I think this gets the “incumbents” argument slightly wrong. The argument is not that Bitcoin is “valueless”, but that it is a purely speculative instrument with little to no intrinsic value.<p>It doesn’t seem to have a path towards becoming a global medium of exchange, and it would be a store of value in the same sense as other speculative instruments like baseball or pokemon cards.<p>The arise of a new speculative instrument would also _seem like_ Bitcoin today, so I think a little more proof is needed to claim what we are seeing is the rise of a new monetary system.
Some of these ideas remind me of thoughts I have previously had, partly explored in my essay "Abolish Money" [1]. Particularly, the economy is not adequately described purely in terms of money, rather the 'real' economy is best described as stocks and flows of resources like wood, time, and energy. Money obscures this and hinders our analysis of the economy by proposing these resources are all interchangeable at their given prices, but the qualitative nature of different resources cannot be ignored.<p>[1] <a href="https://jpreston.xyz/2020/05/07/abolish-money.html" rel="nofollow">https://jpreston.xyz/2020/05/07/abolish-money.html</a>
Yet another article defending Bitcoin that only tackles strawman arguments and ignores the indefensible issues.<p>1) Bitcoin is environmentally harmful<p>2) Bitcoin's only practical use right now is paying off ransomware, or hiring criminal enterprises.<p>In other words: From all appearances, from the time that Bitcoin was created, the net effect on society has been negative. And there is no sign of that changing in the future.
I mean, a lot of things are thrown out here as rhetorical questions that actually have simple answers that undermine the thesis of the piece.<p>It doesn’t look like a currency precisely because it doesn’t have the properties of fiat currency. It’s not a good way of performing small transactions because the transaction costs are so high.<p>There are precendents for things that have high value but low intrinsic value. Gold and diamonds are good examples. So the question is, why is Bitcoin fundamentally different from these?
Not mentioned in the article, but this reminded me that although Wittgenstein's family was extremely wealthy he gave away the fortune he inherited and become a primary school teacher.
"Bitcoin can’t be a store of value because it has no intrinsic value. It can’t be a unit of account because it is too volatile. It can’t be a medium of exchange because it is not widely used to price goods and services. These are the three properties of money. Therefore, Bitcoin can’t be money. But Bitcoin has no other basis for being valued, therefore it is valueless. QED."<p>The last sentence introduces an extraneous assertion that is incorrect: "But Bitcoin has no other basis for being valued...". Not everything that has value is money. A painting isn't money: it has value because people want it and want to pay for it. Bitcoin isn't money, but it has value as long as people want to pay for it.
Best treatise on money is David Graeber's Debt, the first 5000 years.<p>One huge revaluation in that book is barter is not really a thing. Prior to hard currency and state money, people just got into debt with each other. They didn't barter.<p>Money on the other hand and markets were created by emperors and kings to fulfill needs of the soldiers and the empire. No place just creates markets without state influence.<p>In other words, markets were a hack used by kings to get wha t they want. They forced markets on people via money (which requires taxes). In other words, to create markets you first need to force people to pay taxes.<p>Fascinating book and also gives a reason why bitcoin is not money, but at best a proxy and store of value.
Can anyone give me some answers on two major problems I see with bitcoin/crypto:<p>- Not decentralized (51% attack, even worse with PoS), still subject to manipulation therefore<p>- Privacy, transactions can be traced back, therefore they can be censored/rejected<p>At least with plain cash I can have anonymity.
I'm part of a think tank (not for or against Bitcoin) speculating on what, from an analytic/continental philosophy tradition. Stuff like: Universality and its species: The Market is the empty universal element that contains the Money Market (aka banks, hedge funds and day traders) but also its species of particulars that fail to be contained by the Money Market: the Real Economy. The Real Economy concerns the production, purchase and flow of goods and services within an economy. (Laclau). Crypto is the antagonism between the particular element (The Market) which hegemonizes universality and the element (the Real Economy) which, within this universality stands for what is excluded from it.
Bitcoin are more like Rai stones than dollars. They're more of a tradable valuable than a true money due to the high transaction costs, relative scarcity, etc.