Money is usually debt; Debt is slavery; Bitcoin is neither debt nor slavery.

[Jon]

If you were to pay off all of the debt in the world, there would be no fiat cash, period. Every dollar that is printed (digital or otherwise) is owned as collateral by the shareholders of the central bank that print it, plus interest.

The money is given value by legal tender laws; ergo, people have to accept it for all debts. To add salt to the wound, you don't even own the money you hold. It can be garnished and deleted by inflation. It's only of value to you by the contractual license of force: If you incur a debt, you can force the currency down your debtor's throat with a policeman by your side.

With Bitcoin, it only has value on a voluntary-basis. People will not take it because they have to but because they want to and choose to do so. To me, that's the most valuable thing about Bitcoin as a digital currency and why it's growth will be exponential: It's growth will come from the will of the people and not coercion.

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[drakahn]

+1

I hate money, and i love bitcoins

[da2ce7]

Um... Money is just a unit of accounting for transferring value between people and corporations.
The question is what sort of money you are using…

[FreeMoney]

If you were to pay off all of the debt in the world, there would be no fiat cash, period. Every dollar that is printed (digital or otherwise) is owned as collateral by the shareholders of the central bank that print it, plus interest.

The money is given value by legal tender laws; ergo, people have to accept it for all debts. To add salt to the wound, you don't even own the money you hold. It can be garnished and deleted by inflation. It's only of value to you by the contractual license of force: If you incur a debt, you can force the currency down your debtor's throat with a policeman by your side.

Where would all the paper go?

My brother owes me 30 million bitcoins. Does this affect you or bitcoin?

With Bitcoin, it only has value on a voluntary-basis. People will not take it because they have to but because they want to and choose to do so. To me, that's the most valuable thing about Bitcoin as a digital currency and why it's growth will be exponential: It's growth will come from the will of the people and not coercion.

I agree.

[johnyj]

True, the central banks own the money, and they legally own the work of the rest of the people. Of course they do not have any intention to spend those money for their private use, they must have the overview for the whole country, this is a critical requirement for central bank

Since money has lots of use (a world without a stable currency will have so many transaction problems), as long as central banks make sure the money keeps its value (low inflation), there will be no complain

BTC network also tries to become a central bank, but due to its constant supply nature, if the economy grows (amount tradable goods/services increase), BTC supply kept no change, price will fall (deflation), it's actually discourage economy growth if used as a currency

And here is something very interesting:
If a society get very high jobless rate and all those jobless people do not have enough money to spend, they will tends to create their own money and grow their own economy

If 20% of people in the country do not have enough money to buy food, and some of them have the ability to produce food but can not sell to market, due to they can not compete with cheap and high quality products generated from highly automated product lines, they can still produce food and sell to other people who produce other similar products, by using another currency

For example, a bread produced by big super market cost 1$, while the bread produced by a private people A can cost 4$, so A has no way to sell his product due to higher cost, and does not have any possibility to earn any income. However, another people B also doesn't have possibility to sell home growned cucumber at $4, but he can exchange his extra cucumber with A to get some bread, thus they need some kind of currency to facilitate their trading (they do not have dollar, if they have, they will buy bread and cucumber from super market at a price of 1$), that's where BTC fits in

[Phinnaeus Gage]

If you were to pay off all of the debt in the world, there would be no fiat cash, period. Every dollar that is printed (digital or otherwise) is owned as collateral by the shareholders of the central bank that print it, plus interest.

The money is given value by legal tender laws; ergo, people have to accept it for all debts. To add salt to the wound, you don't even own the money you hold. It can be garnished and deleted by inflation. It's only of value to you by the contractual license of force: If you incur a debt, you can force the currency down your debtor's throat with a policeman by your side.

With Bitcoin, it only has value on a voluntary-basis. People will not take it because they have to but because they want to and choose to do so. To me, that's the most valuable thing about Bitcoin as a digital currency and why it's growth will be exponential: It's growth will come from the will of the people and not coercion.

+1

For some reason, I've enjoyed reading this post by Atlas, albeit he got his "its" and "it's" crossed a couple times. Keep up the good postings, /A/.

~Bruno~

[hazek]

as long as central banks make sure the money keeps its value (low inflation), there will be no complain

Sir, that's a contradiction: low inflation != money keeping it's value

An inflation of 3% will HALF the purchasing power of your money in just 23.3 years! Inflation of 7% in 10 years, 10% in 7 years, 15% in 4.66 years, how is that money keeping it's value?

What central banks merely ATTEMPT to do is to keep the devaluation orderly. That's what stable inflation is.

[hazek]

price will fall (deflation), it's actually discourage economy growth if used as a currency

Sir this is a deflationary fallacy proven by historic evidence of the industrial revolution amidst a long period of gradually falling prices and money gaining purchasing power.

[evoorhees]

Debt is not slavery.

If I borrow money from someone, whether dollars or Bitcoins, I am in debt. But in no way am I a slave, I'm merely obligated to fulfill a voluntary contract. If debt is slavery, so too is employment, ordering chinese food, purchasing insurance, and marriage (some might argue with this last point

Why won't this phrase go away??

[hazek]

And here is something very interesting:
If a society get very high jobless rate and all those jobless people do not have enough money to spend, they will tends to create their own money and grow their own economy

If 20% of people in the country do not have enough money to buy food, and some of them have the ability to produce food but can not sell to market, due to they can not compete with cheap and high quality products generated from highly automated product lines, they can still produce food and sell to other people who produce other similar products, by using another currency

For example, a bread produced by big super market cost 1$, while the bread produced by a private people A can cost 4$, so A has no way to sell his product due to higher cost, and does not have any possibility to earn any income. However, another people B also doesn't have possibility to sell home growned cucumber at $4, but he can exchange his extra cucumber with A to get some bread, thus they need some kind of currency to facilitate their trading (they do not have dollar, if they have, they will buy bread and cucumber from super market at a price of 1$), that's where BTC fits in

Sir, it is obvious to me by reading your post that you have:

a) no idea what money is
b) no idea how money originally came about
c) no idea what role it was intended to originally fulfill
d) no idea what is a good money

I suggest you start learning by watching an introductory video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vowbrq_g5NM

[hazek]

Debt is not slavery.

Debt is slavery if the lender created the loan out of thin air and is charging you interest on it. Play this game long enough and you will become the lenders actual slave.

[joe82]

; Bitcoin is neither debt nor slavery....
nor money 

[cbeast]

; Bitcoin is neither debt nor slavery....
nor money 

It may not be currency, but it is money. Money is nothing but a medium of exchange for anything of value. Bitcoin has always had value, even when it took 10k BTC to buy pizza.

[benjamindees]

It may not be currency, but it is money. Money is nothing but a medium of exchange for anything of value. Bitcoin has always had value, even when it took 10k BTC to buy pizza.

Your definition of money is incomplete in my opinion.  But what definition of currency are you using for which Bitcoin doesn't qualify?

[lonelyminer (Peter Šurda)]

It may not be currency, but it is money. Money is nothing but a medium of exchange for anything of value. Bitcoin has always had value, even when it took 10k BTC to buy pizza.

Money is the most common medium of exchange, the most liquid good.

[westkybitcoins]

Debt is not slavery.

If I borrow money from someone, whether dollars or Bitcoins, I am in debt. But in no way am I a slave, I'm merely obligated to fulfill a voluntary contract. If debt is slavery, so too is employment, ordering chinese food, purchasing insurance, and marriage (some might argue with this last point

Why won't this phrase go away??

Because it's culturally entrenched. Here's the origin of it:

Proverbs 22:7 - The rich ruleth over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender.

Like it or not, that's going to continue to be the perspective of many people for a long time. Myself, I understand the meaning; I have no problem with it.

[hashman]

If you were to pay off all of the debt in the world, there would be no fiat cash, period. Every dollar that is printed (digital or otherwise) is owned as collateral by the shareholders of the central bank that print it, plus interest.

Are you telling me you know the history of every dollar created?  I don't think so.  We have no way to know about every dollar that is printed, other than to trust a random guy on the forums to tell us or some other economist who has a fancy degree and knows a secret handshake to tell us.  Maybe somebody at the bank made a mistake and added 5 zeros to your account balance, creating dollars which are not backed by your debt.  Better go check, because it's very illegal not to report that and you can be damn sure that nobody would ever break the law for short term personal gain. 

[/quote]

The money is given value by legal tender laws; ergo, people have to accept it for all debts. To add salt to the wound, you don't even own the money you hold. It can be garnished and deleted by inflation. It's only of value to you by the contractual license of force: If you incur a debt, you can force the currency down your debtor's throat with a policeman by your side.

With Bitcoin, it only has value on a voluntary-basis. People will not take it because they have to but because they want to and choose to do so. To me, that's the most valuable thing about Bitcoin as a digital currency and why it's growth will be exponential: It's growth will come from the will of the people and not coercion.

Yes, good points there, this is an attractive feature.  Personally I think the killer app feature of bitcoin is that monetary supply fraud (e.g. counterfeiting) is not just illegal but impossible.   

[MoneyIsDebt]

Money is debt.

[Matthew N. Wright]

Debt is not slavery.

If I borrow money from someone, whether dollars or Bitcoins, I am in debt. But in no way am I a slave, I'm merely obligated to fulfill a voluntary contract. If debt is slavery, so too is employment, ordering chinese food, purchasing insurance, and marriage (some might argue with this last point

Why won't this phrase go away??

Because people like Atlas have never had actual businesses before and don't understand the difference between good debt and bad debt.

[Jon]

Debt is not slavery.

If I borrow money from someone, whether dollars or Bitcoins, I am in debt. But in no way am I a slave, I'm merely obligated to fulfill a voluntary contract. If debt is slavery, so too is employment, ordering chinese food, purchasing insurance, and marriage (some might argue with this last point

Why won't this phrase go away??

Because people like Atlas have never had actual businesses before and don't understand the difference between good debt and bad debt.

A debt more than you can afford to lose is bad debt.