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Comment by shkkmo | Hacker News Reader

Yes, the current use case of cryptocurrency is breaking or avoiding the law, it has yet to find a use case outside that.

People who dump money into gold are idiots or speculators (or hedging larger positions.) I have lived with the ups and downs of the gold industry and it is very much not stable.

The US dollar has far more infrastructure and institutional support preventing it's collapse than bitcoin. Currently the collapse of the dollar would destroy the world economy to such an extent that I highly doubt the bitcoin network would survive intact.

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Yes, the current use case of cryptocurrency is breaking or avoiding the law, it has yet to find a use case outside that.

If the law is your baseline standard for what is moral, then you should probably try a little harder and put some thought into whether or not cryptocurrencies deserve to actually be illegal. For the most part, it is not illegal to own or trade in cryptocurrencies in the developed world.

The US dollar has far more infrastructure and institutional support preventing it's collapse than bitcoin.

We've seen this attitude before. Too big to fail, FDIC insured, Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac, auto industry bailouts, airline industry bailouts, investment bank bailouts. Debt increases perpetually. Money creation increase perpetually. Mortgage rates going to 0. Treasury yields going negative.

All this is completely normal.

Bitcoin is useful for illegal things because they are illegal, morality does not enter in to it. If those things became legal, bitcoin wouldn't be needed for them anymore.

If the US dollar fails in the near future, your bit coin will be mostly useless because the global system that generates wealth and handles logistics will have broken. People will be starving, bartering and looting. nobody will want to give you anything of value for some stupid worthless ones and zeros.

Bitcoin as a hedge against the collapse of the dollar is a ridiculous investment.

This is where your lack of knowledge in economics and trade really shows.

If the US dollar ends up hyperinflating, assets like gold, bitcoin, stocks, housing, etc. become very, very expensive. They become expensive because everyone seeks to escape USD into safety of assets that are inflation resistant.

So you have it backwards: people will give EVERYTHING of value to get those assets, because those are the only things they want to be paid in. They are the only things capable of storing value.

Its funny you think nobody will want to trade for "stupid worthless ones and zeroes", because today they trade for "stupid worthless paper with President's faces printed on them", and before that, they traded for "stupid worthless shiny yellow rocks".

If you have hyper inflation, all the prices are going up. However assets with little to no practical value and no long term proven track record of value will not be where people will go to seek safety.

Hard assets with long track records of value will beat bitcoin hands down.

Sure, you’re welcome to believe that.

You’re just betting against network effects, betting against metcalfe’s law and generally the digitalization of physical things.

This being HN, it’s ironic you would so short sighted take that position.

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