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Crypto Bubble

How to buy, profit and invest in crypto currencies or NFTs
TheMotorcycleBoy
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Re: Crypto Bubble

#399900

Postby TheMotorcycleBoy » March 28th, 2021, 8:29 pm

Urbandreamer wrote:
justfisk wrote:To add context to this. Bitcoins solution to this is actually inspired by the Fiat system.
JF


I think that we may have to disagree upon this.

Hi UD,

My interpretation of JF's last, was that it was *not* a contention that BTC is Fiat.......but rather that BTC is moving toward the adoption of multiple layers, well two, in JF's last, in facilitation of BTC purchases, and that fiat monies have ben known to operate in a similar manner.

I.e. A fast transaction layer, and a slower on-chain settlement layer. I could be wrong, that does happen once or twice a century, but at least thats how I read JF's narrative.

Matt

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Re: Crypto Bubble

#400219

Postby justfisk » March 29th, 2021, 11:14 pm

but at least thats how I read JF's narrative


Thanks, your interpretation is exactly what I meant Matt.

I wanted to add my take on a couple of other comments that have been made in this thread.
1. There is the constant challenge from people to Bitcoin as a currency
2. The narrative being created of Bitcoin as bad for the environment or consuming large amounts of energy

(This would be done in another Post)

Bitcoin as a currency
1. "So difficult it is to show the various meanings and imperfections of words when we have nothing else but words to do it with."
—John Locke

At the moment it is indeed debatable if Bitcoin is a currency. The US Tax treatment and many of the regulations in the US categorize it as "Property". Others categorize it as a "monetary asset", others just a "cryptocurrency".

I think Bitcoin is much more than just a currency. Much more than just an asset.
As it is with most improvements in technology, what replaces the old legacy systems is usually much more revolutionary than what gets replaced. For example we have had Postal Mail for decades, however, once Email came along, it was much more than a fast Postal Mail. A car is much more than just a fast horse.

Money functions as:
A medium of exchange
A unit of account
A store of value

At the moment
Bitcoin is viewed mainly as a store of value and to a lesser extent as a medium of exchange.
For now, most who understand Bitcoin only want to "hodl" (to use the parlance of the community). They understand that there are "only" 21million Coins (with 90% already mined) and due to its Game theoretical properties, time is limited to claim the piece of property in cyberspace. Can it replace Gold as a store of Value?
Certainly, It would not replace Gold (as Store of Value) at its current pace without Volatility!
Here is the Bitcoin/Gold chart since inception, including projections: https://pasteboard.co/JUUKtmK.jpg
As a Savings Technology, here is a chart of its 10 Year performance: https://pasteboard.co/JUUvZ6u.jpg
The YTD according to Goldman Sachs (including Risk-Adjusted returns): https://pasteboard.co/JUUwLeY.jpg
For those who view it as "Tulips", I couldn't help being a bit cheeky by adding this overperformance drawn to scale :) : https://pasteboard.co/JUUxGEf.jpg

They understand it is rare for humanity to have an asset with absolute scarcity. They know that its mass adoption is growing at a faster rate when compared to the Internet. https://pasteboard.co/JUUkcfT.jpg
Being an emerging asset class, spending Bitcoin is very costly! http://shorturl.at/fpFV9
As Bitcoin adoption grows, and price discovery is allowed to take place, it is expected that the volatility would decrease which would then allow Bitcoin to be used more as a medium of Exchange especially as its second layer solutions develop. Further growth of that may even allow the possibility of it to be a Unit of account.

What Bitcoin is, has been changing over time. It means so many things to so many people and even that evolves over time. It used to be a plaything for nerds and cypherpunks. Then it evolved into being a medium of exchange in the dark web. After which it was a trading item for speculators. Now we have institutions acquiring as much of it as they can as a hedge amidst an orgy of Money printing in the Worlds Reserve currency. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M2SL

I do not know if I would call it a currency now. Mankind has never had anything like it before, and discovering what it is, is challenging to anyone. It would surely be exciting to find out.

thanks,
JF

Urbandreamer
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Re: Crypto Bubble

#400245

Postby Urbandreamer » March 30th, 2021, 7:35 am

justfisk wrote:1. There is the constant challenge from people to Bitcoin as a currency
2. The narrative being created of Bitcoin as bad for the environment or consuming large amounts of energy

(This would be done in another Post)


I confess that I find the CO2 "argument" very very irritating.

If you research then you can find the methods by which the amount of energy used is estimated. Note that it is an estimate and not as often claimed a fact.

Setting aside those estimates of power requirements, because I regard the methods as having some validity, let us turn our attention to the CO2 claims.

There are plenty of recent claims, but I can't find much in the way of how these estimates are made. Certainly not how the Bank of America produced it's estimate.

There are stories of the largest Bitcoin miner in China setting up by hydroelectric dams, because the electricity is cheap. Miners in Canada using waste gas and even a London quoted Bitcoin miner going green*.
But they are just part of the whole. Some Bitcoin is and will be mined using more dirty energy.

Here is a recent study that I did find.
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/ne ... 821838.cms
However it is worth noting that they assume that Chinese bitcoin mining is spread evenly throughout China and hence that they can simply apportion CO2 based upon the mix of energy production over the whole country. Is that appropriate given that it would seem that 70% of Chinese bitcoin mining is by that Hydroelectric dam? See this link.
https://www.wired.co.uk/article/bitcoin ... ncy-wechat

*Argo Blockchain going green.
https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/bitco ... -bQNSrwwFE

NotSure
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Re: Crypto Bubble

#400337

Postby NotSure » March 30th, 2021, 1:42 pm

Urbandreamer wrote:I confess that I find the CO2 "argument" very very irritating.


Maybe someone can explain what I have wrong here, but in terms of environmental impact, does it really matter exactly which generation source that crypto mining equipment is physically plugged into? (Or any other energy intensive process, e.g. charging BEVs). What I mean is, if they are using hydro, surely this just displaces that clean energy from some other use, so what really matters is the overall energy generation sources on any particular grid. If all the miners shut down, that hydro would surely be used elsewhere, allowing for a reduction in fossil fuel plant capacity?

For example, it is estimated that 65% of Bitcoin mining is carried out in China, and 65% of Chinese electricity is generated from coal (2020). So just in China alone, 40%+ of worldwide Bitcoin mining is effectively coal fired?

Urbandreamer
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Re: Crypto Bubble

#400350

Postby Urbandreamer » March 30th, 2021, 2:52 pm

NotSure wrote:
Urbandreamer wrote:I confess that I find the CO2 "argument" very very irritating.


Maybe someone can explain what I have wrong here, but in terms of environmental impact, does it really matter exactly which generation source that crypto mining equipment is physically plugged into?


Well it's a matter of opinion. I think that we can agree that were it to be the case that all Bitcoin mining was done using private coal generation that would lead to HUGE environmental impacts regardless of what a countries average is. This is not a straw man argument. This is exactly what did happen with Aluminium production in China. They added 667 Mt of CO2 due to this while the German study puts bitcoin at 22 Mt.

https://ember-climate.org/commentary/20 ... emissions/
It has also happened in parts of America with Bitcoin.
https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/n ... y-montana/

It's somewhat of an assumption that it displaces demand onto other generation plant. In the Chinese case there was an excess of supply from Hydro but no means of shipping Aluminium ore to the area. In the American example, the coal plant would close due to lack of demand.

The real world is not as simple as the German study.

However my point wasn't actually so much that I disagreed with the simplification in the German study that I provided a link to, though I do find it dubious. It was the difficulty in finding studies to back up claims made by the likes of the Bank of America. Or indeed many others.

One wonders why they don't state where they get their estimates from.

GoSeigen
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Re: Crypto Bubble

#400396

Postby GoSeigen » March 30th, 2021, 6:06 pm

Urbandreamer wrote:
justfisk wrote:1. There is the constant challenge from people to Bitcoin as a currency
2. The narrative being created of Bitcoin as bad for the environment or consuming large amounts of energy

(This would be done in another Post)


I confess that I find the CO2 "argument" very very irritating.



Stop making it then. AFAICS you are the only person who has mentioned CO2.

GS

Urbandreamer
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Re: Crypto Bubble

#400402

Postby Urbandreamer » March 30th, 2021, 6:40 pm

GoSeigen wrote:
Stop making it then. AFAICS you are the only person who has mentioned CO2.

GS


Really? the only one? You may have noticed that I was replying.

Indeed I think that JohnB made the CO2 argument in this very thread starting here.
viewtopic.php?p=386306#p386306
Which I admit that I did reply to.

Of course it is possible that, like JohnB, you may have decided to declare some people as FOE and hence not read their posts. JohnB and those who replied quoting him of course. However I assure you that many people have mentioned it in the general press and that some have mentioned it here.

However as you request I shall drop the subject.

TheMotorcycleBoy
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Re: Crypto Bubble

#400409

Postby TheMotorcycleBoy » March 30th, 2021, 6:53 pm

Human beings waste energy, period.

I remember summer after summer, prior to the pandemic, which has freed me from my 60 mile roundtrip, by way of WFH.......being stuck in 5 mile tailbacks on the A14, on the slog back home each day.

And on lowering my car windows to hear the drone of cooling fans, the running of AC units, keeping besuited commuters in cool and comfy in their 4-wheeled living rooms.

So, really, why shouldn't folk mine the odd bitcoin or two?

Matt

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Re: Crypto Bubble

#400426

Postby TheMotorcycleBoy » March 30th, 2021, 8:05 pm

In other news.

The price of Bitcoin jumped on Tuesday morning after Reuters reported that PayPal Holdings Inc (NASDAQ:PYPL) is to start allowing US consumers to use their cryptocurrencies to make purchases.

The payments company later confirmed the service - ‘Checkout with Crypto’ - and said that customers holding Bitcoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash and Litecoin in PayPal digital wallets will be able to convert holdings into fiat currency at checkouts to make purchases.


https://m.uk.investing.com/news/cryptoc ... to-2335647

Matt

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Re: Crypto Bubble

#400621

Postby NotSure » March 31st, 2021, 4:42 pm

In yet other news, Goldman now have a 'global head' of their 'Digital Assets Group'.

Goldman Sachs was set to offer its wealthy clients exposure to bitcoin and other crypto later this year, MarketWatch has confirmed.

Goldman will aim to offer bitcoin BTCUSD and its like in the second quarter, according to an internal memo reviewed by MarketWatch. The move, which was first reported by CNBC on Wednesday, comes as Mary Rich has been named global head of the Digital Assets Group for the bank’s private wealth management division.

“She will work closely with advisors to educate clients about blockchain technology and the digital assets ecosystem, and seek to deliver content, investment offerings and services,” according to the memo........


https://www.marketwatch.com/story/goldman-to-offer-bitcoin-and-other-crypto-to-wealthy-investors-11617194916?mod=mw_latestnews

justfisk
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Re: Crypto Bubble

#400713

Postby justfisk » March 31st, 2021, 11:09 pm

2. The narrative being created of Bitcoin as bad for the environment or consuming large amounts of energy


Advanced Civilizations use more Energy than inferior ones.
Energy is abundant in the Universe.

Energy discussions these days involve a lot of political posturing as opposed to objective reasoning.
It is difficult to discuss energy without entering the realm of politics. I would try and avoid that hornets nest of discussion. In the end, one's political beliefs about energy affect everything such as housing, trains, etc and should not be specifically about Bitcoin. As we are seeing, with "Clean energy" getting cheaper, the free market automatically moves to embrace it - including Bitcoin.

This Post is more about those who isolate Bitcoin alone in energy criticism.
Usually these accusations are made on social media, or in old media, by writers lacking the self awareness of their own energy usage.
They would be more believable with their critic if they wrote their concern in Sand using a stick so as not to "burn energy" rather than the datacenters or TV studios of media companies.
These writers never raised a concern with the rising energy consumption of Facebook for example:
https://pasteboard.co/JVd86hpK.jpg
For those reading this post, even using this very website uses energy. :|
(Servers, Datacenters, routers, laptops, phones to consume the content)

Bitcoin transverses the Digital and the monetary Space.
So I include here a snapshot of Bitcoin Carbon Footprint as compared to Data Centers and Digital media
https://pasteboard.co/JVd5Fz0.jpg

As well as a comparison of Bitcoin with what it seeks to replace:
Bitcoin vs Gold vs Fiat = https://pasteboard.co/JVda5WL.jpg

Staying on the topic of what Bitcoin seeks to replace:
How "clean" is Gold mining?
I could post some really horrible pictures of what that industry has done physically to the environment talk less of the energy required to Mine Gold. It is not very pretty.
How "clean" and energy costly is the Fiat Banking system? I would not touch on obvious energy costs of its Datacenters or printing of its cash.
For this one, I would mention the cost of the war machines that back this system.
For example the US Military is the largest single Consumer of Energy in the the world.
Those same writers never seem to mention this.
That is just part of the energy costs of what it takes to back the World Fiat reserve currency.

Apart from that, many of the old media reports on Bitcoin are littered with logical fallacies
They mention the cost of energy and point to its number of transactions.
However, most of its energy use is not in its transactions but rather in mining new Bitcoin, of which 90% have already been mined.


I believe that Bitcoin is actually good for the environment. Imagine moving value long distances the "old way". By loading up Gold on one of the ships stuck in the Suez canal. :D
Instead one can just post that same value to a Bitcoin address and have it settled within 10mins.

Mining, Storing, transporting Gold? Come on!
If the concern is the energy costs and the environment, the faster Bitcoin replaces Gold as a store of value, the better for the Planet.

thanks,
JF

PS: For some interesting takes on Bitcoin energy as well as Bitcoin in general one may read the shareholder letter by the Norwegian company Seetee (subsidiary of Oil company Aker): https://www.seetee.io/static/shareholder_letter-6ae7e85717c28831bf1c0eca1d632722.pdf

For some more technical aspects of Bitcoin energy, one may look at some of the writing of Nic Carter:
https://www.coindesk.com/author/nic-carter

GoSeigen
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Re: Crypto Bubble

#400741

Postby GoSeigen » April 1st, 2021, 7:57 am

justfisk wrote:
2. The narrative being created of Bitcoin as bad for the environment or consuming large amounts of energy


Advanced Civilizations use more Energy than inferior ones.
Energy is abundant in the Universe.

Energy discussions these days involve a lot of political posturing as opposed to objective reasoning.
It is difficult to discuss energy without entering the realm of politics. I would try and avoid that hornets nest of discussion. In the end, one's political beliefs about energy affect everything such as housing, trains, etc and should not be specifically about Bitcoin. As we are seeing, with "Clean energy" getting cheaper, the free market automatically moves to embrace it - including Bitcoin.

This Post is more about those who isolate Bitcoin alone in energy criticism.
Usually these accusations are made on social media, or in old media, by writers lacking the self awareness of their own energy usage.


Ad hominem fallacious reasoning right at the start, followed quickly by a red herring (energy use of TLF), tl;dr the remainder.

The issue for me as a bitcoin critic is that carrying out day-to-day transactions as habitually done with so-called currencies is outrageously wasteful of energy, slow and illiquid compared to perfectly acceptable existing alternatives.

Perhaps there are other use cases. The objection might not apply equally to those. But for buying a cup of coffee or a train ticket, bitcoin is a nonsense IMO.

GS

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Re: Crypto Bubble

#400748

Postby JohnB » April 1st, 2021, 9:15 am

https://cbeci.org/

Note how energy consumption has surged as the price has risen, and there is NO upper limit, it it remains profitable

Energy may be abundant in the Universe, but its not down here, and until it can be produced without adverse environmental impacts, it needs to be conserved like water.

If you could make money by leaving you taps on all day, would you do so?

Goldminers produce environmental impact assessments. Bitcoin miners don't.

The 90% of bitcoins already mined argument is daft. The next 9% could cost 10* the energy already consumed, the next 0.9% 10* again, if the price continues to rise.

Facebook energy consumption 2019 5 GWh (https://www.statista.com/statistics/580 ... -facebook/) Bitcoin in 2021 137 TWh.

There is a strong case for refusing to deal with companies that use Bitcoin. I am reconsidering my use of Paypal.

CryptoPlankton
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Re: Crypto Bubble

#400767

Postby CryptoPlankton » April 1st, 2021, 10:03 am

GoSeigen wrote:
The issue for me as a bitcoin critic is that carrying out day-to-day transactions as habitually done with so-called currencies is outrageously wasteful of energy, slow and illiquid compared to perfectly acceptable existing alternatives.

Perhaps there are other use cases. The objection might not apply equally to those. But for buying a cup of coffee or a train ticket, bitcoin is a nonsense IMO.

GS

Whereas, pulling a 10oz bar of gold out of your pocket and saying "milk and one sugar, please" isn't? :)

I'm not taking sides here, but I think things have moved on too far (particularly with its growing acceptance by so many big players) to dismiss bitcoin so flippantly.

I really don't see how anyone can be sure either way so, for FOMO, I took out a very small position in a "crypto miner" a while back. Having sold my initial stake after it doubled, I now watch on with a vested interest, but fairly relaxed about how it all pans out.

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Re: Crypto Bubble

#400908

Postby justfisk » April 1st, 2021, 5:19 pm

Perhaps there are other use cases. The objection might not apply equally to those. But for buying a cup of coffee or a train ticket, bitcoin is a nonsense IMO.


I cannot disagree much with what you say here. Bitcoin's on-chain is not meant for Cup of coffee transactions.
Bitcoin is not competing with Paypal or applepay.
Time will tell if bitcoin's off-chain solutions (eg Lightning and Liquid) compete with Paypal etc.


Those who wanted a crypto for such minor transactions forked-off the chain into another cryptocurrency years ago when the development plan for Bitcoin chose this different path.

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Re: Crypto Bubble

#400926

Postby justfisk » April 1st, 2021, 6:24 pm

The issue for me as a bitcoin critic is that carrying out day-to-day transactions as habitually done with so-called currencies is outrageously wasteful of energy, slow and illiquid compared to perfectly acceptable existing alternatives.


Your comparison has to be like-for-like though. Bitcoin is a full stack independent Monetary Network including transactional, clearing and settlement.
Bitcoin uses less energy than alternatives because if you compare Bitcoin with alternatives, those alternatives have to be the full monetary stack ie Visa, CHIPS, Fedwire ACH, SWIFT, the global banking system, the Central Banks and of course the military and diplomatic powers of Nation States for where it transacts. That is what it takes to use the alternative.


The transactions themselves do not cost energy for Bitcoin. It is the coin-issuance. The mining. The "money creation".
That is because it is Hard to create. It is Hard money. There is a real world cost to Hard money.
Before Bitcoin the Hardest money we had used was Gold. It is not easy to mine Gold hence its staying power as money in the world. Also arguably why those who -like Britain- adopted Gold in history thrived more than those who adopted softer money.
Easy or soft money is,...well...easy. On the stroke of a pen $1.9Trillion can be created overnight. According to Google, the average life expectancy for a fiat currency is 27 years. :roll: Even those that last longer lose purchasing power in leaps and bounds over time.


Goldminers produce environmental impact assessments. Bitcoin miners don't.

And yet Goldminers not only consume more energy, but they produce millions of tons of toxic waste, destroy landscapes and forests and poison people in developing countries. However those "assessments" sure give us those cozy warm feelings inside though.

There is a strong case for refusing to deal with companies that use Bitcoin. I am reconsidering my use of Paypal.

If so passionate about it, reconsider your use of the internet, jewelry, phones and all things we consider as human technological advancement. Reconsider the driving of cars. That of course includes electric cars where the environmental and energy impact exists but is hidden/pushed to the periphery. (One doesnt get to see that dirty petrol or diesel entering the tank, or the fossil fuels powering the electrical systems)

Anyway I would say less about the energy aspects generally as I mentioned it cuts into peoples beliefs and political bias.
In the end people either find value in something or they don't and they are not ok with the energy consumption of things that they either do not understand or find valuable. I doubt I can change that.


thanks,
JF

Bubblesofearth
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Re: Crypto Bubble

#401022

Postby Bubblesofearth » April 2nd, 2021, 9:27 am

justfisk wrote:In the end people either find value in something or they don't and they are not ok with the energy consumption of things that they either do not understand or find valuable. I doubt I can change that.


thanks,
JF


I'm all for finding value but which one to choose;

https://coinmarketcap.com

At least with gold I know there aren't thousands of alternatives.

BoE

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Re: Crypto Bubble

#401827

Postby Andy46 » April 5th, 2021, 11:28 am

Hi

Does anyone know of a good crypto discussion board. It would be good to be able to ask questions, especially since there is zero support from crypto exchanges.

Thanks

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Re: Crypto Bubble

#401896

Postby justfisk » April 5th, 2021, 4:56 pm

I'm all for finding value but which one to choose;

https://coinmarketcap.com

At least with gold I know there aren't thousands of alternatives.


As with precious metals, be careful what you choose. It can be detrimental to your Net Worth.
Gold has been superior to other metals and commodities as money due to the properties it possesses. There is a reason the Great civilizations all used Gold. It could be argued that they became great civilizations due to Gold. The Mayans, Aztecs, Egyptian, Greek and Roman civilizations. Other easy, weaker alternatives even chosen by countries over the years proved to be very costly (As the Indians and Chinese found out with the Silver standard)
As those holding Gold may soon find out once Bitcoin replaces it as a store of value.

In the World of "Crypto", Bitcoin stands alone as the Store of Value. There are not many alternatives. In the list you shared, Ethereum is more a platform for smart contracts and even its founders do not market it as a store of value.
Tether and Binancecoin are Stablecoins not stores of value . XRP is a centralized token run by Ripple labs battling lawsuits by the SEC, even "Bitcoin Cash" which is a fork off Bitcoin is designed to be a cup of coffee payment token, not a store of value. Dogecoin was created as a joke.
In addition, do not forget the importance of "Network effects". For example, even if we come up "LemonfoolBook" as a marginally better designed "Facebook", network effects almost doom it to fail. Moving all friends, family and value already stored in Facebook to Lemonfoolbook would prove quite challenging. In the Technology space, Network effects dictate only 1 winner.

Suffice to say all other altcoins trade around the orbit of Bitcoin and its 4 year halving cycle.
The same way I expect tiny online retailers to trade around the orbit of Amazon.


JF

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Re: Crypto Bubble

#402626

Postby ursaminortaur » April 8th, 2021, 2:33 pm

justfisk wrote:
I'm all for finding value but which one to choose;

https://coinmarketcap.com

At least with gold I know there aren't thousands of alternatives.


As with precious metals, be careful what you choose. It can be detrimental to your Net Worth.
Gold has been superior to other metals and commodities as money due to the properties it possesses. There is a reason the Great civilizations all used Gold. It could be argued that they became great civilizations due to Gold. The Mayans, Aztecs, Egyptian, Greek and Roman civilizations. Other easy, weaker alternatives even chosen by countries over the years proved to be very costly (As the Indians and Chinese found out with the Silver standard)
As those holding Gold may soon find out once Bitcoin replaces it as a store of value.

In the World of "Crypto", Bitcoin stands alone as the Store of Value. There are not many alternatives. In the list you shared, Ethereum is more a platform for smart contracts and even its founders do not market it as a store of value.
Tether and Binancecoin are Stablecoins not stores of value . XRP is a centralized token run by Ripple labs battling lawsuits by the SEC, even "Bitcoin Cash" which is a fork off Bitcoin is designed to be a cup of coffee payment token, not a store of value. Dogecoin was created as a joke.
In addition, do not forget the importance of "Network effects". For example, even if we come up "LemonfoolBook" as a marginally better designed "Facebook", network effects almost doom it to fail. Moving all friends, family and value already stored in Facebook to Lemonfoolbook would prove quite challenging. In the Technology space, Network effects dictate only 1 winner.

Suffice to say all other altcoins trade around the orbit of Bitcoin and its 4 year halving cycle.
The same way I expect tiny online retailers to trade around the orbit of Amazon.


JF


Silver was the standard from the middle ages right upto the 19th century. In the 19th century european nations experienced a silver shortage one of the causes of which was demand for Chinese goods (the Chinese were happy to sell goods for Silver but didn't have much use for european goods leading to a trade imbalance with China mopping up Europe's silver). This led to european nations switching from silver to gold coinage and to a gold standard though compared to the preceding silver standard this was relatively short lived with countries abandoning the gold standard in the twentieth century.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_standard

The silver standard is a monetary system in which the standard economic unit of account is a fixed weight of silver. The silver specie standard was widespread from the fall of the Byzantine Empire until the 19th century. Following the discovery in the 16th century of large deposits of silver at the Cerro Rico in Potosí, Bolivia, an international silver standard came into existence in conjunction with the Spanish pieces of eight. These silver dollar coins played the role of an international trading currency for nearly four hundred years.
.
.
.
Great Britain's early use of the silver standard is still reflected in the name of its currency, the pound sterling, which traces its origins to the early Middle Ages (see Anglo-Saxon pound), when King Offa of Mercia introduced the silver penny, which copied the denarius of Charlemagne's Frankish Empire.

The early silver pennies were struck from fine silver (as pure as was available). However, in 1158, King Henry II introduced Tealby penny. English currency was almost exclusively silver until 1344, when the gold noble was put into circulation. However, silver remained the legal basis for sterling until 1816.

In 1663, a new gold coinage was introduced based on the 22 carat fine guinea. Fixed in weight at ​44 1⁄2 to the troy pound from 1670, this coin's value varied considerably until 1717, when it was fixed at 21 shillings (21/-, 1.05 pounds). However, this valuation overvalued gold relative to silver compared to other European countries. British merchants sent silver abroad in payments while exports were paid for with gold. As a consequence, silver flowed out of the country and gold flowed in, leading to a situation where Great Britain was effectively on a gold standard. In 1816, the gold standard was adopted officially, with the silver standard reduced to 66 shillings (66/-, 3.3 pounds), rendering silver coins a "token" issue (i.e., not containing their value in precious metal).

The economic power of Great Britain was such that its adoption of a gold standard put pressure on other countries to follow suit.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_standard

A gold standard is a monetary system in which the standard economic unit of account is based on a fixed quantity of gold. The gold standard was widely used in the 19th and early part of the 20th century. Most nations abandoned the gold standard as the basis of their monetary systems at some point in the 20th century, although many still hold substantial gold reserves.
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From 1750 to 1870, wars within Europe as well as an ongoing trade deficit with China (which sold to Europe but had little use for European goods) drained silver from the economies of Western Europe and the United States. Coins were struck in smaller and smaller numbers, and there was a proliferation of bank and stock notes used as money.


As to the Aztecs and Mayans they didn't use gold coins

https://www.reddit.com/r/history/comments/7wdubi/did_the_aztecs_use_gold_coins_at_all/

thewhisperinthewind
3 years ago

They mainly used cacao beans and eventually Spanish coins.
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jabberwockxeno
3 years ago

As this post explains, they also used Cloths and copper "Axe Monies" commonly.
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Koloradoh
3 years ago

It's my understanding that no native American cultures used gold as currency. While they believed gold had value, that value was mainly for artistic works and not as money.
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The Romans, Greeks and Egyptians used a mixture of coinage utilising silver, gold, copper and bronze.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Greek_coinage

https://www.egypttoursportal.com/ancient-egyptian-coins/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_currency


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