​2 Points - 

First - All US Bank Notes are owned by the Federal Reserve Bank, not the person holding them.  That means that they the FED can at any time (and routinely do) devalue them independent of any other private investment considerations.  

Second - They are backed by debt (public) which is owned by others.  So they are actually worth less (We the US owe 17.5 trillion currently).

So all you are carrying around in your wallet is your own proof that you own a piece of the debt.  Or in other words you are carrying your own debt around in your wallet that despite anything you do to the contrary is being consistently devalued by an entity and others who are entirely out of your control to effect.  Investment is all about risk management, entry and exit to the market. None of us have any ability to manage the risk of the worth of what is in our wallets.

All other things being equal, availability, acceptance by a market, and use to convert into other things, in theory Bitcoins actually have more value.  

Just Saying.


On Thu, Mar 20, 2014 at 3:17 PM, Eric Cope <eric.cope@gmail.com> wrote:
people investing in Bitcoin are nuts. 



On Thu, Mar 20, 2014 at 3:15 PM, Paul Mooring <paul@getchef.com> wrote:
I find this to be a rather interesting view point.  Paper money is generally used for something vastly different than the primary reason people want bit coins.  Paper money (or digital money on a debit card/bank account) is a stand in for wealth, it's value is meant to be fairly static and fluctuations in it's value are consider inflation of the economy as a whole.  That's why it's the primary vehicle used for trade, it's sole purpose to to facilitate in the transferring of already accumulated wealth.

Bitcoin on the other hand is generally desired more as an investment (without making judgements on how prudent of an investment it is, you more than likely would desire bitcoin because you hope it will be worth a larger portion of overall wealth in the future).  With this in mind, saying "what good is it?" is the same as asking what good are non-voting shares of a public company.  If you have non-voting shares in say APPL or GOOG, the fact that you can't reasonably trade them for food doesn't make them devoid of value.  Also the fact that the value of those shares fluctuate independent of the economy/dollar is the only reason you would want them at all.

I don't particularly think bitcoin is worth investing in, but regardless of it's original intent it's mostly used as an investment now.


On Thu, Mar 20, 2014 at 2:16 PM, Eric Cope <eric.cope@gmail.com> wrote:
just an FYI - there is no intrinsic value in paper money either... Its only value is that others will accept it for trade with goods... they only accept it for the same reason. Gold coins have intrinsic value (gold is used in electronic components and jewelry). 

Bit Coins are a fiat currency, just like federal reserve notes. The only difference, is there is a maximum number of coins that can exist (not so with federal reserve notes), and they aren't backed by debt...

Eric


On Thu, Mar 20, 2014 at 12:42 PM, Mike Bushroe <mbushroe@gmail.com> wrote:
"what good is it? "  Finally, a useful comment on cryptocurrency. When all is said and done, it is just a pattern of magnetic fields in a thin film of magnetic material. Now, you can say the same thing for the work I do. Looked at in simplest, physical terms, I get paid to make patterns of tiny magnetic fields on films on disks. But that patterns that I help make reduce down to new programs or firmware to make our customer's equipment work better, designs for new, better hardware or equipment, instructions on how to use our hardware and/or software. In short, for our customers at least, the patterns do reduce down to something of real, intrinsic value, and the amount of value is determined by the quality of the pattern of magnetic fields.

But in a bitcoin or other cryptocurrency, although the pattern of magnetic fields is designed so that no one else can copy it and claim whatever value it has for me, the pattern has no meaning, use, or value other than proclaim that it is. Bitcoins have value only because people think they are cute or fun or whatever, and are willing to trade things of real value for them. And even pieces of paper with patterns of ink on them have real value in this sense, because so many, many people will gladly trade them for items that are of intrinsic value. If suddenly people lost interest in buying bitcoins (fraud, scandal, etc), then there would be no bottom to the real world value of those patterns of magnetic fields, because they don't correspond to anything of intrinsic value. Accept maybe the ones where you generate special sequences of prime numbers to mine the coins. The sequence of primes may have some slight value to mathematicians. Or maybe not.

So if you want to have fun with virtual money and have grown tired of playing with Monopoly money, then bitcoins may be something to play with. But you are not likely to see me exchanging real money for patterns of magnetic fields that do nothing more than proclaim that they are patterns of magnetic fields.

[/soap box]

Mike
 
From: Michael Havens <bmike1@gmail.com>
To: Main PLUG discussion list <plug-discuss@lists.phxlinux.org>
Cc: 
Date: Wed, 19 Mar 2014 17:04:38 -0700
Subject: Re: bitcoin mining
never mind.... I just looked at their 'market place'. I think that it probably is going nowhere. I mean if you can't buy food what good is it?

:-)~MIKE~(-:


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