Bitcoin is not "digital gold." Gold has real value. It is used for technology (all computers have some gold in them e.g.) and jewelry, along with a thousand other real uses. It has been used for Jewelry for tens of thousands of years, because it is Real, and pretty, and has unique physical properties (thermal, electrical, lustre, color, resistance to degradation, etc.).
Bitcoin is used for exactly nothing except as an intermediary of exchange for barter, exactly the same as the Federal Reserve note. It has never been used for anything else, and it can't ever be used for anything else. It has zero value. Not one iota of value.
Gold has value regardless of if it is used as a currency. Bitcoin has exactly and precisely zero value outside of that usage. It can't survive in any world where any currency with actual value exists.
This is not me promoting gold as a good medium of exchange for barter. On the contrary, I think that is not the best path. This is me calling bullshit to "bitcoin is digital gold" propaganda that has nothing to do with reality and purposefully ignores all of the evidence and arguments against it for the sake of protecting the mind with how much people have invested in something completely without any actual value.
I wholeheartedly agree with your comment except for one tiny little point.
Bitcoin has exactly and precisely zero value outside of that usage. It can't survive in any world where any currency with actual value exists.
I can think of exactly 1 good, mayhaps excellent use for Bitcoin or some other similar project, that being international trade and settlement, in place of something like SWIFT. Given that the nature of settling in gold requires that all parties involved in transporting have to be some degree of trustworthy, the nature of BTC's technology requiring very little trust to operate for both parties might be very attractive.
The technology behind digital currency, or NFTs, etc. can be used for all sorts of cool stuff, but that doesn't give it value because it takes nothing to make it do that work. Besides, other similar techs are better suited than bitcoin for all those projects, and again, they take very nearly zero resources to make it happen.
Scarcity = value, and in any world where things are so bad we've fallen back to a materials physical properties to exclusively assign value, we'll have problems way worse than BTC losing worth. As long as civilization and the internet stands, BTC will always be considered to have value as only a limited supply exists, and people want in on that, regardless of any reductionist points that illustrate it's vulnerabilities.
None of the gold bars sitting in vaults are getting melted down to make electronics and jewelry. It's a method of storing value based on a multitude of human nature factors, as is BTC. Both have limited supply and attrition - industrial usage for gold, and permanent loss of wallets for BTC. It's a lot more complex than 'haha imaginary numbers, how stupid'.
The concept of 'actual value' being zero is correct, but to get to that point so many things need to utterly collapse, it's a meaningless point to make in the context of a society that will realistically continue on for the moment. That may well change, but until then it's ridiculous to write it off.
Oil is fundamentally worthless beyond a certain point of collapse if we forget how to make combustion engines and plastics. Uranium is worthless if we lose nuclear technology.
Gold just happens to be one of the lowest levels of collapse proof, because as you rightly pointed out it's shiny and pretty to look at. All the other uses came much, much later. Status symbol was first.
BTC is exclusive and pretty to look at on a screen, so as long as screens are here, that desire will remain and there's nothing you can do about it. To deny this fact is to deny human nature, and the foundational attraction to gold.
In order to understand why people who are "experts" do what they do, or why they might act contrary to the truth for the purposes of social manipulation, you need to understand that controlled opposition is everywhere.
I don’t have any problem with gold. I love gold. I’m just pointing out one reason why BTC is amazing. It’s also easier to secure your Bitcoin keys than a stack of physical gold. However it’s easier to loose your keys or seed phrase than physical gold. Both have pros and cons.
You obviously don’t have a strong grasp of how the BTC network and protocol operates. You don’t need third party crypto exchanges. You can establish your own node and send / receive party to party.
Not if you can't secure it anywhere. Atomic Wallet had a giant hack over the weekend. It's barely even talked about right now. 35 million stolen and probably ongoing. Thats a wallet with a 12 word passphrase and password.
I believe the real gold backed BRICS will kill the fed. The USA is 36 trillion in debt, That's alot of gold. about 1,440,000 metric tons, by my math. Where is the country that's already 36 trillion upside down going to find that much gold? Face it, USA is bankrupt and trying to borrow more.
We are not going to pay off the national debt. The Fed loaded that debt onto the US through treasonous actions, and they will be told to stick that debt where the shine don't shine. I think the reason China was dumping their US bonds was they know this is coming.
$3.9T is in T-Bills. $4.0T is in T-Bonds. $13.7T is in T-Notes. That's $21.6T in public debt.
That's alot of gold.
None of those securities pay out in gold when they mature.
Where is the country that's already 36 trillion upside down going to find that much gold?
It's not that far upside down. Debt vs GDP is 120%. So, it's only very vaguely about $6T in the red, so far.
Face it, USA is bankrupt and trying to borrow more.
I think this is a cynical view, and one they would like you to have... their agenda relies on austerity, after all. This is just the same old wealth transfer in a new package.
That's just an extrapolation from past figures. It ignores much of the reality, like how many citizens owns those bonds? Why is medicare so expensive vs what it returns? What happens if we give out less bonds and notes at auctions? What happens if we increase business taxes?
Point is.. saying 36 trillion in debt, unqualified, and then suggesting that this amount is entirely a deficit ignores the truth of how this monster is constructed and how easily it is dismantled.
Which is essentially the same thing as what BRICS is trying to accomplish.
Crypto exchanges are operating under gov't purview. Once people realize that the govt is the real problem, they can have the option to go outside of gov't control.
DEX's are a solution for this.
I got out of USD a long time ago. Crypto's fall is a real concern for me, but everything is going to fall. I have more faith in crypto than USD. Have some gold and silver, but not nearly as much as crypto because of the carrying and transfer power of crypto.
It is a solution. Gov'ts going after it is the indication that it is an absolute threat to their central bank thievery. Good. Fuck them.
Either we get scared because the market is going to take a hit, or get some balls and stay firm that we will not use a CBDC no matter what. The people decide what will be used. Don't fall for the scare tactic. Diamond hands no matter what. I am not participating in any currency that is controlled by the central banks. If I have to eat out of a garbage can, so be it. Fuck these assholes.
Gold 1.0 was taken off as backing to the dollar to get us into this mess. Gold would have kept us out of this mess if it had been left as the backing for the dollar. That was an intentional act. Bitcoin is backed by the same nothing as the Federal Reserve Note is today.
So in other words, Gold 1.0 would have kept us out of this mess if the government and banks had just acted honorably and preserved the gold standard that was keeping them from getting filthy rich via printing fedbucks.
That is the problem with the gold standard. It requires you to trust governments and banks to act honestly. The fact that the gold standard is a trust-based system is the reason it has failed and given way to a fiat ponzi scheme every time it has been tried in human history.
Bitcoin eliminates the need for trust in the monetary system. And in the long run, it eliminates the need for governments to issue money, or banks to custody it.
Bitcoin is backed by mathematics and code. It is a set of laws that does not require government to enforce. And it is further backed by the astronomical amount of energy consumed to keep it that way, currently twice the annual power consumption of the US Navy and climbing.
"So in other words, Gold 1.0 would have kept us out of this mess if the government and banks had just acted honorably and preserved the gold standard that was keeping them from getting filthy rich via printing fedbucks."
Lol no? People were fuck all retarded and let FDR walk all over them with illegal and treasonous EOs, and banker pals that all printed the USD to high heaven. You seem to have it in your head that the gold standard is a 1 way street, where it goes Gold ---> USD, but that simply is just "They have gold, you have debt notes". A Gold standard necessitates the 2 way street between the backing and the currency, because that's how you keep that in check. If US-stamped Gold is as good as cash, and can be freely exchanged between notes and coins, you can simply minimize risk via holding coins versus your plainly simplistic view that a X standard is purely custodial in nature, which is flatly untrue.
The backed by nothing of bitcoin is a play that shouldn't be accepted.
Everything is worth what someone will pay for it. That is the same thing with gold and silver. Someone will pay for it.
Bitcoin has already hit mass adoption. I don't think it can be eliminated anymore. It could've been in the beginning, but once people started using it in the millions, it is unstoppable.
The only concern is if the internet goes down. That threat is the same for everything.
We don't know what will happen. I root for decentralized currencies, thus, heavily in them. They are coming for everything. Food, money, health, everything.
The best people are the ones who are self sufficient. Now do you understand why those "prepper" shows were made to make them look like lunatics?
Looks like they're the ones who will make it out. Jesus wins. That's all I have.
So I can go to the issuing miner and ask for the X kilo/mega/gigajoules of energy used to mine the block back and be able to use that energy as I please? Whereas before FDR used unconstitutional methods to ban gold ownership, I could do that with USD to get gold.
I am fairly sure a real US Dollar backed by gold will kill the Fed, and that is going to happen.
I believe it will also kill crypto.
Bitcoin is digital gold.
Try travelling internationally with $100k worth of gold, or gold backed USD. Bitcoin will always have its place.
Bitcoin is not "digital gold." Gold has real value. It is used for technology (all computers have some gold in them e.g.) and jewelry, along with a thousand other real uses. It has been used for Jewelry for tens of thousands of years, because it is Real, and pretty, and has unique physical properties (thermal, electrical, lustre, color, resistance to degradation, etc.).
Bitcoin is used for exactly nothing except as an intermediary of exchange for barter, exactly the same as the Federal Reserve note. It has never been used for anything else, and it can't ever be used for anything else. It has zero value. Not one iota of value.
Gold has value regardless of if it is used as a currency. Bitcoin has exactly and precisely zero value outside of that usage. It can't survive in any world where any currency with actual value exists.
This is not me promoting gold as a good medium of exchange for barter. On the contrary, I think that is not the best path. This is me calling bullshit to "bitcoin is digital gold" propaganda that has nothing to do with reality and purposefully ignores all of the evidence and arguments against it for the sake of protecting the mind with how much people have invested in something completely without any actual value.
I wholeheartedly agree with your comment except for one tiny little point.
I can think of exactly 1 good, mayhaps excellent use for Bitcoin or some other similar project, that being international trade and settlement, in place of something like SWIFT. Given that the nature of settling in gold requires that all parties involved in transporting have to be some degree of trustworthy, the nature of BTC's technology requiring very little trust to operate for both parties might be very attractive.
The technology behind digital currency, or NFTs, etc. can be used for all sorts of cool stuff, but that doesn't give it value because it takes nothing to make it do that work. Besides, other similar techs are better suited than bitcoin for all those projects, and again, they take very nearly zero resources to make it happen.
Scarcity = value, and in any world where things are so bad we've fallen back to a materials physical properties to exclusively assign value, we'll have problems way worse than BTC losing worth. As long as civilization and the internet stands, BTC will always be considered to have value as only a limited supply exists, and people want in on that, regardless of any reductionist points that illustrate it's vulnerabilities.
None of the gold bars sitting in vaults are getting melted down to make electronics and jewelry. It's a method of storing value based on a multitude of human nature factors, as is BTC. Both have limited supply and attrition - industrial usage for gold, and permanent loss of wallets for BTC. It's a lot more complex than 'haha imaginary numbers, how stupid'.
The concept of 'actual value' being zero is correct, but to get to that point so many things need to utterly collapse, it's a meaningless point to make in the context of a society that will realistically continue on for the moment. That may well change, but until then it's ridiculous to write it off.
Oil is fundamentally worthless beyond a certain point of collapse if we forget how to make combustion engines and plastics. Uranium is worthless if we lose nuclear technology.
Gold just happens to be one of the lowest levels of collapse proof, because as you rightly pointed out it's shiny and pretty to look at. All the other uses came much, much later. Status symbol was first. BTC is exclusive and pretty to look at on a screen, so as long as screens are here, that desire will remain and there's nothing you can do about it. To deny this fact is to deny human nature, and the foundational attraction to gold.
In order to understand why people who are "experts" do what they do, or why they might act contrary to the truth for the purposes of social manipulation, you need to understand that controlled opposition is everywhere.
A place to begin for that exposure is my report on the singular corporation that exists, and the single body of people who run it.
I don’t have any problem with gold. I love gold. I’m just pointing out one reason why BTC is amazing. It’s also easier to secure your Bitcoin keys than a stack of physical gold. However it’s easier to loose your keys or seed phrase than physical gold. Both have pros and cons.
You obviously don’t have a strong grasp of how the BTC network and protocol operates. You don’t need third party crypto exchanges. You can establish your own node and send / receive party to party.
Not if you can't secure it anywhere. Atomic Wallet had a giant hack over the weekend. It's barely even talked about right now. 35 million stolen and probably ongoing. Thats a wallet with a 12 word passphrase and password.
"As if the same government can't crack down on crypto exchanges."
Self custody, bro.
I believe the real gold backed BRICS will kill the fed. The USA is 36 trillion in debt, That's alot of gold. about 1,440,000 metric tons, by my math. Where is the country that's already 36 trillion upside down going to find that much gold? Face it, USA is bankrupt and trying to borrow more.
We are not going to pay off the national debt. The Fed loaded that debt onto the US through treasonous actions, and they will be told to stick that debt where the shine don't shine. I think the reason China was dumping their US bonds was they know this is coming.
The Fed created that debt out of nothing, They will be held responsible for the failure of fiat currency
$3.9T is in T-Bills. $4.0T is in T-Bonds. $13.7T is in T-Notes. That's $21.6T in public debt.
None of those securities pay out in gold when they mature.
It's not that far upside down. Debt vs GDP is 120%. So, it's only very vaguely about $6T in the red, so far.
I think this is a cynical view, and one they would like you to have... their agenda relies on austerity, after all. This is just the same old wealth transfer in a new package.
https://www.usdebtclock.org/index.html?taxpayer
That's just an extrapolation from past figures. It ignores much of the reality, like how many citizens owns those bonds? Why is medicare so expensive vs what it returns? What happens if we give out less bonds and notes at auctions? What happens if we increase business taxes?
Point is.. saying 36 trillion in debt, unqualified, and then suggesting that this amount is entirely a deficit ignores the truth of how this monster is constructed and how easily it is dismantled.
At today's gold valuation. What happens when the manipulation of the price of gold is removed, and its value sky rockets? Less gold is needed.
There could also be a gold backed crypto. Or even crypto regulated by the price of oil.
There are already cryptos pegged to gold.
I get your point but being pegged to gold isn’t the same as being backed by gold.
Backed by gold, too.
Bitcoin makes gold obsolete. Bitcoin does not need to be backed by gold because Bitcoin is harder money than gold.
Delusional.
Spin
Which is essentially the same thing as what BRICS is trying to accomplish.
Crypto exchanges are operating under gov't purview. Once people realize that the govt is the real problem, they can have the option to go outside of gov't control.
DEX's are a solution for this.
I got out of USD a long time ago. Crypto's fall is a real concern for me, but everything is going to fall. I have more faith in crypto than USD. Have some gold and silver, but not nearly as much as crypto because of the carrying and transfer power of crypto.
It is a solution. Gov'ts going after it is the indication that it is an absolute threat to their central bank thievery. Good. Fuck them.
Either we get scared because the market is going to take a hit, or get some balls and stay firm that we will not use a CBDC no matter what. The people decide what will be used. Don't fall for the scare tactic. Diamond hands no matter what. I am not participating in any currency that is controlled by the central banks. If I have to eat out of a garbage can, so be it. Fuck these assholes.
Bimetallic system - straight up gold standards don't work. Constitution was founded on both gold AND silver. God's money.
Gold 2.0 (also known as Bitcoin) will kill the Fed. Gold 1.0 got us into this mess in the first place.
Gold 1.0 was taken off as backing to the dollar to get us into this mess. Gold would have kept us out of this mess if it had been left as the backing for the dollar. That was an intentional act. Bitcoin is backed by the same nothing as the Federal Reserve Note is today.
So in other words, Gold 1.0 would have kept us out of this mess if the government and banks had just acted honorably and preserved the gold standard that was keeping them from getting filthy rich via printing fedbucks.
That is the problem with the gold standard. It requires you to trust governments and banks to act honestly. The fact that the gold standard is a trust-based system is the reason it has failed and given way to a fiat ponzi scheme every time it has been tried in human history.
Bitcoin eliminates the need for trust in the monetary system. And in the long run, it eliminates the need for governments to issue money, or banks to custody it.
Bitcoin is backed by mathematics and code. It is a set of laws that does not require government to enforce. And it is further backed by the astronomical amount of energy consumed to keep it that way, currently twice the annual power consumption of the US Navy and climbing.
"So in other words, Gold 1.0 would have kept us out of this mess if the government and banks had just acted honorably and preserved the gold standard that was keeping them from getting filthy rich via printing fedbucks."
Lol no? People were fuck all retarded and let FDR walk all over them with illegal and treasonous EOs, and banker pals that all printed the USD to high heaven. You seem to have it in your head that the gold standard is a 1 way street, where it goes Gold ---> USD, but that simply is just "They have gold, you have debt notes". A Gold standard necessitates the 2 way street between the backing and the currency, because that's how you keep that in check. If US-stamped Gold is as good as cash, and can be freely exchanged between notes and coins, you can simply minimize risk via holding coins versus your plainly simplistic view that a X standard is purely custodial in nature, which is flatly untrue.
The backed by nothing of bitcoin is a play that shouldn't be accepted.
Everything is worth what someone will pay for it. That is the same thing with gold and silver. Someone will pay for it.
Bitcoin has already hit mass adoption. I don't think it can be eliminated anymore. It could've been in the beginning, but once people started using it in the millions, it is unstoppable.
The only concern is if the internet goes down. That threat is the same for everything.
We don't know what will happen. I root for decentralized currencies, thus, heavily in them. They are coming for everything. Food, money, health, everything.
The best people are the ones who are self sufficient. Now do you understand why those "prepper" shows were made to make them look like lunatics?
Looks like they're the ones who will make it out. Jesus wins. That's all I have.
Gold got legislated away. Same goes for Bitcoin (BTC is coded to shit by the same evil forces).
BTC is backed by energy, along with its nature of being decentralized and trustless.
All value of subjective, but to compare BTC to federal reserve notes is asinine.
So I can go to the issuing miner and ask for the X kilo/mega/gigajoules of energy used to mine the block back and be able to use that energy as I please? Whereas before FDR used unconstitutional methods to ban gold ownership, I could do that with USD to get gold.
BTC is secured by energy, not backed by energy.
Back by the same nothing... Exactly!
Eventually the government will peg XRP to gold.