Cryptocurrency - where's the actual value?

[Benjaminpalma]

Dr Jekyll said:

Sometimes provided another currency, sometimes provided goods, sometimes a service.

No - at the outset, when the first recipient of each Bitcoin is mined?

[Benjaminpalma]

Behemoth said:

They verify transactions to the ledger (the blockchain)

Right - so they don't contribute anything to society just help support the product. At the core of Bitcoin, there's nothing of any value other than to support the Bitcoin system.

[Benjaminpalma]

TooMany2cvs said:

And that's what the thread is asking. What IS that value-base for BitCoin and friends?

What those talking it up are trying very hard to avoid is the one and only answer that really can be given. There is none.

This is the inescapable conclusion I've reached from this thread.

Anyone can create a cryptocurrency. They are created from thin air and, while technically clever, have no fundamental value.

At least Bitcoin has given us blockchain.

[Benjaminpalma]

May there is value - in money laundering and tax evasion...?

[Benjaminpalma]

x5x3 said:

I'm concerned that you would take the views of people on PH over and above doing your ow research.

I have looked and looked and looked. There is nothing - I repeat nothing - out there setting out where the value in cypto currencies lies - other than rewarding those activities necessary for its own existence and security.

[Benjaminpalma]

egomeister said:

No value in frictionless and low cost international value transfers?

That's a feature. It does not give crypto currencies inherent value as their supply is limitless and they aren't exchanged for value at their creation.

[Benjaminpalma]

egomeister said:

We're going round in circles here... what is the inherent value of GBP?

GBP is sourced from the real world in exchange for goods and services, not from the ether in exchange for helping GBP to exist.

And, the supply of GBP is tightly controlled.

[Benjaminpalma]

Behemoth said:

No, each one is not limitless at all. Bitcoin is finite. If you wanted to make a copy of sterling & call it Benjamin's Pound, you can go ahead. That doesn't mean sterling is limitless does it?

Yes, I know Bitcoin is finite - but the number of crypto currencies isn't. Why would Bitcoin be special and have value other than the cachet of being first?

Behemoth said:

You don't appear to understand the function or purpose of mining a Bitcoin. I think you need to read a little more about it rather than waste time debating hot air here.

I understand mining. As I said before, I understand everything about Bitcoin bar the minutiae of coding and algorithms. Everything.

I think you need to pluck your head from the sand and appreciate that it is cryptomania which is the (dangerous) source of hot air.

[Benjaminpalma]

x5x3 said:

it is so tightly controlled that when things get tough they just print some more and give it a long name in the hope it fools most of the population.....

Which leads to measurable and predictable inflation. Not a massive problem.

x5x3 said:

With BTC there is no one person or organisation that can decide to create more BTC.

Bitcoin - no. But anyone can make a new cryptocurrency and sell it off to some mugs/money launderers/tax evaders.

[Benjaminpalma]

FredClogs said:

Bitcoin is created through processing work already done

For "work" here read "mining" - i.e. no more than helping the currency itself to exist.

This is the crux of it all for me, and why Bitcoin has no real value in spite of its innovative charateristics.

[Benjaminpalma]

TooMany2cvs said:

Yup. We're right back to that circular logic from page 2 of the thread...

Is it that folk don't understand this - or don't want to understand this as they're wearing the Emperor's new clothes themselves?

It's such a basic and fundamental point.

[Benjaminpalma]

Ginge R said:

I know a couple of very well informed people who understand much more about this than I ever will. Notwithstanding that, there are tens of millions of ignorant punters who see rising values and just jump onboard the latest thing. Today, the regulator issued a notice about ICO/crypto. When you see Paris Hilton pushing them, you know the world's gawn mad.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-bitcoin...

http://citywire.co.uk/wealth-manager/news/fca-warn...

Who needs Paris Hilton can you read the lunacy writ large in this thread?

[Benjaminpalma]

Behemoth said:

Most here are explaining their views carefully, considerately and intelligently to you. An ad hominem attack rarely helps a debate. The minutiae of whether a tax has to be denominated in a currency for that currency to be viable or why/whether a builder of currency infrastructure should be rewarded are hardly lunacy.

Oh come on - I've thrown down the gauntlet enough times about providing any evidence that Bitcoin has any substance to it. No one has. God knows I've hunted high and low and come up with nothing. Just reams and reams about its qualities.

[Benjaminpalma]

Greater fool theory: The bitcoin bubble - from The Economist. But what do their columnists know...?!

https://www.economist.com/blogs/buttonwood/2017/11...