I have to say that to my mind bitcoin is one of the most obvious examples of how money is an abstract and in many ways arbitrary concept. Kind of the opposite of the gold buggers who want to see money at heart as something tangible and having a some kind of weird "real" worth.
Intrinsic value isn't "weird". It means that value can't as easily be set by the whims of the powerful.
In bitcoin we have some coders who have written lots of zeroes and ones and have thus created a currency out of thin air. That's quite "fiat" to my mind.
Fiat means "by decree", which carries the threat of violence to guarantee its acceptance. Bitcoin is most certainly not fiat.
Yes, there is a limited amount of what can be extracted from these zeroes and ones, but in themselves they are completely worthless. Gold actually could have some practical value in many situations where normal currencies won't work but bitcoin absolutely wouldn't.
Bitcoin isn't even close to completely worthless. I have a friend whose bitcoin stake is now worth ~30 million dollars, and it has a market cap exceeding 10 billion. Bitcoin has extrinsic value as essentially an internet ledger system that offers an easy way to transfer ledger status.
Gold is beautiful, has thousands of years of history serving as money, and confers status on men and women who wear it as jewelry.
So, when currencies de facto are like this - based on trust - I don't see any intrinsic problem in central bank fiat powers. If they abuse them the trust will disappear. Why should it be such a great sin if it works satisfactorily?
It hasn't worked satisfactorily. Half the world is living in abject poverty, the other half is subject to routine political, economic and social crises, and wealth condensation (the gap between rich and poor) is the greatest its ever been. It's not a matter of "if" but "how much" and "when" the power to create money will be used to steal vast sums of wealth from the gullible public.
What is the minus side of central bank actions if they don't automatically lead to Weimar and disastrous debasement - and I think a century should be empirical proof enought that they simply don't. They can but they don't need to and on the whole, overwhelmingly, in fact they haven't led to such disasters.
Weimar is what happens when the goose that lays the golden egg is killed, but as illustrated above that doesn't need to happen for it to be an unjust and inequitable system. And I would question your notion of what constitutes economic disaster, as well as what the root cause is.
When did gold double in price every 4 months for 5 years?
. You guys ought to be ashamed of yourselves for treating the intelligence of fellow JREF members with such contempt.