SnoopRob
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88 or 89?I've got a 89 Donruss Gregg Jefferies card
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88 or 89?I've got a 89 Donruss Gregg Jefferies card
89 Rated Rookie.88 or 89?
That’s a fresh card. You’ll certainly be living high life any day now.89 Rated Rookie.
That is pretty cool though.I have a silver battle of the Nile medal given to the lieutenants of the English fleet after the most glorious victory of British naval arms other than Trafalgar. Only 150 were made. Probably 50 of those lie on the bottom of the ocean or lost completely. It's pure silver, very rare, 225 years old, historically significant, in near pristine shape and beautiful. Probably worth $4k. My prized possession actually but definitely nowhere near the most valuable.
Crazy to me that people would spend $100k on some 1s and 0s.
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Don't get me started on my fossils and antiquities....That is pretty cool though.
Being a "store of value" is not a property of a currency at all. In fact, it's a downside. A currency is a medium of exchange. You don't want it to have intrinsic value. If you want to store value, buy a bond or muni or a money market ETF.But being a store of value is just one of the three things that makes something a currency, right? I think early on Bitcoin was thought to be a legitimate medium of exchange (one of the other 2), but as you said, it doesn't scale.
There are other crypto currencies that scale much better. I haven't kept up on if any can scale to the amount of transactions that process every second currently. That problem can likely be solved, I would think?
I generally agree with the skepticism, I'm not sure how decentralized it really is. We've heard of investigations into crimes that have led to law enforcement finding out where the money went, and to whom. If so, how? If these transactions are really secure? Might be my lack of understanding.
I think there are some use legit use cases. I also think there are some "black swan" type of events that could render it completely useless.
I meant to make that point as well. A currency that has to be changed to a different currency to actually be spent in the normal course of an economy isn't a currencyBeing a "store of value" is not a property of a currency at all. In fact, it's a downside. A currency is a medium of exchange. You don't want it to have intrinsic value. If you want to store value, buy a bond or muni or a money market ETF.
The main reason that no crypto can be a currency is that there is no crypto economy. Until and unless companies are paying their workers, suppliers and taxes with crypto, then it's just a weird extra step in a transaction.
Think about it. Suppose you run a business in America that exports to Mexico. You sell your product for X pesos and your costs are Y dollars and fortunately X converted to dollars > Y. But you are nonetheless exposed to a currency risk. If the peso falls against the dollar, X as converted might not be greater than Y. You would have to raise your price X (which would potentially devastate your business) or take a loss on each sale (also devastating). As a result, you'd like to hedge your peso exposure and for that perhaps you buy or sell currency on a forward basis. Ultimately the problem is that your revenue comes in pesos and your expenses in dollars and your bottom line depends on the conversion factor.
Now introduce BTC (or any other crypto currency). How does it help you to sell your goods in bitcoin? It doesn't. Your customers don't get paid in bitcoin, so demand for your product depends on the BTC: MXN ratio. Your vendors don't get paid in bitcoin, so your costs depend on the BTC:USD ratio. And the underlying trade dynamic still depends on MXN:USD. Now you've got three currency risks to manage. Progress? Under certain assumptions, maybe you can reduce the risks to two (that is, if the BTC market is liquid enough, then the BTC:USD and BTC:MXN ratios should be collinear, but the BTC conversion is still there) -- but you've still doubled your currency risks and for what? What benefits have you gained? None. This is why nobody uses bitcoin.
Imagine, instead of "Bitcoin," you decided to price your goods in "square meters of grade A corrugated cardboard." So your product in Mexico trades for, say, 4.3 square meters. Let's assume that consumers can instantly convert cardboard costs to pesos, so it's mostly an inconvenience. But why? Why would you do that? You wouldn't. And thus would you wouldn't use Bitcoin either, because financially speaking the two are the same. They are commodity-based measures whose value depends on an independent market for them, and that can be converted into actual currencies.
Honestly wouldn't mind. Even if you have to start a new thread. Love that cool stuff. Brag away.Don't get me started on my fossils and antiquities....
I haven't read your whole post (I will after this), but my understanding that to be considered a currency, all 3 things have to be true...the currency must be:Being a "store of value" is not a property of a currency at all. In fact, it's a downside. A currency is a medium of exchange. You don't want it to have intrinsic value. If you want to store value, buy a bond or muni or a money market ETF.
The main reason that no crypto can be a currency is that there is no crypto economy. Until and unless companies are paying their workers, suppliers and taxes with crypto, then it's just a weird extra step in a transaction.
Think about it. Suppose you run a business in America that exports to Mexico. You sell your product for X pesos and your costs are Y dollars and fortunately X converted to dollars > Y. But you are nonetheless exposed to a currency risk. If the peso falls against the dollar, X as converted might not be greater than Y. You would have to raise your price X (which would potentially devastate your business) or take a loss on each sale (also devastating). As a result, you'd like to hedge your peso exposure and for that perhaps you buy or sell currency on a forward basis. Ultimately the problem is that your revenue comes in pesos and your expenses in dollars and your bottom line depends on the conversion factor.
Now introduce BTC (or any other crypto currency). How does it help you to sell your goods in bitcoin? It doesn't. Your customers don't get paid in bitcoin, so demand for your product depends on the BTC: MXN ratio. Your vendors don't get paid in bitcoin, so your costs depend on the BTC:USD ratio. And the underlying trade dynamic still depends on MXN:USD. Now you've got three currency risks to manage. Progress? Under certain assumptions, maybe you can reduce the risks to two (that is, if the BTC market is liquid enough, then the BTC:USD and BTC:MXN ratios should be collinear, but the BTC conversion is still there) -- but you've still doubled your currency risks and for what? What benefits have you gained? None. This is why nobody uses bitcoin.
Imagine, instead of "Bitcoin," you decided to price your goods in "square meters of grade A corrugated cardboard." So your product in Mexico trades for, say, 4.3 square meters. Let's assume that consumers can instantly convert cardboard costs to pesos, so it's mostly an inconvenience. But why? Why would you do that? You wouldn't. And thus would you wouldn't use Bitcoin either, because financially speaking the two are the same. They are commodity-based measures whose value depends on an independent market for them, and that can be converted into actual currencies.
(oops, i quoted the wrong post, this was responding to super...)Don't get me started on my fossils and antiquities....
This is basically asking whether bubbles can go on permanently and that's a persistent question in financial economics that has no clear answer.Happy to be enlightened but I think it's worth zero.
1. I don't think the extent of use makes any difference. Forget crypto for a minute. Why don't we price goods in Apple Stock? Go to a car dealer, and find out that the list price is 2000 shares of Apple stock. Well, billions of shares of Apple stock trade each day. It has a minimum financial value. So why not quote car prices in Apple stock? Because why would you? One of two things are happening: you're just expressing a price in weird terms for no reason, since the transaction is going to take place in actual currency. In which case, really what is the point? Or the transaction will take place in Apple stock, which seems downright inefficient. I don't want ownership of Apple stock to be a prerequisite for my customers to purchase my product, and I don't really want the Apple stock either, because I will just turn around and sell it (if I wanted Apple stock, I could buy it independently on the market).(oops, i quoted the wrong post, this was responding to super...)
Sorry, maybe I should have read your post first.
What you're saying makes sense. But is your post based on bitcoin/cryptocurrencies not being widely used (right now)? In an imaginary world, where bitcoin is widely adopted, would doing the transactions in a cryptocurrency make sense?
In thinking of the use cases, I think there are like a billion "unbanked" people in the world. That seems like a use case. If you're a refugee, you can keep/store all of your personal wealth on a hardware key, if you needed to. (Like you said, using it, right now, is another story.)
1. I don't think the extent of use makes any difference. Forget crypto for a minute. Why don't we price goods in Apple Stock? Go to a car dealer, and find out that the list price is 2000 shares of Apple stock. Well, billions of shares of Apple stock trade each day. It has a minimum financial value. So why not quote car prices in Apple stock? Because why would you? One of two things are happening: you're just expressing a price in weird terms for no reason, since the transaction is going to take place in actual currency. In which case, really what is the point? Or the transaction will take place in Apple stock, which seems downright inefficient. I don't want ownership of Apple stock to be a prerequisite for my customers to purchase my product, and I don't really want the Apple stock either, because I will just turn around and sell it (if I wanted Apple stock, I could buy it independently on the market).
2. I very much doubt any crypto currency helps unbanked people at all. What barrier is there to opening a bank account that doesn't apply even more so to opening a crypto account? All of the reasons that a person might not be able to open a bank account also apply to crypto. If I'm a refugee, I'd rather have a credit card than crypto, because if my credit card is stolen I can cancel it but if my crypto shard is stolen I'm fucked.
So how are you going to purchase crypto without a bank account where your "accepted currency" is? Is there somewhere I can feed dollar bills into a machine and get digital shares of crypto in return?The barrier, in most cases, is infrastructure to build and secure a bank. Many parts of the world don't have it. But if you have a phone or internet connection, you can buy crypto. (but you still need an accepted currency somewhere along the line to purchase it.)
That said, the hardware wallet point is true.
So how are you going to purchase crypto without a bank account where your "accepted currency" is? Is there somewhere I can feed dollar bills into a machine and get digital shares of crypto in return?
How many of the world's 1 billion "unbanked" people have a smartphone and a reliable internet connection?
2. I very much doubt any crypto currency helps unbanked people at all. What barrier is there to opening a bank account that doesn't apply even more so to opening a crypto account? All of the reasons that a person might not be able to open a bank account also apply to crypto. If I'm a refugee, I'd rather have a credit card than crypto, because if my credit card is stolen I can cancel it but if my crypto shard is stolen I'm fucked.
It seems to me that you've been getting some crypto "education." The first and only rule about crypto education is that it's bullshit top to bottom. Anyone who is a crypto enthusiast, or any site trying to explain how to invest in crypto, is telling you lies.I haven't read your whole post (I will after this), but my understanding that to be considered a currency, all 3 things have to be true...the currency must be:
- a unit of account
- a medium of exchange (for goods, services, other currencies)
- a store of value
Do the dollar is obviously all 3 of those. What a currency is "worth" (exchange rates) is generally consensus and market factors.
If I have a fundamental misunderstanding here, let me know. I don't expect you to fully explain, that can be left an an exercise for the reader (me).
Virtually every country has a central bank. Every country has buildings. Every country has secure communication networks (otherwise commerce would be impossible). Infrastructure is not a limiting factor.The barrier, in most cases, is infrastructure to build and secure a bank. Many parts of the world don't have it.