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Comment by coralreef | Hacker News Reader

> We have one already: cash.

Cash is awful if you live in Turkey, Venezuela, Zimbabwe, Lebanon, etc. The USD has lost 90% of its purchasing power since the 1950's, meaning cash is toxic over longer time horizons. You cannot have a society where everyone seeks to get rid of the reserve asset over time.

> If your country turns into a full-out surveillance state, you are not going to overthrow it by buying things with Bitcoin.

You're going to have much better chances anonymizing yourself, compared to say a bank account.

> I would like to see some data on what actually valuable applications or businesses have been enabled (or simply improved) by crypto currency.

Bitcoin is a savings account in a world where Bank of America's Savings account yields you 0.01% APY, or up to 0.04% if you have more money. We are increasingly forced to take on more risk simply to maintain the purchasing power of our wealth.

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> The USD has lost 90% of its purchasing power since the 1950's

That's a meaningless number without context: The median income gain was 2000% (i.e. double the purchasing power loss) during the same period (median yearly family income was $3300 in 1950 https://www.census.gov/library/publications/1952/demo/p60-00...)

Yes, money creation pushed wages up as it did costs. And gains from technology resulted in real wealth increases for society in general.

However, holding the asset itself resulted in loss of buying power over time. There is a distinction between cash the asset (the thing you hold and trade with), and income.

Holding shares in a corporation over 50 years may be a good idea (depending on the company). Holding land/house over 50 years may be a good idea (depending on the location). Holding fiat cash over 50 years is never a good idea.

And the problem is someone in society has to hold it; we can't all own stocks and houses.

The flip side is deflation, though. Which isn’t exactly pretty.

If the value of my fiat money is increasing, then I will hold on to it, which is good for me. If everyone does that, then the economy grinds to a halt.

The stock/bond market is, although not always efficient, at least somewhat enabling of economic activity, whereas just holding your currency (including bitcoin) is not.

Right, it doesn't necessarily grind the economy to a halt; it simply forces investments to be worthwhile, because now they have to generate enough return to satisfy a higher interest rate. If money is not cheap, speculation is less rampant, but also risk taking is more expensive; this is a forcing mechanism for efficiency.

The interest rate (cost of money) simply returns to a supply/demand market equilibrium. The economy possibly smoothens out, rather than giving us artificial boom and bust cycles thanks to inefficient central bank policies.

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