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Comment by CorrectHorseBat | Hacker News Reader

The value of USD depends on trust in the US government and economy, that is not a pyramid scheme.

It is until it isn't. The base demand for USD comes from the federal reserve. Bitcoin has a similar base for it's legit uses (like international currency transfer) so both have a demand floor. After that it's all dependent on use and further down market demand.

I think when we all are dead future generations will see crypto as a basic value store like gold. No one will call it a pyramid scheme either cause it would have been around since before they were born.

I always internalized the base demand for USD as being the only accepted currency to pay your US income taxes in.

Yes, and some currencies do lose value because the government and economies backing them have lost trust.

The demand for USD comes from people wanting to do business with one of the biggest economies in the world. The demand for Bitcoin comes from people wanting to make money by hoarding Bitcoins.

It could be different, but right now it is not and I'm not sure if Bitcoin (or any other cryptocoin) would survive a transition to become a currency or something else less like a pyramid scheme.

You're kinda dismissing it without respecting that it's no different from gold as far as people wanting to hoard it. People also do use Bitcoin when convenient to move money. I personally used it to pay someone in Brazil for some mechanical keyboard services when PayPal failed to transfer the money. Totally legal and organic demand exists.

Have you compared the gold price with the Bitcoin price?

I'm not saying it Bitcoin could not be like gold, I'm saying right now it is not and everyone in it doesn't want it to be. And I'm not convinced it ever will be.

I'm thinking in the long long term of hundreds of years. Seems to me when we start exploring space moving around heavy chunks of metal won't be so useful anymore and we'll need to use a Blockchain to verify value transfer.

While I agree we will probably want something different from the current status-quo when light-lag gets big enough to matter for normal daily financial interaction, one potential solution could be to go back to local banks holding money locally, just as things were here on Earth before ATMs and cheap telephony.

We haven't been using heavy chunks of metal as currency for a while without a need for blockchains. I see mostly disadvantages compared to government backed currencies.

Yes and No.

To someone who doesn't live in the US, the value of USD mostly depends on trust in the US government and economy.

To someone who does, the value of USD mostly depends on whether or not the IRS will be asking for their due next April, whether or not their landlord/bank will be expecting a rent/mortgage payment next month, and whether or not the grocery is stocked with toilet paper.

It is true that if any of those three things don't happen, you have far more serious problems than 'what currency you use'.

>To someone who does, the value of USD mostly depends on whether or not the IRS will be asking for their due next April, whether or not their landlord/bank will be expecting a rent/mortgage payment next month, and whether or not the grocery is stocked with toilet paper.

Or in other words: trust in the US government and economy.

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