Bitcoin drops below $20k as crypto selloff quickens
apnews.com
apnews.com
That's stunning. To be honest, I've still have never understood the real value of "crypto currencies" outside of hiding cash transfers from taxes or purchases that are criminal in some way.
I've yet to find an article that clearly and simply explains the need or reasoning for using it. I've seen a few that speaks to it being "secure" but that's obviously not the case because I've seen far more that describe how people have been ripped off and far more than those I've seen about those who've had money just disappear from a Bank or S&L.
Perhaps you ought to say something that is politically frowned upon, drive your Truck to Ottowa or expose the crimes of the US government and get cut off completely from legacy banks and payment processors, like Wikileaks. Then perhaps you will suddenly realize the utility of being able to send and receive funds completely outside the centrally controlled system.
The political examples you give are valid, but couldn't gold (for example) work as well to fund Wikileaks?
At some point you need to convert any currency to goods or services so to me the real value of a currency like this would be it's stability of value, but it apparently lacks that.
It seems the lack of a "centrally controlled system" is what makes it so vulnerable to wild swings in real value.
I certainly agree it would be great to have a way to spend and send and receive money without paying a 3rd party a fee, but to do that Bitcoin would need a stable valuation.
From where I sit it appears to have been used as a sort of pyramid scheme. I can accept that's not connected to the intent of the concept, but that is no small part of the reality of it now.
Lacking any way to manage the volatility of value it seems it's either never going to work or it's value must be tied to something tangible, like gold in a vault. But it's not. It's apparently tied to whatever an "investor" might be willing to pay.
The only real value I can see in it is the cost of the computing time it took to run the algorithm to create a bitcoin. The leap from that to trading the result of the output for an ounce of gold or bushel of wheat is where I get disconnected.
If I can convince someone my bitcoin has real value and they trade me a bushel of wheat for it, why would the bitcoin have any value to anyone else? I can see where you might avoid paying a tax or a banking fee but you still have nothing more than a digital file.
I can certainly see how hyping "Bitcoin" could create the illusion of value and that could create a rising market for it, but at some point all you really own is a bit of code that has no real value on it's own. No government that will give you their issued currency for it.
No one likes paying taxes but we do like good roads and safe schools, etc. So if the concept is purely to avoid paying taxes we need to figure out how to tax bitcoin transactions to fund those public services.
I live in New York, how do you suggest I send gold to Wikileaks? How much gold would I have to ship to justify the shipping costs to whatever Europeans city they were based, even if it was feasible? On the the other hand I can send them $5 in litecoin or a dozen other cryptos and pay only a few pennies for the instant, hassle-free transfer.
>If I can convince someone my bitcoin has real value and they trade me a bushel of wheat for it, why would the bitcoin have any value to anyone else?
If I've been blocked from paypal and JP Morgan because of my currently-frowned upon political or cultural position, I'd be eager to accept your bitcoin for my goods. Especially if I could trade it for a needed bushel of wheat.
>At some point you need to convert any currency to goods or services so to me the real value of a currency like this would be it's stability of value, but it apparently lacks that.
This is true if you are holding it, or the goods and services you want don't accept it as a payment option, or it is difficult (usually because of regulatory hurdles set up by the government to prevent competition) to convert it instantly into whatever other currency (fiat or otherwise) you want to hold it in.
Ironically, bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies would be much less useful and more likely to fail if governments and central banks didn't design their network of financial institutions and payment processors to be a walled garden that have claimed the right to erase people who ran afoul of the powers-that-be for any reason (or no reason at all - rarely is a reason given to those who have been financially unpersoned). Unsurprisingly, those who are disenfranchised by the digital economic system are not going to just throw their hands up and starve. They will be forced into other financial ecosystems. In the words of Princess Leia, "The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers."
The value lies in the network effects and rock solid maths.
The conversation on that previous post did answer my questions and I learned a lot more.