IT doubled the year before that too. a consistent increase over a 2 yr period is not a bump. Since Ganja was posting during that time, I am sure he is fine.
Is there someone that is actually tracking the use of this currency? The overall price going up is interesting, but the main point of it is as a true currency, right? Are people just hanging on to it in hopes that they can sell it for more USD at a later date or is there evidence that people are actually using it as currency more and more? I'm just curious.
You're right to be skeptical. The use cases right now are speculation and a safe haven from government currency controls and manipulations. Bitcoin needs a larger network of users and better functionality to bootstrap itself for everyday use. But the Internet was the same way in the early days. It was hard to do anything, and most people weren't online so there wasn't any network effect. The one difference with Bitcoin is that the physical infrastructure already exists, whereas the Internet had to rely on things like existing phone lines to bootstrap itself. That should in theory make Bitcoin adoption faster.
Growth seems more organic this time around, but I've yet to see equivalent mass adoption in the mainstream or even dedicated niche communities (indirectly related to Bitcoin, of course). There are no tells, the only way to figure out if this is a bubble is if it pops. I think the first bubble severely damaged Bitcoin's reputation as a stable currency. That stigma of Bitcoin being no more than a stock to sell high/buy low is still sticking to it.
Is this like Tulips or will it last? Also couldn't someone (world governments or central banks) make a new asset/payment system that also uses secure blockchain and label this irrelevant? If no, explain why please. If yes, what to do with worthless tulips?
Bitcoin forces you to ask some fundamental questions like what exactly is money and what gives it value. Bitcoin has value because people are willing to exchange goods and services for it, with the expectation that they can do the same with that bitcoin in the future. A network of users has voluntarily agreed to communicate debt and credit to each other using the Bitcoin protocol. Trying to make a new payment system to challenge Bitcoin is possible, but it would be like trying to create a new internet protocol to replace IPV or HTTP. It's useless without a network of users joining you. The other challenge would be matching the electricity Bitcoin uses to secure it's network. Bitcoin currently consumes 12 terawatts of electricity, more than many countries. And that is only increasing. If you create an alternate coin, you need to convince others to lend their electricity to secure the network. There are thousands of alternate currencies, most aren't worth anything.
Thanks for the reply and for the most part it makes sense. I can almost guarantee that something else will replace it. Just look at history!! Primitive societies started with a pure barter system. That was replaced by a monetary system using livestock, grain, obsidian, copper silver, etc.. as currency. We've seen shells and shekels and eventually to manufactured coinage systems and later to bills. Both of those eventually backed by government physical commodities like silver and gold. Other types of currencies like banknotes and other types emerged. That's been replaced (for the most part) by fiat systems using bills and coins both physical and digital. Now cryptocurrencies are emerging. What makes anyone think that we've suddenly hit the end of the road on currency system evolution? If history has proven anything it's that it's only a matter of time before cryptocurrencies are replaced by something else. It's still new so it could be a longwhile, I don't know. But only a fool would say that it won't be replaced eventually. Who knows, with climate change maybe we regress to commodities which is scary to think about. You know, bitcoin sounds fancy tallystick. Basically a ledger(a stick) to record how many of anything or nothing you wanted to track. Bitcoin is like a secure electronic tallystick. Aside from the technological advancements, the method itself is ancient.
Valid points all around except for your last one. Only time will tell if cryptocurrency is the future. If so, is Bitcoin the right cryptocurrency? No doubt something else will succeed it. But we don't know when that will be. However, technological advancement has been growing fairly quickly the last few decades so you might be right. However, I'm not clear with your last statement. Isn't that the essence of accounting? Why change a method that works and that is taught to everyone else just to say it's innovative? Why change something that works?
The comparison was not really about accounting principles themselves but how similar the blockchain is to a tallystick. From what I understand the entire world (network) shares the same blockchain that has a record of every transaction ever made. That's exactly what ancients did with physical tallysticks. That's the point I was making, hopefully that makes sense. The interesting thing is that currency has been moving to more abstract and cryptocurrency is by far the most abstract form of currency to date. So perhaps we're moving to something even more abstract in the future especially with automation on the cusp of exploding and you don't have to pay robots. Would be crazy to one day see a supreme court hearing about robots paying taxes without representation! Interesting times we are about to live in...
An immutable database that anyone can add to but no one can change. It's never existed before in human history. We don't really know what all the implications or use cases may be.
