Quote from: CoinsCoinsEverywhere on July 22, 2014, 06:47:25 PM

Quote from: tee-rex on July 22, 2014, 05:26:48 PM

Quote from: Erdogan on July 20, 2014, 12:05:41 PM

Housing bubbles exist because of the one bad property of current money: storage of value. Since current money is not good for that, houses are used. And since they are bought partly for the storage of value function, they acquire exchange value. But since the supply is not fixed, and the demand to hold can change as people move, the exchange value can be lost, and in case of over-supply in an area, their value can go below value for direct use.

So houses are money, but bad money. Bitcoin could solve that problem, making houses generally go down to their value for direct use.

The same plague would chase Bitcoin as well (actually, even stronger since Bitcoin has no "direct use value" at all). Bitcoin could indeed substitute houses as a store of value (at least to a degree), but it would inherit the same faults (that is "bubbleness", in the first place).

The only way I could see bitcoin being a store of value is if people simply decided that it would be. As you pointed out, you can't use bitcoin for anything but payments, whereas real estate is quite useful--people will always want real estate. If people simply decided that bitcoin would be a store of value (and it would appear that they have for right now given the price), they can also simply decide that it won't be anymore (which is something that concerns me about bitcoin, but that's another topic).

Money didn't appear by itself, people needed it and the functions it fulfills, so there is a need for a payment system. Its usefulness (utility) is as objective as a need for a home (though not as vital indeed). In this aspect, it is not that people just decided to use Bitcoin per se but for its usefulness in attaining their purposes. And since Bitcoin is deflationary by its nature at that (through limited emission), it can be used as a store of value.