Quote from: VeritasSapere on December 19, 2015, 12:07:04 AM

Quote from: MarketNeutral on December 18, 2015, 06:25:49 PM

I'd be remiss not to remind everyone, as an aside to this discussion as it pertains to gold and debt and money, that money and currency are not the same thing, that gold is (among other things) that which extinguishes debt, and that bitcoin shares some properties with gold, such as fungibility and scarcity (i.e., cannot be created via debt or other fiat mechanisms; must be mined), as well as other properties that still need to time to gain confidence and acceptance, such as bitcoin's ability to function, much like gold can, as a unit of account and globally as a supranational commodity-currency. Moreover, bitcoin, like gold, is cannot borrowed into existence.

Not all money is currency, but all currency is money. Aristotle defined currency as being durable, portable, fungible and that it should have intrinsic value.

This is why I mentioned the history of money earlier in this thread, since for the majority of known human history we have had commodity money. Which is not based on debt, fiat or money by authority is only a relatively recent development. Bitcoin represents a return to true commodity money, Bitcoin is an asset based currency not a debt based currency like fiat.

One important factor when comparing Bitcoin to gold in terms of its value, is actually its utility, it is this utility that gives Bitcoin the advantage as a store of value compared to gold. After all we can not sprinkle gold dust down a phone line and send it across the world cheaply in a matter of seconds without relying on third parties.

Quote from: brg444 on December 17, 2015, 11:59:49 PM

In those days some families whole possessions weren't worth one single gold coin.

I have repeatedly stated that different types of precious metals where used, including silver and bronze. Which poor families could afford, often coins where also divided, this is where the term quarter comes from for example. Currency has been used by most people for the majority of our known history, it is as old as civilization itself.

Aye. Good info. Studying monetary history is a passion of mine, and I can tell you know your history! Cheers!