News
Welcome to the News community!
Rules:
1. Be civil
Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.
2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.
Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.
3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.
Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.
4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.
Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.
5. Only recent news is allowed.
Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.
6. All posts must be news articles.
No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.
7. No duplicate posts.
If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.
8. Misinformation is prohibited.
Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.
9. No link shorteners.
The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.
10. Don't copy entire article in your post body
For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.
view the rest of the comments
Bitcoin essentially acts as a secure, portable, and transferable hedge against the crumbling of the American empire. Also would work well if you had to flee across international boarders and seek asylum elsewhere because the fascists got away with it. Gold kinda does the same thing, but its a PITA to transport and offload.
How is it a secure hedge if its value isn't tied to anything?
The same way we value any other fiat currency. The value of fiat is faith of redeemability (that it will have value in further trade transactions). Fiat isn't backed by anything else. So, if two countries (or businesses across boarders) want to conduct business, what is better?
Conducting it in the currency of a foreign state that does sanctions, constantly devalues its fiat currency, and votes for Republicans?
Or,
Conducting that business in a decentralized currency that isn't backed by anything really other than its ability to be used in other trade and isn't subject to the recklessness of a bipolar country?
The value of how many BTC international transaction is worth ultimately boils down to negotation. Same holds true for gold, in a way. You just can then just exchange the btc for local currency. The thing that imparts value of BTC to me is how portable it is. If I had to flee the United States, its easier to do with $20k usd (made up amount) in btc than it is to do with gold.
Also, to answer your question directly, how is it a hedge? Soverigns with fiat that bow to billionaires don't want to have taxes raised. So, to make up for the deficit (the difference between what the budget calls for and what is taxed) is usually made up for by printing more made up dollars. This devalues the fiat.
Like, imagine this with gold. Imagine there can only ever be 21 million ounces of gold (no asteroid mining). The more that central banks print, the more the value if those 21 million ounces goes up since gold can serve as a transferable alternative.
While the dollar is a fiat currency, it is backed by the US economy and even with all of its shortcomings, its certainly more robust than some relatively new virtual currency. Bitcoin is solely backed by faith with the added difficulty of you not being able to go down to a local bank and withdrawing it in cash if you need to and it's incredibly volatile with it currently being worth 60% of what it was just three months ago.
With regard to inflation, bitcoin isn't immune from this either considering you have to tie it to a local currency to assign it a value so while it may be independent from a single nation's inflation rate, you'll still feel it when you cash some out to buy something.
I dont think its a bad strategy to hold some as part of a diversified strategy, but putting all your wealth into it (or gold, or any other single thing) would be incredibly risky.
In what was is the dollar backed by the US economy? It is backed by the faith in the say of the government. The US economy merely runs on the dollar, just as a car drives on roads.
It's more established, for sure. But, the political situation has accelerated what was already happening: the world is de-dollarfying. Add on to that how the administration is alienating the rest of the world, that has accelerated the trend.
True, but so is the value of dollar bills
I dunno about you, but I don't use cash that much myself.
It fluctuates, yes. But, so does gold. Same with fiat. The way fiat manifests its fluctuating value is through inflation and increased prices. I'm not saying bitcoin doesn't fluctuate, but gold fluctuates too. The bet with gold or bitcoin is that the fiat system will consistently devalue itself (moreso with the isolationism the country is adopting and the lack of taxation on the rich), which will increase the value of BTC against the dollar.
Its value (ad of today) is merely being the hedge. You're right. Can't go to Best Buy and buy a tv with BTC, same as with gold. But, for how long?
Wasn't saying otherwise.
Didn't say I did. But, I have enough in BTC to restart in another country when my home stops holding free and fair elections, and to serve as an effective hedge against inflation and the crumbling of the Empire.