Quote from: Melbustus on January 21, 2015, 04:44:26 AM

Quote from: tvbcof on January 21, 2015, 04:18:55 AM

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It sounds like you want digital gold. Not the superclass to gold that bitcoin represents, but more of a direct electronic clone.

I had not thought of it that way, but I like it! It fits quite well in a lot of ways.

Quote from: Melbustus on January 21, 2015, 04:44:26 AM

I kinda don't think that works longrun for the same reasons I don't think gold works longrun anymore: neither would be *actually* useful day-to-day. So you're insuring for the same semi-apocalypse scenario. Which is fine if that's your thing; let's just be clear on how fat a slice of the long-tail you're hedging: thin.

To be clear, I find it unlikely that such a thing, so untied from everyday economic use demand, can last as a desirable value store. Gold developed the way it did *out of* exchange utility. The last link (and government-enforced at that) to that was severed in 1971 and gold is now mainly flying on historical momentum. Maybe I'm wrong about that, but that's the thesis.

I think a meaningful friction-of-exchange-reducing economic link is likely critical for a non-industrial-use commodity to retain longterm value.

To me there is little functional difference be between being backed by something powerful (fiat-laws, gold-pyhsics, BTC-math) and using the solid item itself as backing. Hence my focus on 'reserve currency'. Something like sidechains or [gold|fiat]-backed USD can provide all the ornamentals and don't need to be bothered with the heavy lifting of securing the base value.

So, I don't buy the contention that something needs to be 'useful day-to-day' to have long term value. Indeed I see the opposite as being more true.

I freely admit that I am more of a Keynsian than not. Central planning and manipulation can provide longer stretches of better performance for more people. But I think that any honest Keynsians will admit that their games are cyclic and periodic resets are necessary. Usually marked by devolution into blatant cronyism and totalitarian nightmare as the fiat backing (the justice system) fails. My interest in Bitcoin (and gold) are for their utility value at such relatively rare junctures. While we wait, I do believe that the blooming of opportunities afforded by the flexibility of sidechain developments could do good things for a lot of groups, and could materially effect the outcome of a Keynsian reset. Hopefully in a good way.