Post
Topic
Board Bitcoin Discussion
Re: Ron Paul says Bitcoin is not "True Money".
by
jonald_fyookball
on 20/04/2014, 02:03:37 UTC
Ron Paul is right. Bitcoin presently is not money.

Why?

Money has to be very marketable. What does this mean? It means if you exchange large amounts of money for goods,services it's value does not plunge. The marginal utility of whatever is money has to be high. Bitcoin does not pass this test. When even a small amount of bitcoins enter the market the bid/ask spread begins to widen insanely.

Money needs to extinguish debts. What does this mean? Settlement. Simply put almost nobody is settling anything in bitcoin. People accept BTC only because they can be instantly exchanged into dollars. Bitcoin is a conduit to access fiat liquidity pools, not to settle anything. Couple nerds maybe settling their tiny debts here and there in BTC.

Money needs to be able to measure value. What cost X BTC now may cost 1/3 BTC even tomorrow. Economic calculation is next to impossible in bitcoin. The value swings are too wide to even know what it will be worth in an hour. Bitcoin's value has fluctuated from +20 -60% since Jan 1st. This is an annual inflation rate of something like 150%.

Bitcoin does not pass any of those three tests to be even remotely considered money. It is the equivalent of tokens that access fiat bid's at this point in time.



You're basically saying bitcoin has low liquidity, high volatility, and is not universally adopted at this point in time.  And you're right. However, the growth is explosive, having already gone from a mere concept to a billion dollar market in just 5 years.