I would love to see more development with this!

Going somewhere and using your bitcoins to eat is huge. There is a forum topic even now asking If you couldnt buy or sell BTC, what would you do with them?

The real point of bitcoins is not to simply change them to other currencies. The point is to use them directly for goods and services. Even the recent FinCEN guidance says doing so is not subject to regulation. The reason people exchange them so heavily now is because most goods and services can only be purchased with dollars or other fiat.

I actually did have a sort of restaurant idea I think would be big. Anyone feel free to do it. It's not really a restaurant so much as a WiFi hotspot. I think people would love a place that simply had plenty of electric outlets and wifi available where they could jump on the Internet with their laptop. You wouldn't need fancy expensive decor, just have a clean building space. Then offer some simple (profitable) snack/food choices, maybe something like soup and cheese rolls. Let people pay with BTC and you're sure to be a hit!

Except that it's not.

I never said it was the same. I'm suggesting in terms of market choice there are similarities.

We don't need to. Gold to silver value ratio varies too.

It is? The dollars in your pocket don't hold any value?


I didn't say it was. I did say value is speculative and subjective.


I don't disagree.


This happens with centralized issuers, and I believe is a key reason people call Ripple a scam.


Gold doesn't have this problem.


On a large enough scale so as to challenge centrally issued fiat I believe that's true.

It's interesting you put it that way.

Actually all money is a speculative play. That's why it's problematic historically.

When you accept something not generally used or consumed, but instead for the purpose of later exchange for something you value, i.e. money, you speculate it will hold near a certain measure of value. You don't know that it will, but you can have reason to believe it will.

This is what makes fiat money dangerous. Unless it's backed by something with a long history of holding value, like gold, then the only reason for believing it will hold value rests with the government decreeing it has value. Unfortunately due to government tendencies this has been disastrous historically resulting in hyperinflation, rapid loss of fiat value, and people becoming poor overnight.


I find this also funny. For what reason do you think the majority of people who buy bitcoins do so?

I get the feeling you think the only people that would seek any crypto-coin other than bitcoin are people desperately trying to be an early enough adopter to get rich.

I'm sure there are some like that, just as there are with bitcoins. However, I didn't start supporting Litecoin for that reason. Indeed, I pretty much ignored alt-coins until the uproar over the announcement of Bitcoin Foundation. What I witnessed and realized was that there could be strongly irreconcilable opinions about things affecting Bitcoin, even to the point of threatening the project entirely. Bitcoin relies on the free market, and I believe is actually a product of it. What dawned on me was there was and could in the future be severe market pressures bottled up within Bitcoin. A market without choice is dysfunctional because dissatisfaction goes unanswered. I believed Litecoin, which had the most traction of alts at the time, could provide an adequate pressure release valve, so to speak.


Yes it does. If you suddenly become the sole Coke drinker it will cease being profitable and cease to be made available.


Bitcoin's value is subjective. As I said above people speculate about the value of all forms of money.


That's true of all money as well.

The truth is as long as at least one other person values a thing, the thing can serve as money. Litecoin, or any other alt-coin, doesn't have to have a market size equal to Bitcoin to be considered a success; the market can be larger, smaller, or commensurate. The point is I discovered a reason for such a market to exist. Until that time I didn't see why anyone might prefer an alternative to Bitcoin.


No.

I disagree. Occam's razor. The most common sense thing to any person is to read the text only for what it says.


Okay, but how many ways can you interpret the following:

No State shall make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts

It depends on what you mean by living document. If you only mean amending the Constitution yes that is constitutional, but "living document" would not be the right way to refer to this process:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Living_document

I agree, but that's why you try to write laws clearly, and why it's up to citizens, as always, to have final oversight.

I'm not certain. As I mention above I also believe in a constructionist reading:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strict_constructionism

That's what I said in my reply, but let me reword it for clarity:

The rules don't change except with Constitutional amendment.

That's why you use a constructionist reading:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strict_constructionism

Nonsense. The rules don't change.

If they do then what's the use of having rules in the first place?

You abide by the rules, and if you need the rules to change there is a constitutional process for doing that called amending the Constitution. What's so hard to understand about that?

owenprescott, it appears you're from the U.K. You do realize you're commenting on an American political discussion.

Fair enough.

You have a political quote, and hanging around this place it's easy to get the feeling all Bitcoin enthusiasts are anti-government.

It's not that. Bitcoin enthusiasts, which are often libertarian, are not necessarily anti-government/anti-taxes. They just want a government that plays by the rules, and the one thing all Americans should agree on is Constitutional rules are the ones which ultimately matter.

Amen to that! It sounds like you're ready to become a bitcoin user

I agree. But I think you're misunderstanding what that means.

Libertarians are not against paying taxes. They are however against being forced to pay unconstitutional taxes. Bitcoin can be taxed, just as an economy that runs on gold can.

Defending a free government doesn't mean you must enlist in the military, because a government might only be free in appearance.

Rather, truly defending a free government means being involved politically and if necessary militarily to ensure your government remains free. The arbiter of that is the U.S. Constitution. Wouldn't you agree?

@SEC agent - you do understand your George Washington quote offers a libertarian endorsement don't you? It's saying ordinary people should be involved in defending a free government. Bitcoin represents the interests of ordinary people and liberty. So....

Exactly.

That's why I said this back in October 2012 when Litecoin was at $0.04:

I completely agree.