Blackrock and Vanguard. Also the US bank JP Morgan.

I'd trust their judgement of bitcoin over yours. Your comments are extremely outdated and remarkably ignorant.

 

https://bitcoinmaximalist.net/why-w...imating-microstrategys-250m-bitcoin-purchase/

"On the purchase, MicroStrategy’s Michael CEO Saylor said, ‘Bitcoin is a dependable store of value and an attractive investment asset with more long-term appreciation potential than holding cash.’"

You need to understand the fiat problem before you can understand and appreciate bitcoin.

 

Forget the Fiat. It’s a rubbish Italian car. I’d rather drive a commodore any day of the week. And they are appreciating in value!

 

Hacking is still difficult. I couldn't do it.

I think most people know that you want to keep it in cold storage. I agree that the self security you have to use to have cryptocurrency is the biggest problem with it at this stage.

 

Simply put its possibly Gold 2.0.

I simply look at it as a digital hedge against inflation. Put in a few % of NW and see what happens in a decade.

 

Hypothetical for you as I see this comment a lot (i am genuinely trying to get a better understanding).

I know there are issues with the fact that more money can be printed however in the alternative of having a currency that is finite how would a government support their country during a time like the last 6 months.

 

Yes, you can't use bitcoin to replace fiat because you can't pull money out of nothing and redistribute it.

There is potential that a cryptocurrency could be built for a country specifically where they hold significant reserves and control it like they do with fiat right now.

But Bitcoin is not that.

 

Here you are assuming that Bitcoin would replace fiat currencies - an unlikely scenario IMO (at least in the foreseeable future).
Bitcoin does not need to do that to succeed.
Blockchain technologies have almost endless applications from instant payments worldwide at minuscule fees to decentralised applications platforms and logistics tracking.
Bitcoin is not all these things.

At the moment, Bitcoin is mostly a store of value/hedge with a good dose of speculation on top!
But being so different from every asset class out there, you can't argue against the appeal it has, even if just as a hedge. It's wealth that is permissionless, that can be carried in your head (or your pocket) and most importantly that does not rely on trust from third parties (government, central banks etc.). You have to let that sink in: does. not. rely. on. trust. (unlike fiat currencies) and is permissionless.

Just like the internet has decentralised access to information, Bitcoin decentralises access to money, one of the reason why it is often referred to as the internet of money.

Ultimately, it is still early days, and like when the internet started the future applications are not necessarily readily obvious at this point in time.

 

Uhhh... that's exactly what a Bitcoin miner does

 

Hi Niche,

That's a great question. They probably wouldn't be able to.

The flip side is, they might not need to. In a world where everyone is incentivised to store their wealth instead of ever-increasing consumption, the entire economy would not be so laden with debt, and the scale of the crisis would have been much smaller and more manageable.

Like you, I am also trying to understand how Bitcoin is going to be the solution.

 

Hi @Ouga

I'm still very green in all this. Correct me if I'm wrong, from what I've read so far, it seems to be more a store of wealth i.e. gold rather than a medium of exchange i.e currency. Reason being it is limited and slow due to the way the blockchain works. There have been developments in this space (Lightning), but at the stage, it is not considered ready to be used as a full-scale currency. Is that correct ?

In my mind, I guess I'm thinking if it is like a digital gold used for storing wealth, I can see the attractiveness of it given the way technology is encroaching everything in our lives, but I can't see, yet, how it is going to solve the Fiat issue, which is what a lot of Bitcoin believers push

And are you saying you will be able to build software, apps, etc on Blockchain, similar to how we have software for Windows / apps on phones ?

I should have used the search function before I posted this thread. I had only seen the one where old mate put his whole house into Bitcoin