Urbandreamer wrote:Aegis wrote:You say that, but then you look at GBP, i.e. cash, which isn't an investment, it's a method of turning work into assets or means of living.
You make a point for me! Money, or the use of money, has a productive value.
I'm not convinced that I did. The idea of money is that it is a temporary store of value while you do something else with it. it doesn't have a productive value itself, it merely means that when you get paid to do something and have bills to pay in the same denomination, you can do that at different times. Nothing more. You can certainly argue that crypto assets fulfils that same requirement, but the definition of "money" at that point becomes very loose indeed, and certainly doesn't put it on a par with an actual legal tender from a strong economy.
As for "the existing system" being robust, evidence would say otherwise. OH, sorry were you talking about the UK implementation of that system?
Now you are conflating the economy with use of, say, GBP. If my goal is to use GBP as a temporary store of value while I do something else with it, then the watering down, expansion, inflation, etc of the currency has no real impact on me other than to reduce the real value of my debts. On the other hand, if the economy does well, then my shares will likely also do well
Many other countries have proved that it isn't robust, usually by running budget deficits until it breaks. Something that the UK and US seem to think that they can also do.
Yep, some governments have messed up their economies. But that doesn't stop the idea of a currency working well because you are able to pay your taxes in that currency, i.e. legal tender.
Trust in gold, you missed the point. Trust in a yellow shiny thing that might be gold, or might not. Got nitric acid in your pocket to do an assay? What of the center of the Bar/coin? I suspect that it didn't occur to you that people have in the past made fakes or "salted" bars.
https://medium.com/@Colinthecrypto1/whe ... f3159963f6
Like I said, if you buy from a reputable source, then it is reasonably to trust the source. If it later turns out that the gold is somehow impure or fake, then if you have bought using a credit card you have section 75 cover and even if you haven't then you have protection under the Sale of Goods Act (or whatever its updated form is). So yes, I think it's wholly reasonable to trust that the overall system is reputable.
Bitcoin IS bitcoin. You may not value it, but is yellow shiny stuff entirely gold? No need for nitric acid or to chop it up with bitcoin.
No, I have no suspicion that someone's bitcoin isn't actually bitcoin, I just don't think it's worth even the $20,000 that it plunged through in the last week.
It's also BITCOIN! It isn't your "Citcoin", which I for one wouldn't buy. Good luck with you ICO, I won't be subscribing, but as I said, good luck. Despite the fact that no Bitcoiner would subscribe, have you looked into how you will do it?
And for all the reasons you instantly dismiss the concept of citcoin, I dismiss bitcoin. The weird difference to me is that you think one of these two worthless systems has value
As for Bitcoin as a commodity, it's not a view I hold myself. If's just "what does snake taste like"? If you have to pick something that people already know, then the answer is not going to be an ideal match. I view it as "money" and am on record of stating the fact on this board. As such I struggle with the term "invest" when used with respect to bitcoin. Then again, can you "invest" in a barrel or tanker of oil?
No.
Oil companies or land over which pipelines pass (earning a royalty), yes.
Yes, agreed.
But oil it's self, well where would you keep it?
Well, if you bought the actual barrels, you could keep them at home or in a storage vault. If you wanted to buy more than would be practical, you could buy a physical ETF and allow the fund manager to sort out the problem of storage. With a little more trust in the system, you could instead opt for a synthetic ETF which buys financial contracts for the oil rather than the physical oil itself. If you then want, you can buy leveraged ETFs, but that's going much further.
In my view, none of this is investing, but my view of investing is that something must carry out some form of economic activity, bringing in external funds by turning some form of property into something more valuable.