I have seen the light

[Peter Lambert]

Oh so the contest was on BITCOIN forum, I like how you excluded that from your original post.

I didn't think it really mattered; I was not making a point about the contest, I was saying how it was easy, quick, and cheap to send a bunch of payments simultaneously to diverse recipients.

Paypal has no fee though and funds appear instantly and also participants can easily spend them, so why bitcoin was better FOR THIS PARTICULAR PURPOSE?

I do not have a paypal account. For me, using bitcoins is therefore easier.

[notme]

Oh so the contest was on BITCOIN forum, I like how you excluded that from your original post.

I didn't think it really mattered; I was not making a point about the contest, I was saying how it was easy, quick, and cheap to send a bunch of payments simultaneously to diverse recipients.

Paypal has no fee though and funds appear instantly and also participants can easily spend them, so why bitcoin was better FOR THIS PARTICULAR PURPOSE?

Unless you are legitimately giving a gift, PayPal has fairly high fees.  If you misuse the gift option you expose yourself to having your PayPal account and its balance frozen for up to six months.

[johnyj]

The acceptance of gold as a common medium of transaction is a slow and time-consuming natural selection process by different people at different location, finally the consensus is reached (because of many unique properties of gold) and gold was selected by the powerful entities to make mint

Just like gold, the acceptance of bitcoin as a medium of transaction is also reached through a consensus, but it took much less time due to the internet, and that consensus is much more advanced than the consensus of gold, due to people's IT and finance knowledge have much more improved over time

Actually the reason that gold standard was abandonded is because people's consensus of the value of fiat money has stablized and even the gold is removed from backing those fiat, the value of fiat still kept intact

The value of a currency is decided by a consensus, so if people have reached a consensus that one satoshi worth one dollar, then it just worth that much. How to reach that consensus? Not through market force, but through study and thinking

Just like gold, bitcoin is a culture, the most advanced and influence culture so far in human history

[crumbs]

[...pretty much agree...]
The value of a currency is decided by a consensus, so if people have reached a consensus that one satoshi worth one dollar, then it just worth that much. How to reach that consensus? Not through market force, but through study and thinking
...

[Cyberdyne]

I do not have a paypal account. For me, using bitcoins is therefore easier.

+1

p.s. I have seen the light and I have also seen the 'lite'

[johnyj]

[...pretty much agree...]
The value of a currency is decided by a consensus, so if people have reached a consensus that one satoshi worth one dollar, then it just worth that much. How to reach that consensus? Not through market force, but through study and thinking
...

No one teach the knowledge about money in school, no books tell either, most of the people have zero knowledge about money and how it works

Some common misconceptions:
1. Saving now is for spending in future
The truth: One could save a billion but still do not spend them even when he die, it never hurt to have more savings, as long as his living standard is enough high

2. More money supply will cause inflation
Truth: FED printed 400% more money but there are no inflation, since the value of USD is a consensus, not affected by supply and demand (at least in +-1 magnitude of supply)

3. Money is not wealth
Truth: Money is wealth, if you can exchange money for any wealth, then it is the ultimate form of wealth

Because the demand for saving is endless and bitcoin is the most credible form of wealth with limited supply, in principle its exchange price will rise forever to hold forever increasing saving


This is just one of many possibilities

[Peter Lambert]

2. More money supply will cause inflation
Truth: FED printed 400% more money but there are no inflation, since the value of USD is a consensus, not affected by supply and demand (at least in +-1 magnitude of supply)

Base money is just part of the system. There is also all the debt money floating around. Because of fractional reserve lending, there can be orders of magnitude more money than there is base currency. This means two things: first that doubling the base money supply will have a much smaller effect on the whole system than you might think (M0 1-->2 is 100%, but M2 10-->11 is just 10%), and changes in the level of debt money can be the driving factor of the inflation/deflation rate (M0 1-->2 is inflating 100%, but if debts are massively defaulted you could be going from M2 10-->5 for a total of 50% deflation).

[johnyj]

2. More money supply will cause inflation
Truth: FED printed 400% more money but there are no inflation, since the value of USD is a consensus, not affected by supply and demand (at least in +-1 magnitude of supply)

Base money is just part of the system. There is also all the debt money floating around. Because of fractional reserve lending, there can be orders of magnitude more money than there is base currency. This means two things: first that doubling the base money supply will have a much smaller effect on the whole system than you might think (M0 1-->2 is 100%, but M2 10-->11 is just 10%), and changes in the level of debt money can be the driving factor of the inflation/deflation rate (M0 1-->2 is inflating 100%, but if debts are massively defaulted you could be going from M2 10-->5 for a total of 50% deflation).

Exactly. The money supply and price level do not have direct relationship due to the existance of credit money and the change in money velocity, a sentiment change in economy environment will have a huge impact on people's spending/saving pattern, thus create lots of volatilities in money supply. Since the value of the currency is mostly accepted as a constant by consensus (unit of counting), the money supply becomes a variable, but this is not how a market should work, it is price manipulation at groud level, and distributed the wealth to those close to the money printer

[freedomno1]

Well the ultimate mission for usability
Is to ensure even grandma can use it

No one teach the knowledge about money in school, no books tell either, most of the people have zero knowledge about money and how it works

That is a sad truth

[lophie]

Well the ultimate mission for usability
Is to ensure even grandma can use it

No one teach the knowledge about money in school, no books tell either, most of the people have zero knowledge about money and how it works

That is a sad truth

Don't worry, When Bitcoin is full blown and one would worth hundreds of thousands of dollars it would be easy to use as you would be a grandad .

Just kidding, Bitcoin is the future <3

[crumbs]

[...pretty much agree...]
The value of a currency is decided by a consensus, so if people have reached a consensus that one satoshi worth one dollar, then it just worth that much. How to reach that consensus? Not through market force, but through study and thinking
...

No one teach the knowledge about money in school, no books tell either, most of the people have zero knowledge about money and how it works

Some common misconceptions:
1. Saving now is for spending in future
The truth: One could save a billion but still do not spend them even when he die, it never hurt to have more savings, as long as his living standard is enough high

2. More money supply will cause inflation
Truth: FED printed 400% more money but there are no inflation, since the value of USD is a consensus, not affected by supply and demand (at least in +-1 magnitude of supply)

3. Money is not wealth
Truth: Money is wealth, if you can exchange money for any wealth, then it is the ultimate form of wealth

Because the demand for saving is endless and bitcoin is the most credible form of wealth with limited supply, in principle its exchange price will rise forever to hold forever increasing saving


This is just one of many possibilities

Funny.  I agree with everything you say except your conclusion.  Yes, the current value of all currency has been reached by consensus.  Education can only upset that consensus, undermine people's faith in money & send world's economies into a tailspin.  Bitcoin is no exception to the rule -- more than any other currency, its value is determined by consensus.  I don't have to reach further than MtGox charts to prove the point.  Faith in Bitcoin waxes & wanes -- click on http://bitcoin.clarkmoody.com/ to see how often & how much. 

"In principle [Bitcoin's] exchange price will rise forever" is simply false.  If your "usability & limited supply" argument proves anything, it proves way too much:  it proves that *any alt coin's exchange price will rise forever*.

[lophie]

Behold the brother that will revive the church of Satoshi!

[pgbit]

Being rare and useful gives something value.

bitcoins are rare and useful.  

^ about to become rarer

[johnyj]

Funny.  I agree with everything you say except your conclusion.  Yes, the current value of all currency has been reached by consensus.  Education can only upset that consensus, undermine people's faith in money & send world's economies into a tailspin.  Bitcoin is no exception to the rule -- more than any other currency, its value is determined by consensus.  I don't have to reach further than MtGox charts to prove the point.  Faith in Bitcoin waxes & wanes -- click on http://bitcoin.clarkmoody.com/ to see how often & how much. 

"In principle [Bitcoin's] exchange price will rise forever" is simply false.  If your "usability & limited supply" argument proves anything, it proves way too much:  it proves that *any alt coin's exchange price will rise forever*.

There are also culture and history factors in the acceptance of one medium as a currency. Platinum never replaced gold as a medium of exchange, although it has more superier properties than gold

[lophie]

Funny.  I agree with everything you say except your conclusion.  Yes, the current value of all currency has been reached by consensus.  Education can only upset that consensus, undermine people's faith in money & send world's economies into a tailspin.  Bitcoin is no exception to the rule -- more than any other currency, its value is determined by consensus.  I don't have to reach further than MtGox charts to prove the point.  Faith in Bitcoin waxes & wanes -- click on http://bitcoin.clarkmoody.com/ to see how often & how much. 

"In principle [Bitcoin's] exchange price will rise forever" is simply false.  If your "usability & limited supply" argument proves anything, it proves way too much:  it proves that *any alt coin's exchange price will rise forever*.

There are also culture and history factors in the acceptance of one medium as a currency. Platinum never replaced gold as a medium of exchange, although it has more superier properties than gold

I see. So why did gold replaced sheep as a currency and is this Platinum thing transferable over the internet?

[crumbs]

Funny.  I agree with everything you say except your conclusion.  Yes, the current value of all currency has been reached by consensus.  Education can only upset that consensus, undermine people's faith in money & send world's economies into a tailspin.  Bitcoin is no exception to the rule -- more than any other currency, its value is determined by consensus.  I don't have to reach further than MtGox charts to prove the point.  Faith in Bitcoin waxes & wanes -- click on http://bitcoin.clarkmoody.com/ to see how often & how much. 

"In principle [Bitcoin's] exchange price will rise forever" is simply false.  If your "usability & limited supply" argument proves anything, it proves way too much:  it proves that *any alt coin's exchange price will rise forever*.

There are also culture and history factors in the acceptance of one medium as a currency. Platinum never replaced gold as a medium of exchange, although it has more superier properties than gold

Neither one of us is arguing that gold was chosen because of its qualities.  Consensus, remember?  Same goes for Bitcoin & CopyCoin.  Except neither Bitcoin nor CopyCoin have "culture & history" to fall back on, but ... irrelevant.  

[bitcoinbear]

Bitcoins would be able to maintain a price if there was an actual economy utilizing them. I have not been impressed by any of the sites selling stuff for bitcoins, most are very unprofessional. There is still much growing to do to have bitcoin be a viable currency.

I don't think there really needs to be an "economy" built around bitcoin for it to continue rising. There are clearly use cases already  in place, like how S.MG on MPEx just raised the equivalent of a million dollars in their IPO. Bitcoin can do just fine serving the tech savvy and the financiers of the world.

You just said that bitcoins will rise because *everybody* is going to be using them, and now you are saying they will keep going up if it is just the smart and rich who use them?

[axefrog]

^ but what is bitcoin backed by 

I don't think you understand what you're even asking; you're just parroting what you've heard other objectionists say. The importance of being "backed" by something is so that it is anchored to something that we *know* has value, based on its inherent utility and finite supply, thus ensuring that the currency always holds a consistent value and can be relied upon as an agreed value exchange mechanism.

Bitcoin doesn't quite follow the traditional currency story though, because its utility and finite supply is built in, thus obviating the need for it to be backed by some other commodity of value. It is in this way that we can say that it is backed by mathematics, cryptography and the internet, which are the foundation of its usefulness and limited supply.

[zachcope]

Bitcoin is backed by:
Distributed trust
Ease of transactions
Hardcoded rarity

The past decade has shown how centralising any of the above leads to misallocation of resources and disincentivises real investment and saving.
The people will see this before the banksters and government.

SatoshiSatoshiSatoshiOmmmmm

[wachtwoord]

Okay, this conversation has indeed happened many times so I'm going to provide you with some reading material instead because Erik Voorhees has worded it all quite nicely.

Firstly, Bitcoin  - The Libertarian Introduction (April 11th, 2012): http://evoorhees.blogspot.nl/2012/04/bitcoin-libertarian-introduction.html
Secondly, Bitcoin 2013 – The Role of Bitcoin as Money (May 23rd, 2013): http://evoorhees.blogspot.nl/2013/05/bitcoin-2013-role-of-bitcoin-as-money.html

Please continue the discussion after reading both of those

Listen, how about we cut to the chase:  I'll paste a couple of links to counter your couple of links, and then our links can take the conversation from there, deal?

Listen, these aren't merely links, these are two high quality easy to understand essays on the matter. Re-discussing this would require a very long topic and likely not get the point across judging by your posts.

If you are too lazy to read those articles, I'm too lazy to explain this further to you as I don't think you deserve to have the opportunity to benefit from this knowledge.

See you in a few years.