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Preposterous, the difference between Bitcoin and fiat currency is that Bitcoin is finite. Fiat currency is constantly devalued to one extent other by the issuing of debt. Fiat (American) currency is expected to be devalued by 2% at very least on a continual basis.
the real rate of inflation is reflected in the S&P 500 7-10% annually. Prices of scarce goods that cannot easily be increased in production double every 10 years, and soon will at an increasing rate.
The fact that something is finite does not automatically confer it value. Further, the fact that fiat currency is able to expand along with the economy is a feature, not a bug. Currency is not meant to be saved or hoarded long term, it is meant to be spent (facilitate economic exchange) or invested (facilitate future economic development).
Currency is tool, not an end in and of itself. A currency is not valuable because it doesn't inflate, it is valuable to the extent that it facilitates the growth and sustenance of a strong economy. A currency is necessarily tied to the economy itself; money is an abstraction, and all forms of currency (dollars and Bitcoin included) are worthless if not tethered to economic engines (the sum total of productive workers and goods and services available). This seems to be the major thing that Bitcoin maxis don't understand. They think that because Bitcoin possesses scarcity that it must be inherently valuable and thus must function as the perfect currency. But there is seemingly no understanding of the fact that scarcity in the money supply poses serious structural economic problems. In short, they recognize all the flaws of fiat currency, but none of the virtues. And they recognize all the virtues of Bitcoin, but none of the flaws.
This is the funnier part of the argument they keep making, but are unaware of them contradicting themselves.
"I need a cash producing asset" - suggesting that BTC is not.
Well, if the companies in the indices are just "cash producing" to the extent that the money supply expands, are they really producing anything? The question answers itself. So the value of BTC, which outdoes the S&P greatly, shows you that people also value it more.
You can't have it both ways: BTC is "outproducing" the stock market indices they choose, overcoming the monetary expansion. Hmm, how's that happening? The people must believe it is more valuable then all these "service and cash producing" companies. That's odd ... why is that?
“Calling bitcoin an investment, is like calling the Underground Railroad a ‘career move’”.
Haha
Haha
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Why is counterfeiting necessary for economic growth? Zimbabwe and Venezuela should be booming!
And yes it is counterfeiting - no matter what the government calls it, quantitative easing or BTFP. Just like it’s called mass murder when an individual blows up a building, but collateral damage when governments do it.
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Your myopic focus on the mechanics of fiat currency as being somehow unfair or immoral causes you to continue missing the point. Here is the point: all currencies, whether based on gold, fiat, Bitcoin, or any other standard, have value only insofar as they allow the bearer to lay claim to real economic goods and services. Fiat currencies, through the process of money creation via private bank lending (which you call "counterfeiting"), are exceptionally good at encouraging and facilitating economic development. This is why they are employed throughout every modern, advanced economy. Can fiat currency be mismanaged to disastrous effect? Of course. But so can another technology that is universally utilized in the modern world: electricity. If you visit a developing nation and find a woefully unreliable power grid, do you blame electricity itself? Or do you blame the people who fail to maintain and operate the grid properly?
It's also interesting to note that your moral and ethical objections to fiat as being unfair (because it can be lent into existence on-demand or counterfeited, as you say) do not also extend to Bitcoin. What could be more unfair than to consign future generations to permanent serf status because they happened to be born after Bitcoin was already invented and hoarded? Do you really think it's "fair" that (in your version of the future), a hundred years from now, chance vought IV will be a mega-billionaire and employ a household of servants (perhaps my descendants!) simply because you bought Bitcoin today? How is such a regressively neo-feudal economy any better than the system we have now, which, for all its faults, routinely allows for a high degree of economic advancement by the most smart and capable among us?
Most economic normies of relatively medium to medium-high IQ like myself don't recognize or experience "inflation" because we work hard and semi-smart enough, and though we pay more for things through the years it doesn't affect us or "register" because we are making more money, therefore our experience of the world is that we are paying less for items today than we were 20 years ago. This is called "deflation." I'm living in an America where everything is getting cheaper, not more expensive. This is not up for debate.
This economic jargon is for theorists and hobbyists who enjoy attempting to understand The System in an effort to get rich without having to do manual labor. It is a very jewish mindset, and quite frankly boring to those of us with hobbies that require 10,000 hours of time to master. Money can't buy you demonstrable skill sets, only time spent practicing can do that, and money can't buy you more time (please don't attempt to argue with that last statement as it is existential in nature). We've all heard the jewish mindset saying of, "Time is money," but for those who are serious about becoming Matrix-free it should be reframed into a Christian mindset that states, "Money is time."
Bitcoin is money, and therefore worthless. Time is the real "free" God given gift, and most humans squander the gift of time in pursuit of money.
money is exceptionally good at facilitating economic development...fiat is money, albeit flawed.
there is no counterfactual comparison because money is winner take all (we can't compare in real time) pre-1971 and pre-1913 give a glimpse of a less corrupted money, though
by " managed" you mean institutionalized theft from people who save, to people who borrow
If early bitcoiner's descendants do not produce value, they will redistribute thier bitcoins to those that do. Simply having bitcoin stores value - it does not produce any on its own. This is fundamentally different from a select few fiat cantillionaires and banks that can create no value, but perpetually siphon off the value of others by "managing" the currency/economy/whatever they call it.
This is not true. With a fixed supply of Bitcoin functioning as a global currency, the first-mover advantage becomes enormous and insurmountable. This is the entire rationale behind MSTR, which you yourself invest in. The idea is that more and more people would be competing for an ever-shrinking pool of Bitcoin, while the early-movers sitting on fat stacks would continue gaining purchasing power via deflation. From a moral and ethical perspective, this is literally no different than the sort of impropriety you accuse the current banking class of engaging in.
The funny thing is, though, that this future is literally impossible. Due to Bitcoin's fixed supply, it cannot function as a lending medium, because the money to pay the interest on the loan must be pulled from the fixed supply of Bitcoin. That is, it must be redistributed from one individual to another, and eventually back into the lender's pocket. This means that, whatever entity (for example, MSTR) accumulated the most Bitcoin and began to lend it at interest, would, mathematically, eventually accumulate every Bitcoin in circulation.
MSTR is not lending bitcoin. I don't think they will ever lend bitcoin in the future, either. MSTR is transitioning the fiat fixed income market to a bitcoin standard. Insurance companies, pension funds, and individuals who switch to MSTRs financial products will have a better chance of surviving the coming decades.
Lending bitcoin for interest might be possible, in a future world but it would be much more scrutinized than bank lending. Most lenders would probably want a stake in the company, not an interest rate (even 0% interest on a bitcoin loan could be impossible to pay, with prices falling forever).
Unproductive lending would be curtailed.
Lending would take the form of a VC venture, not an interest rate. People would trade a large but dwindling stack of bitcoin, for a smaller stack and a business that can pay them for many years - even if they never recoup the original investment in an entire lifetime.
The only way to get more bitcoin is to provide value - having a large stack does nothing.
This makes no sense. Why is MSTR accumulating Bitcoin if they don't intend to lend it? An enormous stack of money serves no purpose if you just stare at it. Further, MSTR's "financial products" exist only to facilitate their continuous accumulation of Bitcoin - which brings us back to our previous question. Why exactly are they accumulating Bitcoin in the first place if they don't intend to do anything with it? If MSTR cannot generate a return on their Bitcoin at some future date, they will be unable to make the dividend payments on their preferred shares, unless they continually, in perpetuity, dilute their common stock holders by issuing new shares. This is the literal definition of a ponzi scheme, and will inevitably collapse.
What you're suggesting is similar to the Islamic banking system. Look to the economic development in the Muslim world (minus the oil-rich nations) and see how that works out for encouraging growth. At the very least, this sort of system would severely constrain new business formation by restricting access to capital.
The problem is that in a capitalistic society where technological advancement plays a pivotal role in economic development, you can't determine what lending is productive vs. unproductive until years in the future. Lending in Bitcoin, to the degree that it is even possible, is thus a recipe for economic and technological stagnation.
The thing is, there's really not even an incentive for a large HODLer to even engage in this sort of VC speculation with their Bitcoin. They'd do better simply HODLing and allowing deflation to do its work. Why take any risk when they can simply do nothing and have their purchasing power increase steadily over time? In a fiat system, people are forced to work, invest, innovate, and otherwise engage in productive economic activity in order to stay ahead of inflation. Bitcoin offers no such incentive, and indeed discourages such activity in favor of simple HODLing.
It is collateralizing their operations. Similar to a bank, but with 700% collateral instead of 5%.
Without the Bitcoin, their business wouldn’t work.
For now, Bitcoin is generating a huge return, 50% ARR, and most of us project at least 30% over the next decades. Selling common stock is only one way to pay dividends, and it makes sense if the stock price is 2x or 5x the net assets. However, borrowing more in the form of issuing the different preferred stock is more accretive to shareholders under most circumstances. Borrowing fiat in the form of preferred stock at a cost of 8%, to buy bitcoin that has a return rate of 30%, and the difference is delivered to shareholders. It’s not a ponzi, it’s arbitraging the mispriced fiat debt markets against Bitcoin.
Bitcoin definitely gets one off of the fiat slave treadmill…you get more time for your family and to possibly do what you love, instead of just make money. Investing should be a choice, not a necessity. Saving allows people to plan for the future for their own dreams, not invest in someone else’s.
The "deflationary scare" tactics exist to try to convince people that the status quo is good. Of course, @scorpion has shown time and again that he falls for this, which amazingly in its inability to critically assess the problems of the world, and Urkel to boot, being a witness against himself. The fractional reserve or manipulation of commodity X standard has enabled bankers to control more wealth and promote more war than any other thing in the world for centuries. They have this advantage but something that was open to ALL people all of a sudden is unfair? It's as bizarre as Urkel calling the "jew usury system" that currently exists, that he forgets for a second (I have no idea how), and then labels BTC the jew money system. Which one is it? Surely, something that can't be printed or controlled by the former system has to be preferred over the former system. It's just pure logic, since the problems with the first are, and have been, evident to all on this site for years.
Effectively, then, in REAL LIFE, if you have money already, you have FAR more time. Think about it. It's the very reason why people with money don't want to work more, because their time is more valuable. Point proven. And I didn't even get into how if you have more time that you don't have to work in, you can in fact live longer by eating better and exercising, have less stress (read: live longer) - see how this negates all of your points? This gets tiresome after a while. But again, I write because I care that people think correctly.
I heard someone say reasoning by extreme explains the mean recently, but I've always said this exercise is critical in thinking because it so clearly shows you how you should think and it is in fact a shortcut. Of course, chance's point here shows that counterfeiting isn't good. We'll get to scorpion's control argument later. But it is akin to the MMT crowd, who believes they can print it all and control their (future) actions, lol
How is that different than anything else historically, if the case? It's irrelevant as this has already happened but you don't mention that. What's more, technically, since BTC was open and visible to everyone, it was by definition the fairest rollout of possible value every offered to humanity. Don't hate the player, as they say, scorpion
You aren't even living in reality anymore, which is why you can't debate, in this thing called reality.
Money can't buy you time, it is true, but it can in the sense that WE ALL MUST WORK and thus opportunity cost essentially becomes buying time by buying freedom (if you have money). But you don't like that kind of nuance, since it's too relevant and practical. Don't be some stodgy inerrancy arguer over here, it's not worth doing.
Effectively, then, in REAL LIFE, if you have money already, you have FAR more time. Think about it. It's the very reason why people with money don't want to work more, because their time is more valuable. Point proven. And I didn't even get into how if you have more time that you don't have to work in, you can in fact live longer by eating better and exercising, have less stress (read: live longer) - see how this negates all of your points? This gets tiresome after a while. But again, I write because I care that people think correctly.
Incontrovertible.
No, we've tried to explain this a million times, but at least you admit that the current banking class engages in this, thus showing you that something you can't print out of thin air can't be the same thing.
Indeed. Richard Werner has stated that we absolutely know the difference between unproductive lending and productive lending. That doesn't mean we know for sure and in every instance that it would be, but enough to make major productivity jumps in the economy, for certain.
As above, wrong again.
Precisely.
As I stated above, as well. As I proved, more money does buy you time - or at least provides you with that optionality - whether Urkel likes it or not.
In the most simple terms, Strategy (MSTR) is a speculative attack on fiat. Borrow the weaker currency to buy hard assets. The weak money has artificially low interest rates (to keep zombie companies and indebted government on life support).
Either interest rates rise and the zombie companies, banks and governments are insolvent, or the money inflates faster and faster, weakening the currency to the point where it destabilizes society.
Either interest rates rise and the zombie companies, banks and governments are insolvent, or the money inflates faster and faster, weakening the currency to the point where it destabilizes society.
Exactly.
Let's say you aren't even a (long term) believer in BTC and therefore MSTR. Who cares? It's clear where this is going, and you don't think there's a reason why STRC just got 2.5B in interest? They're going to get massive inflows with that because it literally is going to double the MM return, and even more when sooner than later interest rates are lowered. You'll be getting fixed 8-9% vs 3.5%. Who cares what your beliefs are, you don't think that older people won't get into that? And that's just ONE of the preferreds that Strategy offers.
Not taking advantage of any of this is just stupid, and for no real reason.