311 sats \ 5 replies \ @Undisciplined 15 Jul \ on: What would change your conviction in bitcoin? bitcoin
My original hang-up was the possibility of some new bitcoin+, that was basically identical to bitcoin except for having one clear advantage.
To me, the clearest shortcoming of bitcoin is that there's no tangible specie that people can use in emergencies that knock out network access. If something rolled out that could do everything bitcoin can do, with no additional downsides, but also functioned in those situations, that would shake my conviction.
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I'm aware. This is actually a fairly technical and very long-run concern, but not much of an immediately important one.
Hoppe has laid out the theoretical argument for why there will ultimately be only one money. In short, whatever thing has the best monetary properties will drive all the other monies out of the market.
If bitcoin is unable to perform certain important monetary roles, then something else is likely to ultimately displace it.
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I don't know. That sounds a bit like the "intrinsic value" theory. All money makes compromises. Gold may be the best money in an outage situation, but it's got major issues preventing it from being used for commerce otherwise.
People are always just using and trading whatever they want and need. A prepper may think ammo is the ultimate money. People in Argentina navigate multiple currencies simultaneously. I'm not convinced there will be "only one money" in the situation of a worldwide emergency network-outage.
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Even gold standard was imperfect
Exchange rates were fixed in a gold standard
Fixed can be convenient and problematic
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Notice that I'm only answering that this would change my level of conviction, not that it would completely negate it.
In a world of purely imperfect monies, each with unique pros and cons, I think bitcoin wins. In a world where something emerges that is at least as functional as bitcoin in all ways and more functional in another, bitcoin will eventually lose.
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