BITCOIN SUCKS AS CASH AND IS A LOUSY STORE OF VALUE
--
Bitcoin Remains A Prudent Speculation
My heretical views of Bitcoin remain unchanged. It sucks as cash and is a lousy store of value.
In 2019 I could not help but be amused by a tweetstorm by Dan Held proclaiming bitcoin is a store of value and subsequent rebuttal by Elliot Olds that it is a medium of exchange.
It reminds me of the classic Miller Lite Beer commercial debates in the 1970’s . . . tastes great versus less filling . . . except in bitcoin, the debate is serious.
Tastes Great! Less Filling! Both wrong. It is a crappy beer that bloats you. But, unlike bitcoin, the debates aren’t serious!
Sound money has always been lousy cash. Bitcoin and gold are both lousy cash. Sorry Elliot, but gold is useful as cash only in isolated cases when gold was plentiful and all else dear. Useful gold cash was developed off-chain (using current lingo) on a gold standard (also developed off-chain). Sorry Dan, but gold was a reliable store of value only when the gold standard emerged organically in the marketplace through free banking.
The classic qualities of money are that it is a store of value, a medium of exchange, and a unit of account. These were sought-after qualities for 5,000 years and were achieved to various degrees in different times and eras.
Coinage emerged in what is now modern-day Turkey about 650 B.C. by merchants to facilitate peaceful exchanges of goods and services within and between an expanding number of groups and later adopted by sovereigns, originating the concept of seigniorage.
Long before the emergence of coinage money existed. For 5,000 years humans have devised elaborate systems to buy and sell goods before the…
