[2018-06-18] Swiss bank likens crypto to collecting 'beanie babies or Tamagotchi

[ruthbabe]

BITCOIN was stung by criticism from the influential Swiss-based Bank for International Settlements today after the global finance authority released a paper claiming that bitcoin has no real value and is bad for the environment as the bank condemned the crypto for slow and expensive transactions. 

The paper, 'Cryptocurrencies: looking beyond the hype' takes on the main branches of concern for bitcoin and cryptocurrencies - namely its lack of users, its scaling problems, the cost of transactions and the massive amount of energy that it uses.

Top economic theorist and financial economist Hyun Song Shin argues in an accompanying video that bitcoin quite simply does not have enough users to be considered successful as a currency.

He said: “Money has value because it has users. Without users it would simply be a worthless token,” likening virtual coins to baseball cards, beanie babies and Tamagotchi.

More, https://www.express.co.uk/finance/city/975729/Bitcoin-price-ripple-cryptocurrency-ethereum-BTC-to-USD-XRP-news-International-Settlements

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[hatshepsut93]

He said: “Money has value because it has users. Without users it would simply be a worthless token,” likening virtual coins to baseball cards, beanie babies and Tamagotchi.

Well, he is kinda right here, he just doesn't want to face the fact that Bitcoin has users, has community, that adoption keeps growing and its technology keeps improving to attract even more users in the future. But a lot of altcoins are indeed "worthless tokens", because they don't have users, don't have any fundamentals to attract more users and way less secure than those big established cryptos.

[Harlot]

Going into his line of thinking I think that everything he said has "value" because everythng he mentioned has users. Baseball Cards have collectors and fans as users therefore this baseball cards have value (some of it even are worth more than 10,000$). Tamagotchi has users as well, even though it does not have a collector's value during its hype a lot of people are getting entertained with it. Cryptocurrencies on the other hand has value because there are three kinds of users benefiting from it the traders, miners, as well as the consumers sometimes the user can be more than one kind. With a lot of different kind of users I don't see why he think that Bitcoin only has value because of hype.

[darkangel11]

Somebody should ask them to explain this "real value". Real means it's exchangeable for tangible goods and services, which means BTC is very real, unlike their promises. All promises based on the word of a banker are meaningless because whether their bank goes under or not depends on many factors, most of which are completely beyond them and their board of directors. And all this while Switzerland is so pro crypto. Their government must have another idea of "real value

[milewilda]

He said: “Money has value because it has users. Without users it would simply be a worthless token,” likening virtual coins to baseball cards, beanie babies and Tamagotchi.

I had remembered by adolescent days when this line reminds me off tamagotchi. lol I dont know where they do get out this kind of comparing of bitcoin into those things being mentioned. I do see some key points on here which is indeed true but the difference can really be seen which cant really be compared into any physical things. Bitcoin has a big community and thinking off on losing users wont really be that easy and if it does then it would still takes time but well it would just still switch of into another coin so its all the same.