Post
Topic
Board Bitcoin Discussion
Topic OP
Destroying Bitcoin with a single question
by
antikvark
on 23/02/2020, 07:47:32 UTC
Let's suppose that you bought all the stocks in the world and you decide not to sell them. How can you benefit from them? Well you can liquidate them and get an enormous wealth in the form of land, buildings, vehicles, machines, equipment and other property of the companies that issued these stocks.

Let's suppose that you bought all the fiat currencies in the world and you decide not to sell them. How can you benefit from them? Well you can wait a couple of months and then visit the banks that issued them to claim an enormous wealth in the form of land, buildings, vehicles, machines, equipment and other property that the banks seized from the borrowers. Namely, given that you bought all the fiat currencies, borrowers are unable to get the money for their loan repayments, and unpaid loans, lead to seizure of the property that was pledged as a collateral. Given that the money issued by the banks is the liability of the banks, you as its holder have the claim on the bank's property. Now, why you have such a claim in the first place? It's because the banks created money out of thin air, which means that on its own, money is worthless. It is just numbers in the bank accounts or on the banknotes. So when the borrowers used these numbers to get goods or services from the market participants it is these participants who actually provided valuable property or work to the borrowers. Given that borrowers defaulted of their loans, they didn't return the equivalent of these property or work back the market participants through trades that would get them money for the loan repayments. That's why the market participants have the claims on the property that the banks sized from the borrowers. Since you bought all the money from these participants you became the owner of these claims.

Finally, let's suppose that you bought all the bitcoins in the world and you decide not to sell them. How can you benefit from them? To put it another way. After said purchase, all you have is a number in a computer memory - 18.232.575 (bitcoins currently in circulation). Let's suppose that I open my Excel spreadsheet and put the same number into it -> 18.232.575. Now we both have equal records in a computer memory. Question: what can you do with your record that I cannot do with mine? Can you liquidate it like stock are liquidated and get the equity of some company? No. Me neither. Can you transfer it to another memory location. Yes. Me either. Can you take it to some institution or middleman such as bank and claim its property? No. Me neither. Can you observe it? Yes. Me either. Can you eat it? No. Me neither. Can you enjoy its numerical form? Yes. Me either. Can you drive it? No. Me neither. Can you take picture of it? Yes. Me either. So simply put, there is nothing what you can do with your record that I cannot do with mine.

Meaning, all the bitcoins in the world are woth the same as a number that one puts into his/her Excel spreadsheet. And you can benefit from it only if you fool someone to trade their valuable property, work or fiat currencies for this number. To put it differently. The same as in all ponzi-like schemes, no actual value exists behind bitcoin, and the only way one can get actual value, is from funds brought by new investors. And that's Bitcoin in a nutshell - good old Ponzi scheme dressed up in a new, digital, uniform.