Quote from: bitinlet on February 04, 2014, 09:38:31 PM

After all of the above, I don't see how one can deny that Bitcoin has the main feature of money.

I don't believe anyone (anyone significant anyway) has made that claim. People often attribute that line of thinking to Schiff, but that's not what he's claiming. People who are bearish on Bitcoin, like Schiff and myself, simply say that the current price is highly inflated for the reasons you listed. It just seems that the Bitcoin die-hards translate any knock on Bitcoin, in this case its current price, as an attack against Bitcoin itself. But this is not true. The criticism is that the current price is indicative of a bubble, not that Bitcoin itself is a bubble.

The point that Schiff makes about Bitcoin's lack of physical tangibility or inherent usefulness, is to highlight a potential (but not yet actual) void that an alternative competitor could fill. And that it's possible that the competitor might be the state itself. They have already been making moves in that direction.

As to your point about the usability of the Bitcoins themselves compared to gold, I think Bitcoin ends even lower than you give it credit for. The mining system, while it does buy security, is incredibly wasteful and there is no value in its product (gigahashes/sec). At least with metal-mining you're talking equipment, engineering, manpower, and you end up with a metal that has some use. Silver for electronics and jewelry for example. With Bitcoin all you get is ASICS for hashing. And again, already you're seeing competitors filling that void with things like Proof-of-Stake, finding useful Proof-of-Work, etc.

BigJohn

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