Quote from: MatTheCat on March 23, 2014, 08:14:51 PM

Quote from: dead_bit on March 23, 2014, 07:57:26 PM

I think some of you have a gross misunderstanding of things psychologically. The crash of the USD would not only kill bitcoin, since it's primarily converted into USD to begin with, it would kill virtually every other economy on the Earth. Most of you are overlooking the very obvious fact, the world is tied to the USD.

1. USD tanks... suddenly Americans have lost purchasing power. They can no longer buy goods/services that are mostly financed by other countries. Aid to third world nations stops. Suddenly 75% of coin mining also stops because Americans cant afford energy costs. People can't afford food...

2. Lack of American investing power and consuming causes major hits to BRICK nations. BRICK nations are already suffering in near recession economies and a sudden lack of USD influx causes further depression to economies. Third world nation economies also suffer due to a lack of USD propping. People can't afford food... well people who could afford food to begin with can't afford it.

Bitcoin itself is already hugely tied to the dollar and will be for the foreseeable future. Why is that? Because Bitcoin has no use outside of the novelty. Most just don't see, that it's purely a novelty. Even those who "accept" bitcoin through one of the exchanges/store sites... are really just accepting the USD. You just don't see the go between converting the currency into USD.

Bitcoin is tied to the dollar and will be until people realize the truth. Bitcoin has no value and no use. Once people understand how to break the chains, which is to ignore the dollar completely, then Bitcoin will have real value. Bitcoin is not a medium of exchange/store of value, it's an investment tool. Anyone who thinks differently isn't looking at things for what they are. Want it to be different, then make it different.

Agreed.

At one point in history, nobody would accept a national currency that wasn't backed by gold as they required more than paper promises of a government that may be overthrown, go bankrupt etc etc. Post WW2, it turned out that the US had all the gold. So then we had the Bretton Woods system, whereby the dollar was treated as gold, but without the inconvenience and the expense of having to ship around precious metal between central bank vaults. Then in the 70's the US suspended and then abolished the link between the US dollar and gold. The decade that followed seen a brutal economic recession and a massive bull market in gold, but by the 80's the world found itself still accepting the dollar which by then was linked to the US's military might and their control of global oil markets. As most here know, this is the paradigm in which we are still living although a paradigm that is becoming increasingly shaky. Bitcoin is merely a means of speculating and digitally transferring units of USD around the world.

Money has to be either:

Something of inherent and reliable value. (gold, silver, cigarettes, bullets)
A unit of account backed by the authority of an authority with tax raising powers.

Bitcoin is neither of those. Bitcoin is merely a vessel or potential vessel of any given unit of exchange which enough people are prepared to reliably swap for the Bitcoin. It is not about the Bitcoin, it is about what the Bitcoin can be swapped over for.

Eloquently spoken! And totally correct!

Quote from: NeedForBitcoin on March 23, 2014, 08:14:59 PM

People wouldn't be able to exchange USD for BTC, so bad.

In a true Dollar collapse most won't even have internet so BTC will be totally useless.