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Comment by FlownScepter | Hacker News Reader

This 'service' doesn't need to exist. It didn't solve a problem that wasn't already solved, we've had ledgers since the Bronze age, and probably before that. That's not to say that the blockchain itself isn't useful, of course it is for numerous applications, including even financial ones. However, Bitcoin as it stands today is functionally useless apart from being something that our system has decided has value, because.... waves hands.

If bitcoin went away tomorrow, a bunch of financial companies would have a lot of problems, a few big holders would be out money, and that's it. For every other human, it's Thursday.

Conversely, if gasoline didn't exist tomorrow, society would collapse.

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But that doesn't seem to square with your GP post in my mind. If cigarettes went away, the world will keep moving just fine. They don't need to exist.

But you posit that people choosing cigarettes provides some value, despite the negative effects. Why is there no value than in people being able to chose a money/investment vehicle they believe to be to their benefit?

> Why is there no value than in people being able to chose a money/investment vehicle they believe to be to their benefit?

Because the only thing generated is fake money on a spreadsheet. There is no product, there is only consumption of resources to generate nothing.

For all of what's involved here, you could just pull the same amount of money out of thin air, deposit it in their IRA, and nothing changes, apart from way, WAY less energy consumption.

I think when banks used to issue private money, that was a product. People need a money instrument. In that way, Bitcoin is a (maybe bad) product.

You're right that BTC has no commodity utility outside of "being money." But I think society needs money, as much as it needs an energy source.

Gold is one object that's served the money function in the past. It has properties (fungibility, durability, scarcity, etc.) that money needs. But it's "dumb" and cumbersome, as physical objects are.

Building digital objects that serve the money function is important. One solution is the centralized ACH/banking system. But this has drawbacks --- poor scarcity, high political exposure, etc. I view BTC as simply building a competitor. You get better money properties, at the cost of more energy, etc.

Is it worth it? I don't know. But that partly depends on how the future produces energy.

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