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Merged Bitcoin - Part 3

dirtywick said:
as it relates to gold, if it’s main utility is being used as money, then why is nobody using gold as money? where can you take gold, or bitcoin for that matter, and use it directly as currency?
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In the old days it was used as such in some European civilisations, and it was damn impractical. Gold wears away easily, and a gold coin becomes worth less, or you need to cut up your gold, and weigh it. This improves when impurities are added, but then you need to test the purity.
 
dirtywick said:
yeah coffeezilla is awesome.

the president was likely paid a bunch of money to put up a twitter post for 24 hours and then allowed to deny the whole thing. the scam was already pulled and it was massive and undeniable, the scammers are scared and the president can’t really be quiet it was world wide news

why did the president do it? for money
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Plus pulling scams (albeit more along the lines of selling overpriced "surival" equipment) a là Alex Jones has been his stock in tradem
 
psionl0 said:
I hope you are not trying to pick up where @Chanakya left off.

Yes gold has some limited ornamental/industrial uses. But the main utility of gold is that it can be used as money. Bitcoin also can be used as money so bitcoin also has utility. How do you measure the value of that utility in either case?

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Gawd help us, the thread boojum's stretching its arms out to draw me back in to play with it, is it? Haha, no thanks, I've had my fill of crazy. Not taking that bait.

Strongly advise others to not even attempt to "pick up where I left off". Not unless they've an enduring taste for bizarre.


dirtywick said:
i’m not picking that up. idk why it’s so important for bitcoin to have intrinsic value or that you take that as a criticism of it. it’s a statement of fact that it doesn’t and it’s just describing one of it’s properties. how do you measure its value is pretty difficult if you don’t want to assess what it is and isn’t accurately imo

as it relates to gold, if it’s main utility is being used as money, then why is nobody using gold as money? where can you take gold, or bitcoin for that matter, and use it directly as currency?

you’re trying to force this stuff to be true. money is money, gold and bitcoin are traded for money but not treated as money by virtually anyone except places that exchange it for money. if it’s main utility is being used as money, but almost nobody will accept it, it’s also not intrinsically valuable, then what is its value indeed is a good question.
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The intrinsic value of any investment can be calculated --- approximated --- from the perspective of the user. As you rightly say, in a post prior, and as I've explained multiple times: it is the value that the investment would be worth independent of what it trades at, and independent of whether it trades at all, in secondary markets.

Fiat currency doesn't have utility value, obviously, unless someone starts using gold or silver, but its valuation, independently of what it trades at in secondary markets, can be ascertained, certainly. I've not personally done currency valuations, and am not closely familiar with the actual nuts and bolts of it: but in principle, it is a function of multiple economic factors mainly relating to the country in question, coupled with what it is meant to be worth --- kind of like the value of a credit instrument, factored in with its credit rating and other risk factors, except obviously way more complex than that as far as a whole bunch of macro factors.

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So why is this important, this intrinsic value, this value that is independent of how it trades in secondary markets? It is important if you're an actual user, obviously, if you're an actually a consumer of the stuff, whatever it is --- and for obvious reasons, because you actually need a supply of the thing itself. It is also vital information if you're a value investor, someone that buys for value, someone that buys investments that happen to be priced at significantly below (your assessment of its) intrinsic value. It's important if you're looking for method to the madness in investing. Even if you're not a value investor per se, even then it is good to know what the intrinsic value of an investment is, even if you choose deliberately to invest at a premium to that value.

Only a fool ignores the completely commonplace idea of intrinsic value. It is not some arcane concept that is the domain of fringe "economists", but something closely familiar to anyone who has the smallest idea of valuation. It is what people engaged in valuation work with, day in and day out. Not by any stretch an esoteric concept.

And gold? Gold does have an intrinsic value, basis its uses in industry and as nice-and-shiny. But its hoary history, spanning millennia, as medium of exchange as well as store of value, puts its de facto value at a level very different than its intrinsic value. In this it is an exception. As Bitcoin, and tulips, lacking that hoary history, are not. (And no, not every "exception" is a matter of "(fallacious) special pleading", as this poster was trying to argue. It is precisely this after-the-fact recognition of history, spanning literally millennia, that informs us that gold has ended up as an exception --- as cowries, for instance, have not. We can informally use the Lindy Effect to spell that out as a heuristic, as a rule of thumb, for assessment of future value.)

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All of this has been explained, and explained every which way, to @psionl0 , except it seems not to have penetrated his delusion, that fuels his haunting of this thread literally across decades, and his apparently single-minded mission of disinformation and gaslighting, all in aid of "supporting" Bitcoin, gawd alone knows why. Despite all of this having been explained multiple times, the poor deluded soul simply cannot digest this simple bit of information: because to acknowledge it is to acknowledge that Bitcoin is no different, at all, than tulips. And that sacrilege this weird crypto-ideologue apparently seems unable to even consider. (And that last answers why intrinsic value is important --- that is, why denying the validity of such an everyday commonplace thing as intrinsic value, is so important --- to this particular poster.)

(Which last, as has been explained multiple times to him, even though he pretends it hasn't, is not to take a price position on Bitcoin. To show that Bitcoin is like tulips is not to take a position on its price movements: the similarity lies in the fact that they're both insubstantial, and held up simply by froth as it were, and unlike more substantial investments. This is not to suggest that Bitcoin, or tulips for that matter, might not, necessarily, end up gold-like a century from now, or quasi-gold-like ten or twenty years from now: because to take a position like that is to engage in divination. But it does show how insubstantial, in principle, is this investment in Bitcoin, and in tulips as well, and in general in all of these non-fiat, non-asset-linked crypto "meme coins" or whatever-they're-called; and therefore how unlikely would be any such long-term stabilization in their valuation; and therefore how completely risky the investment. And indeed, that fundamental riskiness has been indirectly borne out, and reflected, in the dizzying volatility of its valuation.)
 
it's difficult for crypto as well due to it's adherents insistence on decentralization and deregulation. for example, hundreds of thousands of first time buyers of crypto in trump's last pump and dump got slaughtered and a handful of people scammed hundreds of millions of their money. it's hard to imagine what little utility bitcoin has presented outweighs that happening on a regular basis. i don't know the details of how the tulip thing ended, but i don't think it was the kind of the netherlands running pump and dumps
 
dirtywick said:
it's difficult for crypto as well due to it's adherents insistence on decentralization and deregulation. for example, hundreds of thousands of first time buyers of crypto in trump's last pump and dump got slaughtered and a handful of people scammed hundreds of millions of their money. it's hard to imagine what little utility bitcoin has presented outweighs that happening on a regular basis. i don't know the details of how the tulip thing ended, but i don't think it was the kind of the netherlands running pump and dumps
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Sure, that too.

Incidentally, my position is that Bitcoin has no intrinsic value. Not just a little, but none at all. Tulips arguably had some value, as decor maybe, even if very small: but Bitcoin has no value, none at all, other than what value someone else sees in it. Froth, in other words. And that value isn't reinforced by a whole country's economy and military, unlike fiat: so, unsubstantiated froth, is all. (Which is not to say that the froth will necessarily never solidify; but it's far more likely than not that it won't.) (Just wanted to emphasize that, rather than some little value, Bitcoin has no value at all, in intrinsic terms.)
 
dirtywick said:
i’m not picking that up. idk why it’s so important for bitcoin to have intrinsic value or that you take that as a criticism of it. it’s a statement of fact that it doesn’t and it’s just describing one of it’s properties.
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I still don't have an adequate definition of "intrinsic value". If you mean "utility" (can be used for some things) then bitcoin has utility. Saying that gold has "intrinsic value" because you can make rings out of it is one of the more silly arguments that has been repeated countless times in this forum.

dirtywick said:
as it relates to gold, if it’s main utility is being used as money, then why is nobody using gold as money? where can you take gold, or bitcoin for that matter, and use it directly as currency?
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Are you really that ignorant of the gold standard? It's been less than a century since the world went off the gold standard and even then, the US continued to peg the price of its USD to that of gold internationally until 1971.
 
i guess you could look it up a youtube video about intrinsic value if you’re still having trouble with the definitions.

and in 2025 you can exchange both bitcoin or gold for money, but neither of them are money. the utility as money is almost non-existent.
 
dirtywick said:
yeah i'm on it don't go anywhere
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I didn't think you would want to learn anything. It's much easier to tell somebody else that they are ignorant if you don't have to show your own knowledge of the subject.

The only links i can find in this thread on "intrinsic value" are https://www.wallstreetprep.com/knowledge/intrinsic-value/ and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intrinsic_value_(finance). These describe intrinsic value in terms of the income that you can derive from an asset (eg dividends). This doesn't help to establish that gold has intrinsic value.
 
it’s been pointed out several times that gold is an exception due to its unique history, and that bitcoin doesn’t produce any income either but also doesn’t have that unique history.

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btw it’s not about being easier or not learning anything. it’s already been covered exhaustively, you’re not accepting anything you’re being told. which is your prerogative to have, but not my responsibility to solve
 
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hey man, here you go. the guy sounds exactly like jordan peterson but i think he explains why bitcoin has no intrinsic value pretty well here, even as it relates to gold. there’s a part two about inflation and crime as well
 
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dirtywick said:
where can you take gold, or bitcoin for that matter, and use it directly as currency?
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I'm sure it's been brought up before, but I think Bitcoin is the currency of choice when buying drugs, firearms, stolen credit card numbers, CSAM, etc. from merchants on the darkweb.
 
dirtywick said:
it’s been pointed out several times that gold is an exception due to its unique history, and that bitcoin doesn’t produce any income either but also doesn’t have that unique history.
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So something has "intrinsic value" if it generates an income or it is gold? :rolleyes:
 
dirtywick said:
both of those. i got you a video to explain it, did you watch it?
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Did you? It didn't mention "intrinsic value" once.

FYI The entire video is based on the bullet points listed in this box:

Code: 
Crypto Fallacies:
1. There is nothing backing fiat
       * there is nothing backing crypto
2. Central banks print money and devalue the currency
       * Central banks create reserves, lending increases money supply
           - you don't need a central bank to increase
             the money supply - you need a central bank to
             CONTROL the increase in the money supply
       * Currency is the wrong unit of analysis
           - appropriate unit of analysis = 1 hour of your labour
                                            |-------------------|
                                                    |
                                             If your purchasing
                                             power is diminishing
                                             blame the value of
                                             your labor, not the currency

It contains a number of fallacies of its own such as:
- the claim that fiat is backed by every asset in the country. This is nonsense of course.
What gives fiat its value is your legal ability to use it to settle debts including your tax liabilities.
- Central banks don't create money. This guy has obviously never heard of "quantitative easing".
- If there was a nationwide blackout then your cryptos would disappear. :sdl:
 
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yes it was mentioned at about 15 minutes. it’s what made me think of you. the whole video was an explanation of why crypto doesn’t have intrinsic value
 
anyway that’s enough for me. as crypto continues to spiral out of control into a series of ponzi schemes it’ll become more and more obvious what the value of this mysterious utility it has is
 
dirtywick said:
yes it was mentioned at about 15 minutes. it’s what made me think of you. the whole video was an explanation of why crypto doesn’t have intrinsic value
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Nope. That part was about central banks changing interest rates. Anyway I am not going to watch the entire video again just to find the spot where the words "intrinsic value" are mentioned.

dirtywick said:
anyway that’s enough for me. as crypto continues to spiral out of control into a series of ponzi schemes it’ll become more and more obvious what the value of this mysterious utility it has is
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Not surprising that you would refuse to differentiate between cryptos and ponzi schemes involving (usually new) cryptos. :rolleyes:
 
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