Bitcoin Forum

https://youtu.be/aBl-O_3g_58

The video explains how the phenomenon of representative equivalence and the myth of fiat money being just paper bills or electronic entries on the bank accounts, enabled the craziness in which people trade real things for imaginary ones. Bitcoin of course being the imaginary thing.

The video is quite good but based on lies and fundamental misconceptions. It is probably good at ludibriating people for a few hours before an expert comes in.

Bitcoins are not a digital representation of goods and services. They are digital assets (with a fixed scheduled supply that makes them scarce and useful as a medium of exchange) earned by the miners that secure the network and verify transactions.
Those miners create a valuable network and that is why they are paid.

When the paid miners put a price to sell their coins a market is created, allowing for a transfer of wealth to happen in between the market participants.

Please read the bitcoin whitepaper for a couple of hours before saying nonsense. And also please read some past threads on this forum regarding pyramid and Ponzi schemes, which unlike bitcoins are illegal everywhere. It may look a bit like those as more adoption pushes the price up but in reality very different from them. Please read a bit more.

-remotemass

Lets be honest here without Fiat Bitcoin would be worthless because 99% of people sell or trade it for Fiat money  Without it being linked to Fiat it would not have any value at all.

You could say the same for fiat, if people didn't put a value and acknowledge that value, fiat will also be worthless. I don't get why the comparison, it's not like fiat is that different in terms of putting value in it.

What is Satoshi is dead, and therefore cannot exist?

Then Satoshi's imagination only exists in your imagination. If bitcoin exists in Satoshi's imagination, and Satoshi's imagination exists in your imagination, then does your imagination exist?

If your imagination exists, bitcoin exists.

I tried watching the video for five seconds, but was confused when it ignored that car ownership is registered with the state on digital media.

That's because bitcoin's adoption rate hasn't reached a stage where you can use it everywhere you go. You have to convert it to fiat if the other party you buy from doesn't accept bitcoin. Imagine it being the other way around. If you lived in a place where everyone takes bitcoin and avoids fiat. You wouldn't have to exchange your bitcoin to USD because you can get everything you need with BTC already.

Nowhere in the video is said that "bitcoins are a digital representation of goods and services." You simply made that up. The whole point of the video is that bitcoin is imaginary things and that electronic entries in the blockchain are representations of that imaginary thing.

In the rest of the comment you talk about the management of electronic entries, which has nothing to do with the point of the video. You also describe imaginary bitcoins. I know that in people's imagination bitcoin is a lots of things. That's ok, but the video is not concerned with this. Video simply explains why bitcoins exist only in the imagination.

The blockchain ledger is not imaginary. There are real transactions between bitcoin addresses using public-key cryptography.
Look at the definition of "electronic coin" in the bitcoin whitepaper to better understand in what sense bitcoins exist.

In a sense, I agree with you. There are no coins. Only timestamped transactions that cannot double-spend funds. 
But your understanding of how it all works seems very little and poorly digested. I recommend you to study it better before saying all that deceiving nonsense.

But if that is your truth, hope you are happy with it. But be sure that Maths will not change with your poor understanding of it all.

-remotemass

Pretty wrong.

Bitcoin has value because bitcoin can surpass the limitations of the fiat. Unlimited transaction, secured funds, anonymous nature etc which has been taught over and over here.
Don't look at bitcoin as a trading instrument, because it was not meant for it. It was made so that the potential earnestness of blockchain can be explored along with its alternate use to the fiat.
Let's not forget that USD or any fiat is more or less measurable unit of the BTC. In the inverted sense, x USD = x BTC or you can also perceive it as x BTC = x USD.

Nowhere in the whitepaper, neither in bitcoin.org, is said that bitcoins are electronic entries that represent a thing. The video describes a falsely analogy between Porches and Bitcoin. It compares a guy having cars with another one who just imagines them. Then, it says that you can't have bitcoins, you just imagine them, which is wrong. I can imagine that I have 50 BTC, but the system works with proofs. If I don't provide the necessary proof, I'm an imaginator, if I do, I'm the owner. So, there's no difference with Porches and bitcoins besides intangibility!

It doesn't exist on anyone's imagination, it is just a way to transact value. An unstoppable and censorship resistant ledger of debts. Anyone who thinks that it should be evaluated can join.

Would you mind sharing with us your statistics? I'm curious to know how you calculated that ninety nine percent.

the ledger is a digital representation.. of value
and there is a way you can tell that the digital representation has value.
is because there is proof of work
yep real life costs of equipment and money to create the blockrewards(digital representations)

let me explain, and it all becomes clear
week one of bitcoin in 2009. had like 1 computer running 24/7
so them 1008 blocks that week of 50coin each means that
50,400bitcoin cost about a weeks worth of 1 pc electric (call it ~$1.75 for 50k coins)

however to make  6.25 coin today requires about 80exhash
(727,273 s19pro (at 3.25kwh = 54wat per block) = 393939.5kwh
which is at say a low of $0.04/kwh = $15.76k per block= $2521 per btc of just the electric
add in the other costs like
the physical ASIC hardware = $7k*727k asics = $5,090,911,000
                                         = $97,125 a block
                                         = $15,540 a btc
the warehouse lease=$0.30 per asic per month
                             = $50 a block
                             = $8 per btc

the labour(estimate 1 person monitoring 1k asics) = 727people *3shifts of 8 hours=. 2181
i wont bother work it out in detail but a crew of about $2181 a day = $15 a block= $2.43 a btc

so
$2521+$15540+$8+$2.43=~$18k a btc (scenario: cheapest region china 100% asic farms)
in places like america where industrial electric is say 12cent instead of 4 cent
a btc is worth ~$23k right now based on hashrate
in america/UK residential area of upto 24cent electric instead of chinese industrial 4cent
a btc is worth ~$30k

here is the thing.
if UK/america cant afford to set up cheap mining. they would rather buy bitcoin when its at the low $30k range as its cheaper to buy. and if it goes to $60k they can mine it at home cheap and get 2x profit

bitcoins market PRICE is not the underlyiing value. as each person defines value differently
EG japan and denmark think bitcoin is super cheap at $30k because their mining costs are higher

..
but getting to the point
the bitcoin ledger is not formed by just random input. its made up of actual value. by way of the PoW
much like gold has value due to the labour and mining cost of getting gold. and then the value of the supply demand of people wanting it via:
preferring to mine-to-sell(supply) or market-to-buy(demand)
and
with each new owner/holder/ they set their value based on their cost of acquiring it.(demand)

which is where the older(cheap coins) appreciate as they swap hands over time also (no one sells for a loss unless silly)
(bitcoins creator(satoshi) can sell his 2009 coins at any price and profit)
(someone buying in february 2021 wont sell at a loss)
(someone buying last week at $30k can make a bit of profit)

emphasis:
bitcoins PRICE is speculative. and separate from bitcoin underlying VALUE.. BUT THERE IS VALUE

so there is no imaginary porsche on bitcoin. and bitcoin is not zero value..
but to use an analogy. there is proof of porsche.(physical work PoW) and then people can determine their own value of what that porsche is worth depending on their own calculations of value to build one themselves or buy one
(a porsche 'kit' might be cheaper than a showroom porsche.. a porsche in one country might be different then a porsche in another.. .. but the porsce is real and has value as there is Proof of Porsche)

..
with all that said...
'market cap' is a meaningless dollar value because there are not billions of dollars in some bank holding that number up
its just a stupidly oversimplified mathematic multiplication of the current market price OF ONE coin

.. but bitcoin does have VALUE.

Fiat is nothing but a piece of paper which has a value given by the Government. Bitcoin is better than that since it's value has come out of demand and supply.
Satoshi created bitcoin but it was us who gave bitcoin it's value whereas fiat currency has a value derived by it's centralized government.


If bitcoin was imaginary why would El Salvador announce it as a legal tender and why would thousands of people hold it in their wallets.
All other cryptocurrencies are programmed as well so you basically mean that all cryptocurrencies are imaginary currencies ?
The complete analogy of representative equivalence is wrong since the derivation of bitcoin and comparison with fiat is proposed in a wrong way.
No wonder why the video doesn't have many likes.

I am not talking about definitions and other things that exists in human mind. I am talking about the fact that the thing on which the quantity (representation) in the blockchain is about residents in the imagination. You as a representation holder own no real thing. That's why you need new investors to bring you the real thing. Just like in Ponzi. The things you are talking about are irrelevant in that regard.

I am not referring to "paper" or ".org". I am referring  to reality, to facts. It is a fact  that yor address has electronic entry in the form of a number. Number that quantifies/represents the amount of bitcoins. But these bitcoins exist only in the imagination. That's the point. The "paper" and ".org", are concerned with entries/quantities/representation and their management. But they completely ignore the fact that the thing on which the representation is about exists only in the imagination.

That's an assumption. The address just represents units of debt. If two people agree that they can debt each other using this system, then they have every right to do so. Just like how dollars represent debt, Bitcoin does too. It has no difference, other than the force of the dollar usage.

If you believe that Bitcoin is an imaginary thing, then you should do this for the dollar too. Although, I believe that the word “imaginary” is subjective. I'd rather call it “intangible”.

Just because you can't see something doesn't mean that it doesn't exist and those numbers that you say that represents the amount of bitcoins means that there's existing bitcoin and that it can be represented by numbers. Your logic that bitcoin is imaginary kind of sounds like if I have a brain then how come I don't see it directly.

You're right that real and imaginary things can be represented digitally. However, the cars' analogy isn't applicable to Bitcoin. When a guy imagines he has those cars, there are a number of consequences:
- you can't use your cars;
- others don't recognize that you have those cars (because you don't);
- there's no way to verify how many cars you've imagined (what if you lied in the table?).
All these things don't hold for Bitcoin. You can use them, others can easily verify how many of them you have and recognize your ownership.
Approaching the video from a different direction, let me tell you another story of imagination. So let's say you have two blocks of gold, and you have a piece of paper which says that you own them. And then imagine there's a guy who only has a piece of paper allegedly worth two blocks of gold, but doesn't have the gold itself. The authorities imagined that worthless pieces of paper represent some value, and they let people exchange these pieces of paper for reals goods and services. And this is how the whole fiat scheme operates. And the idea of having paper bills that are tied to debt as somehow a good thing with real value is not less crazy than Bitcoin. If what you said about holders of fiat not being left with nothing were true, there wouldn't be fiat currencies which explode from hyperinflation. And suddenly it becomes very obvious how your fiat is basically worthless unless people are willing to trade it for good and services.

Everything you said is related to the representation that one holds (number), but the thing (quantified with the number) that one should own is imaginary. In stocks or fiat money you also hold numbers, that is, quantity, but the thing that you own is real - company or debt. So, blockchain number holders own imaginary coins, tokens, asset, digital gold, value, whatever. That's why they need new investors to bring them the value. Without them they are left with nothing.

False.  If it wasn't "real", I wouldn't be able to sign a message which mathematically proves I own it.  You can dispute the value of what I own as much as you like, but you can't say it isn't real.  If I can prove it exists, it's real.

Essentially, you've just found another way to rephrase the tired old cliché that Bitcoin supposedly isn't backed by anything.  And I'm not going to waste time arguing why you're an idiot for still believing that many years after it has been conclusively debunked.  This is just the latest in a long line of troll accounts from you repeating the same boring nonsense. 

You  people  are full of imagination. Bitcoin does not represent debt like dollar. There are no debtors, creditors, loan contracts, or collaterals. Bitcoin is imaginary. In your wallet you hold a number that quantifies imaginary bitcoins. That's all. Watch the video again.

Sorry, I wasn't paying attention to the video. I was too busy withdrawing my imaginary bitcoin clown money from an online bookmaker. The fact is I made a nice little profit betting on a basketball match yesterday with 2.60 odds. Luckily the mempool is empty so the imaginary withdrawal fees are almost non-existent. I need a new monitor because the old one is acting up. I will use my winnings to buy one from a local tech store that happens to accept Satoshi's daydream coins.

Good day to you sir!   

you should know that fiat is not backed by anything in comparison to BTC. if the government declares it no valuable anymore, then it's zero. but who would declare BTC to be of no value? to answer that NO ONE.

Bitcoin is created through a mathematical equation in which miners have to spend energy this at least is hard work not by just printing. the intrinsic value goes up because it's the network of users who ask/bid.

people who are anti or not happy with Bitcoin, they can make youtube as much as they like for the sake of 'youtube' content in Imaginary form or something else, actually Bitcoin has been running for 13 years, they weren't happy before Satoshi was found.

I ask you as long as you know crypto or Bitcoin whether Bitcoin as an adjective (Imaginary), the answer lies in yourself...don't watch too much youtube that leads to the discussion of the Imaginary, it can worsen your life in assessing Bitcoin.

Indeed Bitcoin is 'Imaginary' but you receive banknotes after exchanging Bitcoins and making money, in 'proven' form.

I don't think that this has anything to do with the existence of Bitcoin. It is indeed, like gold, not backed by anything.

You're closed minded. In our wallet, we hold private keys which can be used to sign transactions. There's no reason to think that the number of an output quantifies anything. It's just a balance that increases and decreases based on the transactions you sign. If we all agree that we could debt each other using that number, why should you try to stop it?

I'm still waiting a valid answer to this:

It's not about whether you can profit. All schemes are profitable for some people. It's about whether the thing that lures people to invest in the scheme is real or imaginary.

Fiat is debt, and debt is backed by loan contracts, collaterals and the equity of the banks. Please, educate yourself.

Regarding bitcoin. It is not bitcoin what is created through a mathematical equation, but a number. A number
that quantifies imaginary bitcoins. And this number is created out of thin air. Regardless of the fact that the algorithm makes the miners to show the POW, that number is still a number. And all numbers come out of thin air.

People are happy because they live in the world of  fantasy. A fantasy in which they multiply the number in the wallet with the current price in dollars and think they're rich. Dollar rich. Dollar is real asset, real debt ownership. To get that ownership they need to sell their numbers. Meaning, they need to find the whole army of new investors. But no such army exists. When the army of wallet holders start to sell, the price will drop faster than it went up. Then you'll see a lot of unhappy people. Only the minority can profit in the scheme where all profits to old investors came from funds of new investors. Hint: Ponzi.

That's a feature, not a bug.  It's kinda the whole point.  But congratulations for finally getting off the mark with some basic comprehension.

Bankruptcy is an inevitable consequence for some in a debt-based system.  It literally cannot be avoided.  A certain number of people have to fail, effectively be chewed up and spat out by the machine, in order for the system to continue to function.  

Why would we want to emulate that?

Sure some people fail. But most do not. And that's why the banking system functions globally just fine.

But you see how accusing Bitcoin of being a trap is a bit thin when you would rather model it on the existing trap that feeds on people, right?  Or perhaps you have no sense of irony.  It's honestly difficult to tell.