Quote from: dinofelis on May 14, 2017, 09:02:54 AM

Nothing stops freedom money from having an issuing mechanism that more or less regulates its value to a constant, and hence can become a much better unit of account

This reminds me of Panama's currency: the Balboa. Like Venezuela, Argentina, Brazil and other Latin American countries they suffered from high inflation. So, they pegged the Balboa 1:1 with the USD. After a while, they figured why print Balboas if they are pegged to the USD. They now use USD and call it Balboa.

Cab: "5 Balboas"
Me: Hand them $5 USD and call it a Balboa.

Quote from: dinofelis on May 14, 2017, 09:02:54 AM

In as much as bitcoin was a great idea ... it has no elasticity.

How does this compare with the elasticity of the USD? They can print more, but aside from gift cards and similar tokens - which are pegged 1:1 with the USD - you don't have much option. I've had a difficult time getting anywhere to accept my Quetzales, except in Guatemala They seem to like them there.

Quote from: dinofelis on May 14, 2017, 09:02:54 AM

Also, gold "always existed" in a certain way, and the only thing that new gold sources did, was a "gold rush" which was always an economic disaster, from the demise of the native American civilizations to the disasters elsewhere

Spain never saw the hyperinflation coming after bringing back gold from their "conquests". Good point.

Quote from: dinofelis on May 14, 2017, 09:02:54 AM

But nobody actually wants "internet money" - except dark markets.

I use it as money. I buy clothes, musical stuff, flowers with it. I also offer a 20% discount if people pay with BTC or LTC because I know PayPal won't take the money out of my account one day because somebody's account was hacked and they would prefer I pay the cost than they do.

Quote from: dinofelis on May 14, 2017, 09:02:54 AM

People want "digital gold on steroids" to become rich quickly in a greater fool game.

Core. I would suggest that is what Core wants and that's why we have the rise of Bitcoin Unlimited. If you're interested watch SegWit v Bitcoin Unlimited with Roger Ver and Johnny from Blockstream on YouTube.

Quote from: dinofelis on May 14, 2017, 09:02:54 AM

My idea is that this is what kills crypto's soul, and that we're just seeing the crypto version of a huge "complex derivatives" market on which people speculate.

It is for that exact reason, after much contemplation, that I finally decided to switch to a BU mining pool and run the full node BU client. Putting some numbers on a hard drive and wanting to get rich by doing nothing is stupid and is why I am diversifying. I want to be able to send money to my son on the other side of the world and for him to be able to use it. I want to see it used for remittances because it is faster and more secure than walking out of a Western Union with pockets full of cash.

Quote from: jonald_fyookball on May 14, 2017, 01:15:09 PM

I understand PoW used for both insuance and consensus... still, i think its kind of pointless to say "PoW not as good as DSA". You can't solve the double spend problem simply with digital signatures. That's why they invented Bitcoin Wink

Agreed. RipplePay and PayPal did exactly that - only nodes. PayPal went the way of tying to bank accounts and RipplePay went nowhere, until copying Bitcoin and creating "Ripple" (still going nowhere, imo).

Quote from: cryptoanarchist on May 14, 2017, 04:30:26 PM

Big Mac of course. How many Big Macs could you buy with 1 BTC in November last year ? And how many big macs can you buy now with 1 BTC ?

How many Big Macs could you buy with $1000, in November ? And right now ?

It depends. I love that their is a BigMac Index.

If I buy a bean burrito, in USD, in El Salvador it's priced at 99¢ at Taco Bell. In the USA, it is priced at $1.49. It's the same product pegged to the same currency (USD is EV currency as of 2004, so they could get a highway), but in different locations.

Everything is relative. When I lived in the Netherlands, the price of the Euro was so high that it made the same item 1.6x the price as the USA because I was paid in USD to a US bank account.