RE: Using Bitcoin Without Spending It.
You are viewing a single comment's thread:
Hmm, going to have to disagree on this one.
Using crypto is a revolutionary act as it takes away power from the fiat monetary regimes. Holding/store of value is only one part of that.
Improving the monetary qualities (being able to buy a cup of coffee) of crypto will accelerate the power being taken back by the people.
I wrote this article about 18 months ago: https://steempeak.com/cryptocurrency/@nealmcspadden/is-cryptocurrency-money with this chart:
I will say the store of value function has improved a bit for crypto since then, but fiat is still the relative winner on that score.
0
0
0.000
I'm not quite sure what you are disagreeing with :D
I'm gonna guess it's something like, "the main function of crypto is currency".
Yeah, I mean sure... value transfer... gotta have it.
More alarmingly I have a lot of problems with that spreadsheet.
Portability is arguable because crypto is permissionless and borderless,
making it superior to fiat in that way.
Divisibility doesn't matter. Even when you could buy stuff with pennies a hundred years ago that amount of divisibility was just fine. In fact, due to the nature of fiat always being devalued and crypto increasing in value it's easy to project that fiat has superior divisibility.... not really because you can just modify the code but whatever.
Unit of account and store of value are completely swapped. You can't measure units in crypto because of the volatility, and Bitcoin has been doubling every year (or more) since it's inception.
Thoughts?
Yeah, my main point of disagreement is the idea that holding crypto is the best thing to do with it.
The other stuff...
The way I define portability in the article has to do with its usability in different situations. Yes, you can transfer your crypto to other wallets around the world, but can you then use it as money in that new place? Crypto is gaining some ground on this front, but it still has a ways to go. If you are defining it as only the ability to move money across borders, then crypto is the clear winner.
I agree divisibility is the least important metric here. You can add n-th precision to crypto, so it's the technical winner.
Store of value is poor for crypto because of that volatility, whether it be increasing or not. If I put 8 apples of purchasing power value into crypto and come back a year later, will I have 8 apples of purchasing power still? 99.9999% chance it will be drastically different. With fiat, you'll probably have 7.5 apples of purchasing power left, which isn't great, but it's way more predictable than crypto.
Unit of account pairs with divisibility and isn't all that important as both function fine. Crypto has the same technical advantage with precision though.