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35 sats \ 3 replies \ @grayruby 20 Feb \ parent \ on: Are bitcoins meant for spending or savings? bitcoin_beginners
I don't totally agree with that. It could be used as collateral/reserve asset to underpin the debt based fiat system for quite a long time before being used as a medium of exchange and that would still carry much economic value.
Even then, it's only accepted as collateral or a reserve asset because it can be exchanged (expected to be exchangeable) for other things later, right?
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This.
We use the word spend. But it only has fiat value because it's being exchanged ALL THE TIME. If one were to imagine a counterfactual where it was never swapped for fiat (which is crazy because then you'd only have miners owning it), then one would agree it's valueless economically, and you'd just have insane miners losing money for nothing.
Fiat is (usually) our current unit of account, even for things being sold for bitcoin. Read the book "Debt" to learn more about how something can be a unit of account EVEN AFTER IT ISN'T IN USE. So one could envisage a hyperbitcoinization world where people still price in dollars.
But I digress perhaps
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