On Sat, 25 Feb 2012 13:36:50 +1000 "James A. Donald" <jam...@echeque.com> wrote:
> On 2012-02-25 12:53 PM, ianG wrote: > > It is also a singular lesson in the emotive power of cryptography > > to encourage large numbers of people to hash their intelligent > > thought processes. What we are seeing is otherwise rational people > > invest much time & effort into what amounts to a ponzi or bubble > > or pyramid scheme. > > As Moldbug says, money is a bubble that never deflates. > > Fact is, you can buy stuff today with Bitcoin. Its value is not in > that people hope that tomorrow they can exchange it for more, but > that today they can exchange it for something. You left out, "...and that they can eventually exchange it for their nation's currency." The demand for Bitcoin as a currency is driven by its properties as a digital cash system; people still need to get their nation's currency at some point (e.g. to pay their taxes, to repay debts, to satisfy requirements imposed by courts, etc.). Unfortunately, rather than bill Bitcoin as a system for making online payments, people have been billing Bitcoin as a way to escape unpopular laws and regulations, unpopular financial institutions, and as a cure-all for fears about governments mismanaging their currency. That is where the alarms should start going off -- whenever someone promises a cure-all for anything, you know they are either deluded or trying to take advantage of you. Given the cycle we saw with Bitcoin, where lots of media attention allowed early adopters to sell tokens for big profits, I suspect it is the latter. -- Ben -- Benjamin R Kreuter UVA Computer Science brk...@virginia.edu KK4FJZ -- "If large numbers of people are interested in freedom of speech, there will be freedom of speech, even if the law forbids it; if public opinion is sluggish, inconvenient minorities will be persecuted, even if laws exist to protect them." - George Orwell
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