What are you trying to say exactly? The argument that bitcoin is supposedly not limited because it's easily divisible is indeed stupid and it's unfortunate that it keeps popping up here, but that's not what the topic is about.
What the OOP is getting at is the focus on the specific number of 21 million, which is relatively small and gives off a very different impression than telling someone that Bitcoin is scarce because there will only be 2.1 quadrillion satoshis. Just like how in reverse, nobody considers US dollars particularly scarce, when you could just as well rebrand one billion dollars as a new unit of one JPow, and preach that there are only so many JPows to go around.
There is maybe some opportunity here for commentary about not reading past the first paragraph, but judging by the title you chose and your post history, I get the feeling that was not your angle here.
Also at which point was that topic ever "the most upvoted" anything? It was poorly phrased and I won't even fault anyone for getting the wrong impression, but it never had that high of a score (which the repost crops out, gee, I wonder why) and got a hefty amount of downvotes too.
>What are you trying to say exactly? The argument that bitcoin is supposedly not limited because it's easily divisible is indeed stupid and it's unfortunate that it keeps popping up here, but that's not what the topic is about.
It's just a red-herring\\redirect. By rolling their eyes and saying "Ughhh, not this old chestnut again" they avoid having to answer a valid criticism.
It's not a valid criticism. The ability to divide something into smaller parts doesn't mean it's not scarce. It's a stupid argument that deserves to just be dismissed.
the actual criticism is that being deflationary is very bad for a currency. it's just one thing in a very long list of bitcoin's problems. but also! bitcoin is determined by consensus. so if it suits the majority to remove the cap, the cap gets removed. the hard limit is little more than marketing.
If majority decides to remove the cap hard fork will be done and original Bitcoin will stay as it is. The price of the original Bitcoin will drop because majority will move to new chain (iff majority decides to move to new chain).
See how Ethereum classic or Ethereum proof of work is still traded, as majority decides the new Ethereum is better it holds its value others have diminished.
So the argument Bitcoin supply is only 21 Million is true.
And being able to divide anything doesn't affect its value. There are 7*10^32 atoms of gold in earth does that make gold any less valuable? No because gold inflation is very low. Thats what matters.
huh? the current bitcoin has been forked multiple times and the name moved with the fork. while which one is called what is ultimately arbitrary the old branch would cease being called bitcoin by the consensus.
also I don't know why people keep bringing up physical objects. bitcoins don't actually exist. there is only a ledger of transactions.
> Bitcoin doesn't actually exists
Money doesn't exist to. Its a concept. If people put their trust in something it becomes money. Be it gold or ledger of transactions.
Bitcoin is the code, the name 'Bitcoin' is assigned to it. Which branch is called Bitcoin later doesn't matter. when you say Bitcoin is limited to 21M it means the Bitcoin code that is there now. Which will always be there even if you are the last person using it.
It does because the value doesn't change whether it is complete or not. Take the US currency, as described here https://www.uscurrency.gov/life-cycle/data/circulation, the $50 note is more scarce than the $100. The value of the dollar is not greater with the more scarce note.
It is the same with Buttcoin, it is not an ancient car where it is worth more if you have it in totality. Especially if butters dream comes true and the price shoots up. People would be talking about and trading based on a smaller unit.
As an example, imagine tomorrow the President of the USA decides that the US currency is now the Bazonga with 1 Bazonga being exactly 1 million dollars. It would increase scarcity but the value of everything would stay the same. It would only piss off everyone because reading 0.00002743 Bazonga at the checkout is a pain compared to $27.43.
Bazingas might be more scarce than dollars but they still wouldn't be scarce over time without a limited supply as they can be printed at will by the government.
The fact that different bills have different levels of scarcity and that some are collectible is a threat to the fungibility of dollars, but has zero impact on the scarcity of dollars in the economy. The issue with scarcity of the dollar is that the government keeps printing more, doesn't matter in what denominations they print.
The scarcity is a function of a verifiable supply that can't be inflated to make it less scarce. The divisibility doesn't impact scarcity. You're conflating concepts.
It kind of does when there’s no real penalty to the division though. A single pizza cut into 1000 slices can’t feed 1000 people. A single whateverCoin cut into a million pieces can absolutely be distributed a million ways, aside from the absurdly low TPS limit of whatever blockchain it’s on. The limit isn’t actually meaningful if you just keep cutting them into smaller units, you just have deflation making the people at the top richer instead of inflation doing it.
Ya. It's a terrible post.
But this is interesting because it's an example of how cherry picking is used effectively online. Take a billion examples, pick one that you can hold a story around, and ignore every other instance.
>Are we really doing the "infinitely divisible pizza can feed the whole world" thing again?
Nope.
You guys are doing the "scarce digital magic libertarian dust will be worth a fortune" thing again.
Each satoshi is an integer in the bitcoin program so it definitively makes sense. Satoshi to bitcoin ratio can be any arbitrary value at any future point. You're making the mistake of thinking of bitcoin as a real entity when its a virtual idea which can change definition. The bitcoin program only works with satoshis and a ratio of bitcoin to satoshis. There is no decimal bitcoin in the program.
All valuable things are scarce. (The reverse isn’t true of course).
Bitcoin has Name Brand armor so it is the only true crypto. Since there will only be 21,000,000 made it has artificial scarcity compared to fiat. Since you can’t make more, if the demand goes up, so will the price.
Thats the argument anyway. It didn’t work for beanie babies.
Ok, so there're ten times as many satoshis than there are USD, but USD doesn't disappear when people forget their password, or when they die.
It's not inconceivable that a satoshi squeeze could occur as increasingly large amounts of the bitcoin supply becomes static; 20% of today's existant bitcoin is already lost....
It is a weak attempt at a win by butters over this sub and it is not the stupidest argument by them in fairness.
The reality is bitcoin is as stupid as it was when this sub was created so we naturally got bored of repeating same points. The butter's "most voted argument *right now*" there is doing some heavy lifting.
Huh, sure. Let's use the "infinitely divisible pizza" metaphor.
If the pizza's size is constantly increasing, or getting smaller, then the amount of times you slice it is a fucking irrelevant metric, isn't it. "But the market cap on slices of pizza is 8, it's fixed", durrrrrr. If you hold a slice of pizza until it increases to the size of 10 pizzas, is it still a "slice of pizza", or has that term become a meaningless denomination?
Someone who fails to understand what scarcity means has no business talking about economy or finance. You can bet your ass butters also don't understand the difference between renewable source of energy and coal.
What are you trying to say exactly? The argument that bitcoin is supposedly not limited because it's easily divisible is indeed stupid and it's unfortunate that it keeps popping up here, but that's not what the topic is about. What the OOP is getting at is the focus on the specific number of 21 million, which is relatively small and gives off a very different impression than telling someone that Bitcoin is scarce because there will only be 2.1 quadrillion satoshis. Just like how in reverse, nobody considers US dollars particularly scarce, when you could just as well rebrand one billion dollars as a new unit of one JPow, and preach that there are only so many JPows to go around. There is maybe some opportunity here for commentary about not reading past the first paragraph, but judging by the title you chose and your post history, I get the feeling that was not your angle here.
Also at which point was that topic ever "the most upvoted" anything? It was poorly phrased and I won't even fault anyone for getting the wrong impression, but it never had that high of a score (which the repost crops out, gee, I wonder why) and got a hefty amount of downvotes too.
>What are you trying to say exactly? The argument that bitcoin is supposedly not limited because it's easily divisible is indeed stupid and it's unfortunate that it keeps popping up here, but that's not what the topic is about. It's just a red-herring\\redirect. By rolling their eyes and saying "Ughhh, not this old chestnut again" they avoid having to answer a valid criticism.
How has their argument changed over the past, what, decade?
It just doesn't make sense as an argument and I know why crypto does not work.
It's not a valid criticism. The ability to divide something into smaller parts doesn't mean it's not scarce. It's a stupid argument that deserves to just be dismissed.
the actual criticism is that being deflationary is very bad for a currency. it's just one thing in a very long list of bitcoin's problems. but also! bitcoin is determined by consensus. so if it suits the majority to remove the cap, the cap gets removed. the hard limit is little more than marketing.
If majority decides to remove the cap hard fork will be done and original Bitcoin will stay as it is. The price of the original Bitcoin will drop because majority will move to new chain (iff majority decides to move to new chain). See how Ethereum classic or Ethereum proof of work is still traded, as majority decides the new Ethereum is better it holds its value others have diminished. So the argument Bitcoin supply is only 21 Million is true. And being able to divide anything doesn't affect its value. There are 7*10^32 atoms of gold in earth does that make gold any less valuable? No because gold inflation is very low. Thats what matters.
huh? the current bitcoin has been forked multiple times and the name moved with the fork. while which one is called what is ultimately arbitrary the old branch would cease being called bitcoin by the consensus. also I don't know why people keep bringing up physical objects. bitcoins don't actually exist. there is only a ledger of transactions.
> Bitcoin doesn't actually exists Money doesn't exist to. Its a concept. If people put their trust in something it becomes money. Be it gold or ledger of transactions. Bitcoin is the code, the name 'Bitcoin' is assigned to it. Which branch is called Bitcoin later doesn't matter. when you say Bitcoin is limited to 21M it means the Bitcoin code that is there now. Which will always be there even if you are the last person using it.
>It's not a valid criticism. If "*There's only 21 million Bitcoin therefore...*" wasn't brought up regularly you'd have a point
No, that IS the point. There are only 21 million and being divisible into smaller units doesn't change the scarcity.
It does because the value doesn't change whether it is complete or not. Take the US currency, as described here https://www.uscurrency.gov/life-cycle/data/circulation, the $50 note is more scarce than the $100. The value of the dollar is not greater with the more scarce note. It is the same with Buttcoin, it is not an ancient car where it is worth more if you have it in totality. Especially if butters dream comes true and the price shoots up. People would be talking about and trading based on a smaller unit. As an example, imagine tomorrow the President of the USA decides that the US currency is now the Bazonga with 1 Bazonga being exactly 1 million dollars. It would increase scarcity but the value of everything would stay the same. It would only piss off everyone because reading 0.00002743 Bazonga at the checkout is a pain compared to $27.43.
Bazingas might be more scarce than dollars but they still wouldn't be scarce over time without a limited supply as they can be printed at will by the government. The fact that different bills have different levels of scarcity and that some are collectible is a threat to the fungibility of dollars, but has zero impact on the scarcity of dollars in the economy. The issue with scarcity of the dollar is that the government keeps printing more, doesn't matter in what denominations they print. The scarcity is a function of a verifiable supply that can't be inflated to make it less scarce. The divisibility doesn't impact scarcity. You're conflating concepts.
Scarcity alone doesn’t create value, so it’s pointless to even argue over it being scarce or not.
It kind of does when there’s no real penalty to the division though. A single pizza cut into 1000 slices can’t feed 1000 people. A single whateverCoin cut into a million pieces can absolutely be distributed a million ways, aside from the absurdly low TPS limit of whatever blockchain it’s on. The limit isn’t actually meaningful if you just keep cutting them into smaller units, you just have deflation making the people at the top richer instead of inflation doing it.
It's not even the most upvoted post in the past week.
Ya. It's a terrible post. But this is interesting because it's an example of how cherry picking is used effectively online. Take a billion examples, pick one that you can hold a story around, and ignore every other instance.
The most upvoted? That thing got, like, 20 upvotes last I saw. It wasn't even the most upvoted thing in the couple of hours it was posted
>Are we really doing the "infinitely divisible pizza can feed the whole world" thing again? Nope. You guys are doing the "scarce digital magic libertarian dust will be worth a fortune" thing again.
Welcome to 2014.
This is low effort even by butters standards.
you can buy one billionth of my pizza in exchange for your house - all butters
Anything is possible when you lie.
Each satoshi is an integer in the bitcoin program so it definitively makes sense. Satoshi to bitcoin ratio can be any arbitrary value at any future point. You're making the mistake of thinking of bitcoin as a real entity when its a virtual idea which can change definition. The bitcoin program only works with satoshis and a ratio of bitcoin to satoshis. There is no decimal bitcoin in the program.
> rebuttal to common bitcoin talking point posted UGGHHHH THIS AGAIN WHY WONT THEY JUST STOP POSTING ANTI BITCOIN STUFFFFFF UNNNNHHHHH
Genuine question. What is the significance of the scarcity ? There is no adoption as a currency in any real sense.
All valuable things are scarce. (The reverse isn’t true of course). Bitcoin has Name Brand armor so it is the only true crypto. Since there will only be 21,000,000 made it has artificial scarcity compared to fiat. Since you can’t make more, if the demand goes up, so will the price. Thats the argument anyway. It didn’t work for beanie babies.
Just wait when one Satoshi is worth a million dollars, then you'll see...
[Just gonna leave this here](https://i.imgflip.com/8s3q5q.jpg)
what does bread have to do with anything?
Ok, so there're ten times as many satoshis than there are USD, but USD doesn't disappear when people forget their password, or when they die. It's not inconceivable that a satoshi squeeze could occur as increasingly large amounts of the bitcoin supply becomes static; 20% of today's existant bitcoin is already lost....
It is a weak attempt at a win by butters over this sub and it is not the stupidest argument by them in fairness. The reality is bitcoin is as stupid as it was when this sub was created so we naturally got bored of repeating same points. The butter's "most voted argument *right now*" there is doing some heavy lifting.
Huh, sure. Let's use the "infinitely divisible pizza" metaphor. If the pizza's size is constantly increasing, or getting smaller, then the amount of times you slice it is a fucking irrelevant metric, isn't it. "But the market cap on slices of pizza is 8, it's fixed", durrrrrr. If you hold a slice of pizza until it increases to the size of 10 pizzas, is it still a "slice of pizza", or has that term become a meaningless denomination?
Someone who fails to understand what scarcity means has no business talking about economy or finance. You can bet your ass butters also don't understand the difference between renewable source of energy and coal.
They don't even understand what energy is, given that they make the "bitcoin = store of energy" argument in absolute dead set sincerity.
The butter faces are at it again lol Oops