** * Cboe Digital is planning to launch trading and clearing in margin futures on BTC and ETH on January 11, 2024.**
Andy
Anyone giving odds when it will die due to willful abuse?
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I’m sure it will drive demand for BTC and ETH. But I still have no idea what the use case anymore is for either “currency”. Who is using it as currency, and for what? No dividends. No profits. No sales. What exactly is it that drives it’s “value”?
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Greater fool theory. They are hoping somebody will come along later and pay more it than they did.
A problem for Bitcoin speculators is its terrible design which makes it extremely difficult to trade (that is, use as money). So if you want to speculate on the price, you need to use a third party exchange. Thus far, a large percentage of the third parties have been criminal enterprises like FTX, Celsius Network, etc.
The hope is a regulated ETF would allow more people to speculate on the price, which in theory would drive up the price.
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That is a good question BJ and one I have thought about. People are saying it is a store of wealth. Something that will keep it’s value during inflation. Yet it has been so volatile that I am not sure that logic holds. But through time monies have taken many different forms. In Yap they used giant stone wheels as a store of wealth.
The stone wheels of Yap | Citéco.
So really what is currency? I have come to believe that it is anything that people believe is a store of wealth. Gold, silver, while having some other uses is basically just rocks. Yet people believe that they have great worth. Only because in society they have been believed to have great worth. But to me they are worthless. I do not invest in them nor do I own them, Except for my gold wedding band I have nothing to do with them. Yet, people still “believe” they have great value. Part of the greater fool theory.
Andy
We have all met greater fools after we achieved that status ourselves.
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No, it is a medium of exchange. If you can exchange it for a gallon of milk as easily as you can use it to buy a share of AAPL or as easily pay your cable bill, then it is currency.
Crypto is a lot closer to currency than gold or silver (though still a long way away) - the later two cannot be used to buy anything (outside of some 3rd world situations or illegal exchanges) without first being converted to currency.
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Then explain the stones used as currency on Yap?
Andy
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The classic definition of money is that it is a store of value, a medium of exchange, and a unit of account.
Bitcoin is maybe a store of value. Its volatility means it doesn’t store value very well, but kind of fits. Bitcoin can be a medium of exchange, so that fits. Bitcoin is not a unit of account in any meaningful way.
You could maybe argue Bitcoin is money, but just not very good money.
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Bitcoin is not money.
It MIGHT be
a store of value
sometimes is and mostly aint (cuz logistics baby) a medium of exchange
risible as a unit of account
Bitcoin is a very interesting complicated Speculation.
david fb
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“Digital scarcity” goes against the grain.
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Anything that people accept as money is money. Gold, tobacco, cigarettes, seashells.
Cigarettes make very good money, they come in various standard denominations, singles, pack, carton. You can make fractions called butts, most sought after in war ravaged countries. It’s one of the few consumable currencies. Try smoking gold! 
The Captain
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Yap, as in an island in Micronesia? That is the only Yap I know.
If so, what does that have to do with your post? I certainly didn’t make any statement about stones and currency. If Yap uses stones as currency then so be it. If they can use them to buy goods and services then they are just as much (local) currency as beads used to be for Native Americans 500 years ago.
That certainly doesn’t make gold or silver currency and a store of value is not analogous with currency. Real estate is a store of value but it is not currency - it is not a medium of exchange.
Hawkwin you responded to the post where I put the link to Yap into it.
Andy
Thanks, I did not click the link until now.
My reply still stands. The stone are (a local) currency if they are a medium of exchange. Gold and silver are not a medium of exchange. There might be a few rare cases (as previously mentioned) where they are used but you can’t go buy milk with them, or a car, or pay your utility bill.
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BTC is an asset. There is a blockchain ledger making it a currency. It is not a good useful currency. Except it produces more BTC and digital scarcity. Blown minds yet? LOL
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…all that stuff is money WHERE it is accepted as money. Cigs in prisons in the old days, but not much anymore (prison health regs).
But gold? Mostly, no not money, because awkward to measure and store and so once received more of an ongoing cost, and for that reason many sane people (me) would only accept at a significant discount. Reinforcing my reluctance to accept it as payment because their is a greater fool effect. To heck with that.
As to BTC and etc, are you all kidding? All that friggin rigamarole about blockchains and BS that I do not want to hear about again. (Used to be half the uber drivers in Los Angeles were explaing ad nauseum to zip positive effect for them or me). And where I live in Mexico nothing waves a red flag to the government faster than all that silliness.
Just friggin pay me. With MONEY! I accept only MONEY, not moonshine theories.
david fb
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