Comments on: Why Do People Want A Gold Standard When History Shows Us It Does Not Last?

By: João Gaião

João Gaião — Thu, 16 May 2013 15:08:00 +0000

“If the internet goes down, what happens to bitcoins?”, thats like asking, what if the air we breathe disappears? lol Internet is growing bigger and bigger, second by second (since many years ago)…. i think it’s more viable to think the sea will be out of water then internet will ever end…….

By: Can any Libertarians help me understand these concepts? - Page 8 (politics)

Can any Libertarians help me understand these concepts? - Page 8 (politics) — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 18:32:25 +0000

[...] the system simply won't let it. My solution is based off of this article dated over 2 years ago (http://www.libertariannews.org/2011/…does-not-last/). It's still very much valid today as Bitcoins (http://bitcoin.org/en/). It's a free market [...]

By: Philosopher Rex

Philosopher Rex — Thu, 02 Aug 2012 11:37:00 +0000

Bitcoins do have intrinsic value – they are a secure, encrypted, non-counterfeitable unit of exchange. They are not backed by anything except their own value as a unit of exchange.

By: Philosopher Rex

Philosopher Rex — Thu, 02 Aug 2012 11:32:00 +0000

Because bitcoins are digital, you can back up your wallet! You can’t do that with paper money. Hence if you lose your wallet, you go to the cloud and download your backed up encrypted wallet and off you go again. Advantage bitcoin.

By: Philosopher Rex

Philosopher Rex — Thu, 02 Aug 2012 11:28:00 +0000

Historically, it was the case that people left gold in the hands of goldsmiths in return for IOU’s. The problem was that after a time, people forgot about the gold and relied on the IOU; at which point the goldsmiths started making more IOU’s knowing that few would come to check on the existence of the Gold, and those who did, would find the gold. . .yet they inflated the money supply in any case. Such a fraud cannot be committed with bitcoin.

By: Philosopher Rex

Philosopher Rex — Thu, 02 Aug 2012 11:24:00 +0000

bitcoin is a protocol. It can be used on any type of underlying network. Also, you might want to look up the definition of capitalism, I don’t think it means what you think it means – try a dictionary.

By: Adam

Adam — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 01:57:00 +0000

I hate to break it to you, but everything (gold and fiat money included) is just numbers in a computer, bitcoin just makes sure no one can change the numbers for any reason.

FYI, i am holding 3 btc brass coins, worth about 5.50$ each

By: James Stallings

James Stallings — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 19:34:00 +0000

The problem with the Gold Standard, is that it does not allow for economic expansion. The universe of money is fixed to the available supply of the rare metal. Most whio advocate for the gold standard also advocate for criminalization of fractional reserve banking.

Fractional reserve banking, and the creation of wealth “out of thin air” are ESSENTIAL to the function of any modern economy.

Last year I took a business loan, bought new equipment, increased production (and revenues by 100%), and hired two people. Without the loan, the new production, the two new employees, and the jobs created by purchasing equipment that had to be manufactured FIRST, would not have been possible.

Although the money was created “out of thin air” through fractional reserve banking, it is now represented by an asset (just as good as gold in my opinion), and produces enough revenues to repay the banker at an accelerated rate.

I believe the economy of this country would come to a screeching halt if we went back onto the gold standard, or if we outlawed or even restricted fractional reserve banking.

By: Justin Keith

Justin Keith — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 21:41:00 +0000

I’ve heard some claim that currency is a unit of account / something widely-recognized and used in trade while money is a store of wealth. Not saying those definitions make sense, just what I’ve heard.

By: Justin Keith

Justin Keith — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 21:40:00 +0000

Ripple is, to me, an even more pure form of currency than Bitcoin. The salient difference is that it requires trust and isn’t anonymous (or as anonymous). Those points could be a gain or loss over Bitcoin depending on how you look at it.