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Comment by rawtxapp | Hacker News Reader

The Bitcoin Genesis block references The Times article on 03/Jan/2009, "Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks".

It's p2p digital cash, but at the same time, you can't ignore the reason why it's created. It's meant to be a decentralized, uncontrollable currency.

When it comes to currency/store of value, you could argue that security and trustworthiness is more important than speed and fees. If you want faster and cheaper transactions, use lightning network, it's functional and growing in adoption.

If you want to use a crypto that's not volatile, you can always use stablecoins. There are both centralized and decentralized stablecoins pegged to the dollar.

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But why are people so concerned about this whole currency depreciation thing? Only idiots keep their money under the mattress. Anyone with sense has their money invested in assets. I honestly don't get the big deal.

If you want to invest your money in assets, you should be able to do that.

If you want to hold on to your money for whatever reason, you should be able to do that too, right? Many people in the world don't have access to banking services, let alone investment services. In many cases, people with smaller net worths don't necessarily know or understand how these assets work and are easily taken advantage of by "investment advisors".

If you're in a first world country making a good amount of income and have access to financial markets easily, you might not necessarily see the use case as clearly.

But the people shouting about the FED debasing their currency are not poor unbanked people in 3rd world countries so I don't see how your comment is relevant.

I mean, the FED is debasing the currency, that's just a fact, it doesn't matter who is shouting about it, you don't need to be poor in 3rd world country.

I guess it comes down to: if you understand the markets well and can invest in them to generate a good return, more power to you. That's not the case for everyone, so if you want to hold on to your money for whatever reason, you should be able to protect yourself against endless money printing.

How much were you being paid 15-20 years ago and what could that buy you? It’s not just the third world that suffer from currency debasement, it’s all of us.

> If you want to hold on to your money for whatever reason, you should be able to do that too, right?

Why?

And what does it even mean to hold value?

Money only has value because of the constant cash flowing in the economy. So you can buy stuff for money.

If people all their money in bitcoin there would be no economy and nothing of value you can buy, do bitcoin then still hold it's value?

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In general, gold might be more tangible and accessible than bitcoin.

There would be an economy where only investments that return better than Bitcoin would make sense, for example: you wouldn't have the Vancouver vacant property problem, that money would go to Bitcoin instead and leave the home for someone who has an actual use for it. People also wouldn't be hoarding gold, it's value would go down and you can use it more easily in electronics.

Gold is physical, has no place as a store of value in a digital world in my opinion. You can't transfer it as easily, securing it requires people and storage, you can't divide into very small parts to trade with, etc.

> Gold is physical, has no place as a store of value in a digital world in my opinion.

If you want to guard against inflation gold certainly seems better than BTC.

If you want to transact online with ease an account with fiat currency and a VISA credit card is usually the best.

Just pick the right tool for the job.

Indeed, depreciation (inflation) and (hopefully) being able to control it is an important feature of fiat money: this is what motivates people to invest it as opposed to just keep it under the mattress, i.e. out of the system.

Economists may be wrong, of course (a lot of times it seems that their math models are pretty crude), but no theory seems to support that keeping your wealth locked away is good for the society. (I deliberately didn't say economy, because optimizing for economic growth alone can indeed hurt the society if we don't channel all the important aspects in somehow. Think global warming.)

"only ideots"

how dare you judge people like that. not everyone has time.or whatever to.study investing in assets. not everyone has the mindset to actually do it.

you should seriously evaluate your view of the world bubble boy

> If you want faster and cheaper transactions, use lightning network, it's functional and growing in adoption.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYHFrf5ci_g

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