Long term, Bitcoin is an appreciating asset. This discourages debt and therefore discourages slavery.
There will only ever be 21 million Bitcoin (eventually). The yearly inflation rate (new bitcoin created) will drop below gold’s inflation rate in the next few years. Eventually, it will go to zero.
inflation (I have an economist) that lives next door to me, has to do with the rise and fall of the costs of good and services. nothing to do with “printing more currency”.
Also I should point out that whilst there are in theory only ever 21M Bitcoins that could ever exist in the BTC currency, the so-called “appreciation” is actually diluting the currency. The value of 1 BTC goes up against fiat currency because of the limited supply. I’m not sure what will happen if/when a) BTC crashes entirely or 2) BTC reaches that 21M limit 🤔
Also BTS is only really worth “anything” at all becuase someone else is willing to “buy” it and others are willing to “sell” it. It is in theory (and practise) no different to buying “shares” in a company.
@prologic@twtxt.net, I’ll only add that Bitcoin as the ‘first’ massive cryptocurrency is a vast social experiment, appealing to me as a hacker.
But as with many ‘successful’ experiments it’s going out of control. Currently, there are 9k+ different cryptocurrencies, each one trying to improve over the previous, or at least promising new things, and that’s where the promises are not going to be fulfilled. It’s easiest to promise a nicer future than to actually achieve it.
I can’t say every crypto + currency system is evil or good. That’s ideology, oversimplification appealing to our emotions. ‘Money is the root of all evil’ is BS, the real quote is ‘the love of money is the root of all evil’. I’ll say it’s the same for Cryptocurrencies. Fanaticism and cult behaviour is the bad part IMO.
@eaplmx@twtxt.net Agreed. I think in time we’ll see how things evolve. What crypto and cryptocurrencies have taught us is that these ancient COBOL systems that Banks still use in today 😳 can be replaced, transactions can take mere seconds and we can rid ourselves of these artificial currencies backed by “governments”, “bonds” and “gold bars” (?!) 😅 – How this will pan out, time will tell..
As with the example of the gun, designed to kill people, vs the knife to cook, that could be used to kill someone. Money is not moral, but the monetary systems are. That’s the tricky part.
As a scientist, I always have to remind: “Scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.”
That’s where ‘good’ intentions like Google with the “don’t be evil” motto, suddenly, get evil. A search engine is cool. A whole company designed to sell users’ data, not so much. The same thing with anything to store value, it’s tightly connected with power, and that may show the worst part of humans.
Btw… The best resource I’ve ever seen was by the “Explainers”:
But how does bitcoin actually work? - YouTube
Which itself is a great video to watch as it really gets down to “how it all works” in a way that (hopefully) all can understand.
The basis idea/premise and underlying tech is quite solid, but I am still not convinced of its use as a global currency of any kind as I really don’t want my transactions to be public 😅 – What if I want to buy my wife a expensive gift? if I did that on any cryptocurrency via its blockchain network (they all use a pubic blockchain AFAIK), then my wife could find out what I bought here. What a ruin to a good surprise 🙄 🤣
@prologic@twtxt.net This is a great resource. I like this one as well.
@prologic@twtxt.net I’m no economist, but printing more money is a definite factor. Just look at what happened to the Weimar Republic. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperinflation_in_the_Weimar_Republic
@mckinley@twtxt.net Yeah to be honest, I don’t really get the concept of “printing money” in the first place 🤣