United States dollar almost doubles in value in a single day | Hacker News Reader

United States dollar almost doubles in value in a single day

coinion.com

22 pointskgermino20 comments

It's telling that I could tell exactly what the story is about without clicking the link. And it's disappointing that the story, after clicking the link, didn't add anything else.

I'm wondering if this is a false-flag article to make bitcoin proponents look clueless and gullible...

The site is satire.

http://www.coinion.com/2013/12/07/employee-asks-to-be-paid-i...

http://www.coinion.com/2013/12/07/after-bitcoin-congress-als...

Ah, I missed the "onion" part of the URL. My bad. :/

haha, truth be told I didn't notice that until you just pointed it out, I only realized it was satire after visiting their home page.

It is a Bitcoin only Onion...

The point of this is obviously that the USD is just as much as a construct as Bitcoin, which, sure! But of course the difference is that the dollar's value doesn't change by 20%+ in a day, so you can rely on it to execute transactions, sign contracts, set salaries, etc.

Bitcoin apologists have generally seemed to see Bitcoin's rise as a positive, which is somewhat true, but it has to be stable to be useful for ordinary people. A volatile currency is not a useful currency.

Bad-Joke Website Continues to be of Little Value

Does this type of currency have any intrinsic value?

Yes, it's intrinsically useful. See https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/FAQ#Where_does_the_value_of_Bitco... for a longer reply.

So the answer to "is Bitcoin useful" is "Bitcoins have value because they are useful"? You need a better link to make that point.

Um, no, his question was not "is bitcoin useful" but "does it have any intrinsic value"...

Actually, the question wasn't "does bitcoin have any intrinsic value" it was "does this type of currency have intrinsic value" in response to an article that was, nominally, about the US dollar.

No serious investor questions the intrinsic value of Bitcoin; but currency with an infinite supply is very curious. Particularly a 'closed book' currency where the creators can apportion themselves unlimited amounts and users would be unaware.

Useful only to those who have faith in the powers that manipulate it. Same could be said for bitcoin.

Hm, do you mean etanazir was asking about the USD? Then I might have misread the comment.

Edit: Btw, the USD is mostly has value because it's being used (useful), so yes, that's what currencies have going for them. The USD just has it so much easier as it's backed by a government.

I thought etanazir was being facetious, my bad. I guess I underestimated how many people can keep asking the same stupid question that assumes the dollar has intrinsic value while bitcoin does not. Usefulness is in the eye of the beholder.

If these people keep running around with blindfolds on, it might be time to put up some bumper walls.

Clever article, for those that bother to read and understand it.

Clever?

It depends on a single substitution premise that is neither that funny or original (Onion does it all the time) nor very informative (it doesn't provide any real insight, just a false sense of seeing an equivalency between dollar/bitcoin forgeting that there are actually huge differences in areas that actually matter).

Personally I think it's rather silly, or, if you prefer, funny. Anyway, seems like enough people flagged it as it disappeared from the front page after a few seconds.

Actually, it's the key to the next level for Bitcoin.

Realising that BTC has a more consistent value which the USD does not, being systematically de-based n' all.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com