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Comment by Talyen42 | Hacker News Reader

He's thinking of it in investing terms, underlying asset value, cash flows, etc. Because the media asks him "Should we buy bitcoin?" every damn day of the year.

I'd be more interested to hear what he thinks makes for a good currency, inflation vs. deflation, freedom of transfer, protection against forfeiture, etc.

Does he also think that the US Dollar is rat poison because it's not a productive asset? He holds like $80b cash.

"But bitcoin has high fees" well yeah, there are 1,000 newer cryptos with lower fees. (and plenty of scams)

"But local stores don't use it" well yeah, nobody used credit cards in the 40s either. (and now cash is dead)

"But it's not user friendly" well yeah, neither was the internet until ~2000. (i've seen nearly zero progress in crypto here, btw)

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> and now cash is dead

Maybe it is in your little corner of the first world, but this certainly isn't true for most of the world. Plenty of people are still using cash and it isn't going away anytime soon.

>cash is dead

lol

> He holds like $80b cash > ... > now cash is dead

Somewhat of a class-based statement, definitely not dead among the working/lower class.

If anything it was the 'tap-to-pay' feature of debit/credit cards that is finally putting some death-knell pressure on cash. It's so much faster than paying with a pin card or cash...

> If anything it was the 'tap-to-pay' feature of debit/credit cards that is finally putting some death-knell pressure on cash. It's so much faster than paying with a pin card or cash...

Is it just me or aren't debit/credit cards much faster than paying with cash, too? Making change and then dealing with all of the coins is way higher effort than swipe, maybe pin or sign, and move on. And the sign step is going away, at least in the US, soon.

A large portion of US workforce works for cash.

I don't see what that's got to do with speed of payment.

This guy must be living in a bubble to think that cash is dead...

His argument is that debit cards aren't cash or something...

The laughter is justified not only for the illogic of this, but the fact that this is somehow a good reason to buy Bitcoin.

Debit cards aren't cash. They're credit cards that get instantly paid off from your bank account by direct debit. But you're right to laugh at the idea that cash is dead. In China, everyone who isn't using AliPay or WeChatPay (ie credit cards without the plastic card) is using cash. Yes, people use credit or debit cards a lot more often now, but paying with cash is very much still a thing.

Do you really think he's going to come out as friendly to bitcoin on any of these?

> I'd be more interested to hear what he thinks makes for a good currency, inflation vs. deflation, freedom of transfer, protection against forfeiture, etc.

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