Thread: Bitcoin
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Old 05-05-2016, 06:27 PM   #18
Undertoad
Radical Centrist
 
Join Date: Jan 2001
Location: Cottage of Prussia
Posts: 31,423
Anything that can be kept scarce can be trusted as a backing for a currency. Suggested backings include gold, increasingly difficult cryptographic keys, and the insolvency of the US Government. Out of those three, which is most likely to remain limited?

Trust in the currency itself is equal to the trust in its backing. The reason that dollars actually work is based on an entirely, 100% emotional faith, a misplaced belief that they will continue to be accepted as payment of tax revenues by future US Governments.

Keep in mind that most dollars, like most bitcoins, do not exist in ANY physical form. They're both just numbers on computerized ledgers. When the US Treasury pays dividends on its bills to the banks, they do not back trucks up with $100s. They press keys, and bits are exchanged over networks, and "money" goes into the banks.

It's 100% emotional. Logic and reason do not apply to the future. 1 does not equal 1 if 1 does not exist.

Good luck to us all
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