pixel_of_moral_decay t1_iy54sii wrote on November 28, 2022 at 8:42 PM

Reply to comment by discipleofsteel in BlockFi (JC registered company) Bankrupt by driftingwood2018

I mean it’s math. And the methodology to verify a transaction is pretty sound.

But at the end of the day: it’s just a record. Creating records regardless of how much carbon you spend doing it… has no value.

But as a technology, it has use cases and I think you’ll see more and more of them materialize over time.

discipleofsteel t1_iy577dz wrote on November 28, 2022 at 8:58 PM

I mean all banking is "just a record". It's the pseudo-decentralization which is novel.

pixel_of_moral_decay t1_iy5cat1 wrote on November 28, 2022 at 9:31 PM

Banking is a record of economic contribution.

Bitcoin is a record. Nothing more.

Anyone can create a database and assign themselves a million dollars. That’s a record.

That difference isn’t nuanced. It’s everything.

discipleofsteel t1_iy5dil6 wrote on November 28, 2022 at 9:39 PM

Thats literally how fractional reserve banking works...

I mean yeah, not "everyone" can do it. But they're still just assigning themselves value. It's all faith and credit. Again I argue the only difference is the centralization.

pixel_of_moral_decay t1_iy5wmmd wrote on November 28, 2022 at 11:55 PM

If your argument had even a shred of validity Bitcoin wouldn’t have tanked. Not to mention you wouldn’t need to get other people to invest to keep your money afloat.

discipleofsteel t1_iy5ziu4 wrote on November 29, 2022 at 12:17 AM

Bitcoin didn't tank. It experienced a speculative bubble and the bubble popped. How much is Bitcoin worth? It isn't. It has value in it's utility as a medium exchange in the scenarios I mentioned above. Beanie Babies were a fun toy, then a speculative bubble worth a fortune, and then a fun toy again. You'd have to be a gambler or an idiot to risk money you can't afford to lose speculating on the value of anything.

Regardless, the current price of Bitcoin in USD, is entirely irrelevant to any of my arguments.

Of course it's "kept afloat by it's investors". Literally everything is. The USD is backed by faith that the US pays it's debts. Anyone who buys that debt is an investor. If foreign nations stopped buying US debt the US economy would collapse.