[Paul Mooring]

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 at 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 at 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 at gmail.com>
>>> To: Main PLUG discussion list <plug-discuss at 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~(-:
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>> "Creativity is intelligence having fun." -- Albert Einstein
>>
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-- 
Paul Mooring
Operations Engineer
Chef
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