Comment by jmyeet | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jmyeet | Hacker News Reader

Bitcoin is a perfect microcosm for the tech sector in what happens when people who don't know how something works and refuse to understand it, try to replace it.

Every aspect of the modern financial system exists for a reason. It evolved over time to deal with problems. Things like reversible transactions are a feature not a bug.

Bitcoin is where all the gold bugs went who lamented the end of the gold standard. Most of these people didn't understand that at no point in history was the US dollar 100% backed by gold (or silver, originally). Never.

What backs the US dollar isn't gold or oil or anythihng else we dig up out of the ground. It's long schlong of the US military.

I've also said that crypt currency exists only because the government hasn't shut it down. All it would take is a policy change from the US government to say banks who have access to the US financial system cannot trade in Bitcoin and it would be over. Yes you could still have wallets (at least until the government starts going after Bitcoin farms, which again it could do) but what would you do with those coins?

Bitcoin is not, never has been and never will be an escape from the perils (some real, many imagined) of fiat currencies.

Rethink your ideas, you are very wrong here.

It is a fantastic escape from debasement of fiat, and always has been an escape from the perils of fiat currencies. It was created for this very purpose in 2009, and has absolutely achieved this goal. A 2019 $ vs a 2025 $ are significantly different purchasing power. Yet a 2019 BTC vs a 2025 BTC shows remarkable capital appreciation. You can pick any time scale you like, and except for very specific edge cases, it has in general been a great hedge against debasement of fiat, and will continue to be.

I have been able to preserve the purchasing power of my savings for over a decade now, and still keep buying every week.

Why would this be any different the next decade? (beyond the attenuation effect from more capital flowing into the space?).

You've described an asset not a currency and sure, your asset will keep going up forever like so many assets before it, famously.

That changes nothing. And you can use it as a currency. Declaring it an asset is irrelevant. You can call Bitcoin a cryptocurrency, an asset, a currency, a scam, it doesn't effect Bitcoin in any way. Bitcoin doesn't care. Its sole purpose is as an incorruptible, debasement and censorship resistant ledger native to the public internet.

Of course this all redefines exactly what a currency or an asset IS. Is Gold a currency? Is it an asset? is it both? Its semantics. Both gold and bitcoin can be exchanged for goods and services.

Most assets will not keep going up forever in Bitcoin terms. Maybe no asset will, on long enough time scales. Most assets are plummeting in price considerably in Bitcoin terms. Today it takes 6-figure units of dollars to buy one unit of Bitcoin. On to 7 and 8, and more. Eventually, you will not be able to exchange ANY amount of fiat for Bitcoin.

You are free to ignore Bitcoin for then next 10 years, like most folks on HN have done for the past 10.

No one knows what will be in the future. As mentioned in the discussion, the possession of bitcoin can be simply outlawed.

As an extra note, total bitcoin supply is just the chain spec. It can be changed.

Wrong. As per the Coinage Act of 1792, the US dollar was to be equal to exactly 371.25 grains of fine silver.

At no point did the US have enough silver or gold to cover their obligations for all currency in circulation.

That’s my point.

You can make it worth whatever you want but if you’re not guaranteed to be able to redeem it, you’re calling that currency on something else.

That something else is the US military, ultimately.

My comment was directed at your statement "that at no point in history was the US dollar 100% backed by gold (or silver, originally). Never." which is entirely false. The US dollar (the currency unit), was at one point quite literally an exact weight of silver. This is no longer the case, but it was true in the past. This has nothing to do with the nation debt, or what is backing it. Obviously, the national debt isn't collateralized by precious metals or anything else except the military and power to raise taxes.

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