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Comment by TheDong | Hacker News Reader

Ponzi schemes are illegal and so long as bitcoin remains a vehicle entirely for speculation, it's sorta-kinda-almost a ponzi scheme.

Quite a few ICOs and altcoins certainly were created with the intent of such a scheme and should definitely be considered illegal.

In reality, intent matters, and since bitcoin was not created with the intent of creating a pyramid, it seems likely it should be legal, at least by that particular possible illegality.

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Your assertion that bitcoin is "a vehicle entirely for speculation" is false. It provides convenient methods for transferring and storing value. Even if it were merely a vehicle for speculation, that is not the criterion for being a Ponzi scheme. Is gold a Ponzi scheme? ICOs are a different matter, but they shouldn't be lumped in with bitcoin any more than a little league baseball team should be lumped in with the New England Patriots.

I’ve been asking this a lot lately. What is the canonical indicator, other than price, that a Bitcoin bull would point to, that shows it has increased utility this year?

It has become an increasingly valuable store of value. That's the thing about bitcoin. It is actually money. The thing you're acquiring is money, and the thing you use it for is money. It is 'money' the asset that is being acquired, and its deflationary nature makes it a more valuable 'money' asset to hold than an inflationary one. So its increased utility is the system of 'money' the asset storage itself.

Can I spend it in more places? For more things?

I have a bitcoin debit card. I can spend it anywhere I can spend $. The only difference is, the money in my wallet increases in value while it waits there for me to spend it, instead of decreasing in value like $.

And that is a new thing this year? You weren’t able to do this last year?

They've been available for over a year. I started doing this earlier in the year. Couldn't be happier.

Just so you know, I don't see visa / mastercard going anywhere. Until you can use bitcoin using the same paywave tech that credit cards use, the over-the-counter use case of bitcoin will not be realized. The alternative is just too easy. But with a bitcoin debit card, you get the best of both worlds. My money isn't being debased while it sits in my wallet, and I have the freedom to use it when I want.

I think it will be several years before the layer-2 tech of bitcoin like lightning allows that type of functionality. The existing system is just too effective. I think it is more likely that lightning will be bootstrapped through organic growth like paying your local dealer than it will be by paying for your groceries.

I don’t follow these things closely but remembered debit cards issued as early as 2014. Is the increased utility from more options or ease in opening?

The increased utility is not having the value of the money in my wallet being debased.

That’s just the price argument rephrased. If the price tanks tomorrow this utility is removed.

> if

If aliens invaded tomorrow this utility is removed. It doesn't take away from its utility right now though, does it? Bitcoin would have to drop 85% of its value to have only doubled in value this year. So what you're doing is using an argument of 'hypothetically it might not have utility' where I'm pointing out where it does, in fact, have utility. Right now. And it has grown in utility. Right now.

You could have saved a long thread by simply saying you didn’t think there was another indicator other than price...

Bitcoin is money. I'm not sure what you think we're talking about.

Financial markets always price the future utility, not the present one.

A bitcoin bull could point out to bitcoin futures on professional financial exchanges as an increased utility, as in now professional money managers can trade bitcoin in a professional way.

That is an excellent example of an indicator. Do any of those exist currently?

There are firm promises of them becoming available really soon now (TM).

http://www.cmegroup.com/media-room/press-releases/2017/10/31...

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-11-29/nasdaq-is...

Number of user accounts on Coinbase.

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/27/bitcoin-exchange-coinbase-ha...

This is another great indicator. The skeptic would suggest it’s just a derivative of the price, but I think the simple fact that Bitcoin is exposed to more people indicates it has more utility so I’m good with this indicator.

Aside from price, it's a (very rough) measure of the number of people who would be willing to accept Bitcoin as a form of payment. The 'utility' of Bitcoin is you can pay for things with it, so the number of people who will let you pay for things with it is a reasonable-but-somewhat-lacking way to value the 'fundamentals.'

gold is actually used to do things, outside of jewelry its used in various industrial applications (for example, the computer you are using right now). so there is a floor to the value of gold, because its a real commodity. there is no floor to a digital currency with little real world adoption/use.

No, it provides very slow and inconvenient methods for transferring and storing value. Literally its only redeeming quality is that you can use it to pay for drugs on the dark web.

You see no value in sending $1,000,000 across the world in 10 minutes for less that $4? No value in date-stamping documents on the Blockchain, and proving asset ownership? No value in locking your wealth cryptographically among several keys, shared by your family or business partners?

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