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Comment by digitailor | Hacker News Reader

Ahh, someone on HN who understands stores of exchange-value. Refreshing.

Just one of the many, many ways bitcoin is better than gold as a store of exchange-value: embedded security. No armored trucks, no vaults.

And look at China. BTC's recent rise is partially attributable to the fact it's a so-far-legal method of moving ¥ out of the country. And their government looks to be in support. The reason it's illegal to exchange yuan for foreign currency is so it doesn't leave the system and lose value. With BTC, the yuan is received by the buyer as something of value, instead of something to be "disposed of," thereby not diluting its value.

Ie. BTC can move currencies without making them lose exchange-value. That's not a small deal.

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What do you mean doesn't leave the system ? If I were to exchange yuan for USD at a currency exchange/bank, they would keep the yuan and give me USD. The yuan wouldn't get destroyed and lose value or leave the system. It would be either a) handed back to another guy who wants to buy yuans for USD or b) used for the profit/operations of the currency exchange.

BTC may for the time being move currencies without any perceptible loss in exchange value but the exchange value of BTC will go up per yuan with greater demand. The yuan will devalue against BTC but maybe this isn't a big problem because BTC isn't a major world currency .. yet ?

Yup you said it- it's not a major currency yet, so it's not "competition." ¥ -> BTC != ¥ -> $|€|£ etc. No manipulation of a central bank can effect BTC's value. Not only does yuan get "kept in the system" through govt-regulatable Chinese exchanges, it's not pegged to other nation's currencies, which China hates.

Remember Romney's line about "going after China for their illegal currency manipulations?" Heh.

Can you clarify your point of bitcoin as a method to move ¥ out of the country? I don't quite understand it. Either way the thing that got move out of China would be bitcoin or USD, the Yuan never actually got moved out of the country. How is it different that it's bitcoin, instead of USD that is sent out?

I found this link as a source to help explain (it's good), I'm on the move:

http://www.coindesk.com/china-leading-global-rise-bitcoin/

I dunno, armoured trucks and vaults are pretty hard to get into.

one critical bug in the main bitcoin client and the value will become zero (or close to it).

whilst I like the idea of bitcoin, I'm not betting my retirement on being able to draw out my BTC balance in 40 years

Thank you, but I can't afford an armoured truck. Instead, I can use its cryptographic equivalent for free.

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