Bitcoin Forum

- never have heard of Doug Casey before this post anyway.

Doug Casey is old. I don't think it's much more complicated that that.

whoever this doug casey guy is, it might be wise to consider outside voices for once, instead of just dismissing them as "old", "doesn't get it", "bitcoin is something entirely different, you can't compare it to anything!".

not just referring to you...the entire forum has this attitude.

Doug Casey is old. I don't think it's much more complicated that that.

I know who Doug Casey is and you don't. I consider his opinion much more than yours and I disagree with it. I could give two shits what you think of my attitude, so, if you have nothing substantive to contribute, GTFO.

I know who Doug Casey is and you don't. I consider his opinion much more than yours and I disagree with it. I could give two shits what you think of my attitude, so, if you have nothing substantive to contribute, GTFO.

1.  Bit­coins pro­vide an alter­na­tive cur­rency to the dol­lar. This makes sense, but the ques­tion is whether this is the best alter­na­tive. For exam­ple, I can hedge my dol­lar risk with euros, Swiss francs, yen, etc. Fur­ther­more, those options can pay inter­est. And one doesn’t need to choose a sin­gle cur­rency but can choose a bas­ket of them.
Then there’s also gold and sil­ver, the tra­di­tional play against a declin­ing dol­lar. If one is try­ing to hedge against the dol­lar, these options are more than ade­quate. I don’t see Bit­coin as hav­ing an advan­tage here.
2.  Bit­coin can be secretly trans­ported across inter­na­tional bor­ders. OK, sure, that seems like an advan­tage. There’s just one prob­lem: I have no need to trans­fer large amounts of cash across inter­na­tional bor­ders. Though this fea­ture is often praised by Bit­coin sup­port­ers, how many have actu­ally uti­lized it to cir­cum­vent inter­na­tional laws? Yeah, prob­a­bly close to zero.
3.  Bit­coin allows for anony­mous trans­ac­tions online and helps avoid taxes. Sounds nice, but per­son­ally, I have noth­ing to hide regard­ing my online trans­ac­tions. Maybe if I was oper­at­ing an online busi­ness, this would be great, but as a reg­u­lar con­sumer, I don’t see any advan­tages here. After all, I already avoid sales tax by shop­ping online; and I’m not going to vio­late tax laws.
On top of this, my favorite online retail­ers don’t accept Bit­coin; so why exactly should I start using it?
How­ever, if one is doing some­thing ille­gal, then Bit­coin would seem to be more use­ful. As has been reported, Bit­coin has been used to sell ille­gal drugs online. Now, Bit­coin sup­port­ers claim that this is over­hyped and that these illicit deals are giv­ing Bit­coin a bad name. In real­ity, I see this as the only com­par­a­tive advan­tage of this cur­rency. Sure, one can still be tracked with Bit­coin, but it would be harder than a trans­fer from a credit card or bank account.
But since I have no inten­tion of buy­ing drugs online or off, the cur­rency is worth­less to me. So what’s the point?
4.  Bit­coin is free-market money. Since there are few prac­ti­cal rea­sons to use Bit­coin, the sup­port­ers grab onto the idea that it’s free-market money. Hence, we’re some­how sav­ing the world by using it. That’s a big rea­son that the sup­port­ers get so upset when any­one crit­i­cizes Bitcoin.
But here again, Bit­coin doesn’t offer any­thing unique. If I want to invest in free-market money, I can buy gold and sil­ver — a store of value rec­og­nized around the world for centuries.
Unless I’m plan­ning some ille­gal trans­ac­tion, Bit­coin just doesn’t seem like a use­ful prod­uct to me. For every­thing Bit­coins offer, other, bet­ter alter­na­tives already exist. Bit­coin is an inter­est­ing idea; I just don’t find it useful.
For the rest of the issue, the Casey Research energy team will dis­cuss the release of the Strate­gic Petro­leum Reserve. Then, I’ll pro­vide a few links as usual.

1.  Bit­coins pro­vide an alter­na­tive cur­rency to the dol­lar. This makes sense, but the ques­tion is whether this is the best alter­na­tive. For exam­ple, I can hedge my dol­lar risk with euros, Swiss francs, yen, etc. Fur­ther­more, those options can pay inter­est. And one doesn’t need to choose a sin­gle cur­rency but can choose a bas­ket of them.
Then there’s also gold and sil­ver, the tra­di­tional play against a declin­ing dol­lar. If one is try­ing to hedge against the dol­lar, these options are more than ade­quate. I don’t see Bit­coin as hav­ing an advan­tage here.

2.  Bit­coin can be secretly trans­ported across inter­na­tional bor­ders. OK, sure, that seems like an advan­tage. There’s just one prob­lem: I have no need to trans­fer large amounts of cash across inter­na­tional bor­ders. Though this fea­ture is often praised by Bit­coin sup­port­ers, how many have actu­ally uti­lized it to cir­cum­vent inter­na­tional laws? Yeah, prob­a­bly close to zero.

3.  Bit­coin allows for anony­mous trans­ac­tions online and helps avoid taxes. Sounds nice, but per­son­ally, I have noth­ing to hide regard­ing my online trans­ac­tions. Maybe if I was oper­at­ing an online busi­ness, this would be great, but as a reg­u­lar con­sumer, I don’t see any advan­tages here. After all, I already avoid sales tax by shop­ping online; and I’m not going to vio­late tax laws.
On top of this, my favorite online retail­ers don’t accept Bit­coin; so why exactly should I start using it?
How­ever, if one is doing some­thing ille­gal, then Bit­coin would seem to be more use­ful. As has been reported, Bit­coin has been used to sell ille­gal drugs online. Now, Bit­coin sup­port­ers claim that this is over­hyped and that these illicit deals are giv­ing Bit­coin a bad name. In real­ity, I see this as the only com­par­a­tive advan­tage of this cur­rency. Sure, one can still be tracked with Bit­coin, but it would be harder than a trans­fer from a credit card or bank account.
But since I have no inten­tion of buy­ing drugs online or off, the cur­rency is worth­less to me. So what’s the point?

...Bit­coin doesn’t offer any­thing unique....