Bitcoins/Litecoins/Virtual Currencies

Asshat Foler

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Can someone give me a good 1-2 paragraph explanation on why buy BTC? I’m getting a load of normie friends asking me. Common theme is “it’s literally not tied to anything”, “it doesn’t have a use” etc.

CC Flobee Flobee
 

Flobee

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Can someone give me a good 1-2 paragraph explanation on why buy BTC? I’m getting a load of normie friends asking me. Common theme is “it’s literally not tied to anything”, “it doesn’t have a use” etc.

CC Flobee Flobee
There are entire books written on the subject and if one doesn't understand the underlying problem its hard to sell them on the solution. I'll give it a shot but honestly your hit rate is going to be low unless they're willing to do some work to understand. There is really no way to do this effectively but below is my best attempt. By all means edit this or add as you or anyone else feels is appropriate. The message really does need to be tailored to the audience and what they already know or don't know.

One of the major causes of the state of modern society is the debasement of the currency. We all spend our time and energy serving others in order to accumulate money, as such that money directly corresponds to the expenditure of that time and energy. Governments, (especially the US) and powerful financial entities backed by those governments, have the ability to create money from nothing. This is because modern money is all created from debt, and licensed entities are granted the ability to create debt from nothing. In a sense that creation of debt is borrowing time and energy from the future, without the permission of those they're borrowing (stealing) from, that is you and me. If you accept that money is energy, and debt is future energy, then the law of conservation applies and it cannot be created nor destroyed, that debt MUST have consequences. We're living in those consequences today and have been our entire lives.

Friedrich Hayek in 1984: "I don’t believe we shall ever have good money again before we take the thing out of the hands of government... all we can do is by some sly roundabout way introduce something that they can’t stop"

Bitcoin is a secure digital network that transfers value across time and space, it is a fundamental technological innovation that will reshape international finance. Bitcoin has a fixed supply on 21 million, a money with a fixed supply is literally a once in humanity event, it cannot be recreated. Bitcoin cannot be diluted it was architected as immutable and verifiable digital scarcity. Nobody can control Bitcoin due to its architecture it requires consensus for changes to be made to it. Bitcoin has a set issuance (supply inflation) schedule tied to "mining". This process is also required in order to finalize all transaction (approximately every 10 minutes) with a finality that can only be compared to a shipment of gold being moved from one entity to another, except there is no need for armored truck, armed guards, or elaborate misdirection schemes, only a private key to sign the transaction and waiting for the confirmation from the network. The creation of blocks via mining requires expenditure of energy in the real world via specialized devices running a hashing algorithm. The difficulty of this algorithm is dynamically set so as more miners expend energy in an attempt to solve the algorithm (known as hash rate) the harder it gets, thus creating a greater demand for energy expenditure, and setting a price floor as the price of that energy. Bitcoin represents the only way for digital scarcity to connect to real world energy, thus in a sense it transmutes value from the real world into the digital world in a fashion that is purely unique. This transmutation represents the core of its innovation and intrinsic value. In a digital world with increasing demand for settlement between parties across the world with no tangible relationship to build trust, Bitcoin is the only answer. All alternatives require a centralized trusted party to mediate the ledger, and that trust is what has led to the debasement we see today.
 
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mewkus

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Can someone give me a good 1-2 paragraph explanation on why buy BTC? I’m getting a load of normie friends asking me. Common theme is “it’s literally not tied to anything”, “it doesn’t have a use” etc.

CC Flobee Flobee

just ask chatgpt. get with the fucking program man.
 
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Haus

I am Big Balls!
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Can someone give me a good 1-2 paragraph explanation on why buy BTC? I’m getting a load of normie friends asking me. Common theme is “it’s literally not tied to anything”, “it doesn’t have a use” etc.

CC Flobee Flobee

"It's not tied to anything" - Neither is the USD in your wallet.
"It doesn't have a use" - It has just as much use as any stock you buy waiting for it to go up in price.

Unlike the USD in your wallet, it's not constantly having it's value eroded through inflation and your own government. It has value for the same reason gold, silver, and even currency does. Because people agree that it has value. And it's easier to move into and out of usable currency than physical gold or silver.

The underlying reason is that you don't want your stored value in something which depreciates (i.e. cash), you want it in hard assets which appreciate in value (real estate, to some degree stocks/bonds, precious metals, art, and now... BTC)

My personal belief is that you need a balanced blend of where you store your personal value/wealth. But in this day and age Crypto (and more specifically BTC) has earned a place in that mix. It's easier to manage than owning real estate, has a better proven track record of appreciation than the stock market, and doesn't require physical security like gold/silver.

But as mentioned, Grok that shit up. Probably a better value prop explanation there.
 
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Arden

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De-Minimus exemption would be pretty sweet. No tax on payments under $600



Interesting concept, but would need to see details on how it would be implemented. Seems like it would be super easy to abuse.

Also she's saying "crypto" not Bitcoin.
 

Flobee

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Interesting concept, but would need to see details on how it would be implemented. Seems like it would be super easy to abuse.

Also she's saying "crypto" not Bitcoin.
They always do. Don't get it twisted, this is a 💩coin administration 100%.
 
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Torrid

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Tether is the original stablecoin and stablecoins pegged to the US dollar are what will keep the USD relevant in a future where America is not the largest economy in the world because people are not going to keep using paper as money for much longer. The feds should be thanking Bitfinex for solving their problem for them.
 
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Lambourne

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Interesting concept, but would need to see details on how it would be implemented. Seems like it would be super easy to abuse.

Also she's saying "crypto" not Bitcoin.


It's not aimed at bitcoin, it's aimed at stablecoins. The idea is that you buy things from Temu with stablecoins instead of dollars, and that foreigners start using those stablecoins to trade within their own country or with other foreign countries rather than those dollars flowing back into the US. Basically, you give them dollars and those dollars stay outside the US, effectively giving the US the benefit of the goods received without having to give as much in return. This is what the dollar based oil trade has effectively done for a long time and it lets the US get away with more debt and lower rates than it otherwise could. They're trying to push that system into the next level.

If successful, this increases demand for the assets backing the stablecoins, such as t-bills. This keeps rates on them lower and lets the US get away with printing money for longer.

It's good for bitcoin indirectly in that it keeps the money printers going, which increases demand for inflation hedges. It's not without risk because once everyone flees into safe havens, those become overbought and the market sniffs that out eventually.





 
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Flobee

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No source right now, but I'm hearing a lot of talk about stablecoins essentially driving credit card APR to zero. Since CC really exists as an intermediate to guarantor instant settlement a stablecoin that instantly settles could take a significant piece of that market.

Those fat fees CC charge vendors are 100% going to compress when banks are allowing stablecoin payments directly for essentially free. The development in point of sales tech will be interesting as systems like CashApp's PoS already accept lightning payments. Traditional payment rails are being disrupted and at least the immediately obvious affects all benefit the consumer by cutting out rent seeking payment rails companies
 
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Arden

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Regardless of how this "new financial paradigm" plays out, there's a few things I'm certain about:

1. The majority of changes will benefit corporations, not consumers.
2. Middle men won't be removed from the equation, but they'll be replaced by different Middle men.
3. Likewise, some annoying things like cc apr might go away, but they'll just be replaced by new annoying things, like purchase tracking and some form of "gas" fees (just examples).

Always kind of amusing seeing plebs (including myself here) optimistically discussing the future when it's 💯 going to be a "meet the new boss: same as the old boss" scenario.

Best you can do is try to get out ahead of the changes and turn a little profit before you get fucked in the ass by the new guy.
 
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Flobee

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We need a boomer doomer reaction. Don't you ever get tired of whining about the future that's going to be forced on you by "them"? Everyone is free to believe what they want, but defeatist attitudes always rub me the wrong way. If everyone acted like this we really would be doomed. Also most of the boomer doomers don't have kids, shocker. No clue if that applies here just a general point.

The entire trajectory of human history is not down, it's just been that way in our lifetime, doesn't mean it has to be for our kids. Sure this could all end with us in pods, but that's not my base case
 

Khane

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We need a boomer doomer reaction. Don't you ever get tired of whining about the future that's going to be forced on you by "them"? Everyone is free to believe what they want, but defeatist attitudes always rub me the wrong way. If everyone acted like this we really would be doomed. Also most of the boomer doomers don't have kids, shocker. No clue if that applies here just a general point.

The entire trajectory of human history is not down, it's just been that way in our lifetime, doesn't mean it has to be for our kids. Sure this could all end with us in pods, but that's not my base case

You can call it a defeatist attitude all you want. The rest of us grown ups will just continue calling it reality
 

Flobee

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You can call it a defeatist attitude all you want. The rest of us grown ups will just continue calling it reality
Not to derail too hard, but in what sort of competition or contest of any sort does one come out ahead with this sort of attitude? It's a loser mindset and it leads to being a loser. You can be realistic about how the world is without presuming defeat before change has really even happened.

Yes powerful people want things to continue to suck for you, but you have to be blind to not see that the world is changing at an alarming clip. That change does not have to be for the worse, but if everyone takes on this wimpy attitude it will definitely end bad.

Grown up? Bunch of weak men is what it sounds like to me. Lord willing the future depends on your betters and not you.

The promise that Bitcoin represents has a genuine chance to fix a broken BASE LAYER of the modern world. It's not a guarantee but we're living through history right now, try not to quit before the fights even really started.

If you don't see what I'm talking about here, I question if you're paying attention.
 
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Sanrith Descartes

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Regardless of how this "new financial paradigm" plays out, there's a few things I'm certain about:

1. The majority of changes will benefit corporations, not consumers.
2. Middle men won't be removed from the equation, but they'll be replaced by different Middle men.
3. Likewise, some annoying things like cc apr might go away, but they'll just be replaced by new annoying things, like purchase tracking and some form of "gas" fees (just examples).

Always kind of amusing seeing plebs (including myself here) optimistically discussing the future when it's 💯 going to be a "meet the new boss: same as the old boss" scenario.

Best you can do is try to get out ahead of the changes and turn a little profit before you get fucked in the ass by the new guy.
Wait until MA and V buy the new middlemen and then it's meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
 
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