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Comment by ninetenfour | Hacker News Reader

> Is Bolivar not a currency then?

It doesn't meet the requirements of a good currency. There is hyper inflation and they have redenominated it a few times now and are planning on doing it again.

Is a boat with a huge hole in its hull a good boat? Technically it is probably a boat, but it isn't what one would consider a good and desirable boat and it doesn't allow one to do what one can usually do with boats.

This is the same with BTC. You can call it a currency, but if you use it as a currency it doesn't currently exhibit the properties that one wants from a currency.

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> It doesn't meet the requirements of a good currency

Aaand you just moved the goal posts. Notice how you switched your argument from "currency" to "good currency". So dishonest.

> Aaand you just moved the goal posts. Notice how you switched your argument from "currency" to "good currency". So dishonest.

I think you want a binary world where things are either A or B and not somewhere in between. BTC is being used as a currency in El Salvador and it is government mandated as a currency. Thus it is a currency by that definition. But my argument is that it isn't a good currency based on its properties (which I listed some and also linked to an article on desirable principles of a currency), rather it has the qualities of an asset.

I think I haven't changed what I am arguing, but I think you misunderstood my argument as something much more simplistic than what I was actually saying.

then you used bad language

>Which is why BTC is an asset and not a currency.

Is a pretty straight forward sentence

Are you using BTC as a currency? What was the last thing you bought using BTC directly?

Does it meet the 10 characteristics here?https://simplicable.com/new/money

I think that few are using BTC as a currency because it doesn't make sense as a currency, rather 99.9% of people are using it as a speculative investment asset.

I don't have much to add about it being a currency or not, just that you aren't being very clear. One moment you say its not, then the next it is, just not a good one, the next it's not again. And "not a good one", objectively you could lump just about anything into

I'm under the belief that if it can be locally commonly exchanged for goods or services is a currency. If its gold, cash, btc, or bottle caps. If its a good form of currency or not is a completely different question

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