• iopq@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    2
    arrow-down
    3
    ·
    1 year ago

    People have bought goods like pizza with BTC before. Not to mention so many drugs (but a lot less drugs than bought with $)

    So this isn’t really true, it’s more true that USD is only worth something because people trust the US government not to fail tomorrow.

    • FuglyDuck@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      4
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      and how did they get BTC?

      Either mining it by burning electricity running through GPUs or buying it with fiat on-ramps.

      Its value is determined solely by what people are willing to pay- in fiat or some other crypto for it. But even then, that other crypto’s value isn’t directly compared to btc… that other crypto’s dollar value is matched to BTC’s dollar value. and that other crypto’s value is again established by what people are willing to pay fiat for it.

      Further? The dollar’s real value in what it can buy. BTC’s gas fees together with its valuation relative to fiat ensure that its purchasing power will never exceed that of fiat.

      no vendor is currently selling goods for btc (that I know of), merely integrating a btc off-ramp into the POS. (Maybe the vendors in El Salvador. But they don’t really have a choice and last I heard are unhappy with it’s volatility which is why vendors that do have a choice … don’t.)

      The point I was making is that btc is merely a store of value, it’s basically identical to fiat in that respect. It has no inherent value on its own, in the same way that a loaf of bread is valued for being food; or steel is valued because it can be made into wrenches and nuts and bolts;

      BTC’s sole function is being a faux-currency and a store of value,

      • iopq@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        How did they live? Buying food with fiat, checkmate buttcoiners

        Value of anything is determined by what someone is willing to pay. But you are wrong about the value of other crypto, it’s traded by bots against Bitcoin, so when Bitcoin goes up it affects all the other crypto because they have a much closer correlation to BTC than to the dollar.

        I agree that BTC is a fiat currency. The point is over a longer time frame it will store more value if there are more services like the lightning network that rely on eventually doing transactions on the main net.