On 19-Jun-11, at 1:10 AM, Eugen Leitl wrote:
[snip]
On Sun, Jun 19, 2011 at 12:10:08AM +0530, Sirtaj Singh Kang wrote:
Currencies are consensual belief systems. Bitcoin will remain
useful as long as there are no effective attacks against
the cryptosystem and/or the infrastructure, and people continue
to believe in it.
This is equally true of baseball cards.
I don't know what baseball cards are. I know a guy who's
behind the Chimgauer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_currency
which is a special case of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_currency
Baseball cards are an alternative currency based around cards on
baseball players. They can fluctuate wildly in value, since they have
no central bank controlling money supply and interest rates. There are
exchanges and everything, just like bitcoin. They are similar to Magic
the Gathering cards*, except less fun.
This piece has received enough play now that a good rebuttal is very
likely to appear. If you happen to come across one, I'd appreciate if
you'd link to it here.
If you're trying to bait me into taking down the takedown, I'm afraid
I'm insufficiently interested.
Huh?
-Taj.
* I find it interesting that the bitcoin exchange "mtgox" is
apparently an abbreviation of Magic the Gathering: Online Exchange -
clearly there are others who see the parallel between trading cards
and bitcoin.
