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'Coin Pocket' Becomes First Bitcoin Wallet App on iOS After App Store Policy Change

Chupa Chupa said:
I don't think you understand what "backed" means. A computer, at least not in 2014... maybe in some future "I, Robot" world, cannot "back" a currency. Only an industrialized government with laws, a police/military, and hard financial assets can do that. The U.S. dollar is one of the most favored currencies in the world, even by its enemies, because it's a strong country that isn't going to whither overnight taking its currency with it.

Bitcoin is phoney money, backed by nothing, guaranteed to be accepted by no one. Its value is contrived only by what others are willing to pay for it at any given moment, again, very much like a speculative stock.
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I'm saying that its scarcity is what creates its value, more akin to gold than the U.S. dollar. There is a finite amount of bitcoins that can be mined and they require increasingly more power to do so. At this point they are somewhere between a currency and a curiosity, whether they will exceed beyond that will be interesting to see.

I should clarify I am not actually an advocate of bitcoin.
 
ThunderSkunk said:
I'm 100% on board with ditching the USD completely, but my one remaining concern is its inability to scale. The growth of the population expected to grapple for bitcoins, combined with the already nearly exhausted finite supply of them, is the simplest formula for catastrophic deflation there is.

Runaway deflation is equally and oppositely disastrous as runaway inflation. Having it built in to the structure of a currency doesn't bode well for the future of that currency.

There are solutions to this, but will require a new currency. Exciting times we're heading into. A thousand years from now, that we went along with our archaic national currencies for so long it will be a point of deep embarrassment.
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If you worry about runaway deflation you should invest in bitcoin, since your worry is that bitcoin will be worth a lot/infinite.

If bitcoin doesn't fail we can expect bitcoin to gain in price compared to other currencies with higher inflation. This should make bitcoin a better investment than holding fiat.

One bitcoin is divisible to 100million satoshis. This limit is arbitrary, if needed it can be expanded to arbitrarily many decimals.

Imo there are some risks with bitcoin, but scalability is not one of them. And deflation might be good or bad. But even if it is bad, then it's prisoners dilemma which in this case the play is to buy bitcoins, so you should still buy.
 
Parasprite said:
I'm saying that its scarcity is what creates its value, more akin to gold than the U.S. dollar. There is a finite amount of bitcoins that can be mined and they require increasingly more power to do so. At this point they are somewhere between a currency and a curiosity, whether they will exceed beyond that will be interesting to see.

I should clarify I am not actually an advocate of bitcoin.
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No, the fact industrialized nations are not fragile banana republics is what makes each of those countries respective currency valuable. Supply/Demand arguments aside (that's a deep topic w/ currency) its the difficultly of tracing is what makes Bitcoin so desirable to many of its user base. If Bitcoin was ever regulated to make it more transparent to taxing and law enforcement authorities it would fall out of favor like Swiss Banks when its abdicated its pledge of not cooperating with foreign investigations. That make's its worth tentative, unlike the currency of any industrialized country.

The comparison of Bitcoins to gold is ridiculous on its face. Gold has intrinsic value; Bitcoin does not -- unless they start minting them with a precious metal.
 
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Chupa Chupa said:
The comparison of Bitcoins to gold is ridiculous on its face. Gold has intrinsic value; Bitcoin does not -- unless they start minting them with a precious metal.
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Gold has no intrinsic value - it's scarce and hard to mine, so it works well as a store of value, but beyond that the world wouldn't fall apart without it. Bitcoin has similar properties when it comes to storage of value.
 
DennisD7 said:
Gold has no intrinsic value - it's scarce and hard to mine, so it works well as a store of value, but beyond that the world wouldn't fall apart without it. Bitcoin has similar properties when it comes to storage of value.
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Try making high end electronics without gold. Gold is used in many industries from pharmaceuticals to satellites to the James Webb Telescope.

Yes, gold has an intrinsic value. Bitcoin is just a digital bit. The world will really not fall apart when that house of cards collapses.
 
:mad:
DennisD7 said:
Gold has no intrinsic value - it's scarce and hard to mine, so it works well as a store of value, but beyond that the world wouldn't fall apart without it. Bitcoin has similar properties when it comes to storage of value.
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If its only use would be jewelry I would agree with you 100%.

Daalseth said:
Try making high end electronics without gold. Gold is used in many industries from pharmaceuticals to satellites to the James Webb Telescope.

Yes, gold has an intrinsic value. Bitcoin is just a digital bit. The world will really not fall apart when that house of cards collapses.
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Which is why the "sequestering massive amounts of it to back a currency" idea is probably a bad one. ;)

I don't think it will go away exactly, but perhaps be replaced by a similar one. The fact that people put so much effort into it makes it seem more like a public beta than anything. I also have heard that Paypal are going to be integrating bitcoin somehow; whether that means £->bitcoin conversion or just another way to store it, I have no idea. I'll jump on the bitcoin bandwagon when I can go to my local supermarket with it. :rolleyes:
 
Parasprite said:
:mad:

If its only use would be jewelry I would agree with you 100%.



Which is why the "sequestering massive amounts of it to back a currency" idea is probably a bad one. ;)

I don't think it will go away exactly, but perhaps be replaced by a similar one. The fact that people put so much effort into it makes it seem more like a public beta than anything. I also have heard that Paypal are going to be integrating bitcoin somehow; whether that means £->bitcoin conversion or just another way to store it, I have no idea. I'll jump on the bitcoin bandwagon when I can go to my local supermarket with it. :rolleyes:
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It's also used in food.
Although I am bullish on bitcoins I have to agree that it is not like gold.
 
DennisD7 said:
Gold has no intrinsic value - it's scarce and hard to mine, so it works well as a store of value, but beyond that the world wouldn't fall apart without it. Bitcoin has similar properties when it comes to storage of value.
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Uh... gold is an industrial metal. It's used in electronics (check your smartphone!), aerospace, medicine, construction, etc. Yes, it has intrinsic value. You should do a bit of research.
 
Intrinsic value is a fallacy. A house has intrinsic values, but suddenly houses in Detroit don't?

The only thing that actually matters is subjective value.
 
roblin said:
Intrinsic value is a fallacy. A house has intrinsic values, but suddenly houses in Detroit don't?

The only thing that actually matters is subjective value.
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Poor analogy. The inherent qualities of gold, i.e., it's excellent conductivity and malleability make it a valuable material for many industries. Those qualities are fixed by the laws of nature and are the same whether the gold is located in Detroit, Bangladesh, or Macau.

A home in Detroit (or any city) has no such inherent and fixed quality. In real estate it's not just the dwelling (shelter), but the usefulness of the location, that gives it's value. Areas fluctuate all the time. If the surrounding area isn't a practical place to live; i.e., no good jobs, poor or no city services, high crime rate, crumbling infrastructure its worth less than if the same house was in an area with excellent schools, parks, low crime, etc.
 
Chupa Chupa said:
Poor analogy. The inherent qualities of gold, i.e., it's excellent conductivity and malleability make it a valuable material for many industries. Those qualities are fixed by the laws of nature and are the same whether the gold is located in Detroit, Bangladesh, or Macau.

A home in Detroit (or any city) has no such inherent and fixed quality. In real estate it's not just the dwelling (shelter), but the usefulness of the location, that gives it's value. Areas fluctuate all the time. If the surrounding area isn't a practical place to live; i.e., no good jobs, poor or no city services, high crime rate, crumbling infrastructure its worth less than if the same house was in an area with excellent schools, parks, low crime, etc.
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Hey Chupa Chupa,

It's simply Supply and Demand.

I take your point, 2 identical houses that cost $400k ea to build in 2 different cities would sell for 2 completely different prices.
 
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