I would request you quote me stating that BitCoin will become generally accepted. My position has always been it is possible for BitCoin to become generally accepted. If you like I can quote several locations where you claim it cannot be genarally accepted.
I don’t think I have even made claims that it is likely, only possible.
My argument from the getgo was that it will NOT, cannot, and has no potential to become generally accepted. You were the one engaging my claims. Not the other way around. Your the one trying to prove to me it’s possible. I’m not putting words in your mouth.
As stated 100000 times over I side with the position as stated in the regression theorum.
See why BitCoins meet the regression theorem here: https://forum.freecapitalists.org/t/is-bitcoin-the-currency-of-the-future/7363/339
If you feel that the regression theorem doesn’t apply to BitCoins after reading that post I would like to request that you explain why you feel that way so I can argue directly against your view. The last I can find you posting on this matter is when you claimed that BitCoins had no initial value outside of a medium of exchange therefore they don’t meet the requirements of the regression theorem.
My argument against this line of thinking is that BitCoins do have value outside of a medium of exchange to some people. They do not have value to you outside of a medium of exchange. Gold has no value to me outside of a medium of exchange. This does not preclude gold from becoming a medium of exchange.
Maybe start a new post about BitCoin and the regression theorem? I would like to see that debate happen, but once a thread gets this long it becomes too unwieldy for most people to follow. (Since this forum doesn’t allow for threaded comments, it would be a good idea in general to start a new thread whenever there is a tangent from the main topic after the first 2 pages.)
No thanks.
This quote amused me:
I could just as well say that US dollars are not money, since I don’t know of anywhere around me that I can trade US dollars for illegal drugs (Ironically enough, you can trade bitcoins for illegal drugs, according to the published list of BTC traders).
You’re just being obtuse. US dollars can, in fact, be used to purchase illegal drugs as the multi-billion dollar drug industry testifies. And the point of choosing a bag of potatoes is that it’s a commonly purchased item, unlike illegal drugs. Almost every household has a bag of potatoes so buying such a common item should be relatively easy with something that is really a medium of exchange.
Clayton -
Did you actually bother to read the whole thread before you posted this?
Allegedly. I personally don’t know anywhere that sells them though. Are you sure that no one sells potatoes for bitcoins, or are you making that assumption based on the fact that you don’t know anywhere that sells them? (Hell, I’ll sell you a bag of potatoes for bitcoins. How much are you willing to pay in Bitcoinage? I’ll have them shipped to your door.)
Socks are a commonly purchased item, and are available to be purchased with bitcoin. Or is there something magical about potatoes that makes them the arbiter of currency-ness? Perhaps I missed the Mises Theorem of Potato Equivalence. I have no doubt that, if you found someone selling potatoes, you’d simply claim that no one sells toothbrushes (it’s common!) and thus Bitcoins still aren’t money. How many goods have to purchasable with a thing before that thing becomes currency?
Actually, yes.
Then you must have realised your faulty argument had already been stated by Micah at least 10x times. And yet no regrets being repetative. Especially when you already know how we would answer your response. (BTC’s are not widely accepted)
I’ve been watching this debate with interest, and I have to say, if Saro really would accept payment in BitCoins for potatoes (if he’s not just saying that to make a point), and if there ever are enough people like him, wouldn’t that be sufficient for BitCoins to become a type of money? And how many such people would be enough?
If there were some super-amazing propaganda piece for BitCoins that went hyper-viral and it - say totally wrongly and absurdly from our perspective - convinced a few hundred thousand productive members of society that they needed to have at least 20,000 BitCoins to be cool (maybe with it becoming trendy to post proof of your big BitCoin holdings on your facebook wall or whatever), what would happen then? It might sound ridiculously unlikely, but how much more unlikely than someone actually willing to accept them for payment?
And that has been the issue from the getgo. You are correct but no one will bother to explain why enough people would be like him. What economic incentive do people have to begin migrating to BTC’s? How many times have I raised the question?
At that point you may call it currency. THe question is what attracts people to it so that it becomes widely accepted.
Look why does this discussion need to proceed beyond the Regression theorum? Either you read it and dispute it or agree to it but everyone else is just skirting around the actual issue.
[Edit] It’s akin to defending socialism while ignoring economic calculation. We’re ignoring the elephant in the room.
The question that seems unanswered isn’t only, “Why would enough people be like Saro?” but also, “Why are there people like Saro at all?” Without knowing that, I don’t see how we can know there won’t be more.
A possible answer might go something like, “There are always a few misguided fringe folk who will go to any length to try to realize a hopeless endeavor.” That is at least debatable, but Mises’s regression theorem seems neither here nor there once the population is large enough, which I’m sure was the thought that led Micah to start this thread.
In short, there are at least four positions one could hold with regard to reaching such a threshold population:
The chances of threshold adoption of BitCoin are negligible because I can’t think of how it could happen (argument from lack of imagination, but to challenge it requires a plausible story about how it could happen),
The chances are neglible because the reasons that people adopt BitCoins will only ever be applicable to a few fringe people (like those stricken with a certain rare flavor of ideological or economic misguidedness),
The chances are significant because I don’t see why enough people wouldn’t adopt them (also argument from lack of imagination/incredulity)
The chances are significant because of X plausible story about how it could happen.
So it seems the debate can begin if someone has such a plausible scenario that would result in threshold adoption. Otherwise it is just all about “well it could happen,” to which the best response might be that pigs could start taking flight any day now. But for the sake of accuracy I would still, again, like to point out that that is different from a definite “NO.”
"Why are there people like Saro at all?
As stated above several times, Hobbyists. And perhaps the first people who held gold were hobbyists but it became apparent that gold was going to be more widely demanded for as a commodity long before it changed over into the realm of currency. That is not so obvious or clear yet with BTC’s.
Gold being widely demanded for as a commodity prior to it’s function as money provided a lengthy history of exchange ratio’s. BTC’s seek to skip that step offering no historical point of reference from which to build it’s exchange ratio’s from. As a result it’s exchange ratio’s are calculated and more or less denominated in dollars. There is just a simple conversion done to represent BTC value, not dollar value.(IE USDollar proxy).
I speculate that BTC’s do not carry enough utility to ever generate a broad audience. Not enough people are yet willing to invest it. I would be willing to wager that even in a dollar collapse people would rush to raw materials, commodities, and food long before they adopted anything like a BTC.
People will convert their monetary wealth into tangible wealth to accomodiate a temporary barter economy. Modern technology can more acurately and swiftly track exchange ratio’s via digital accounting and online tracking. All this means however is the emergence of a new money would just be escelated.
I believe all of this has been stated on several occasions. 
Well I am inclined to agree, and sorry that I missed the hobbyist notes above as it’s been a few weeks since I read through it all, but this looks at least a little less black-and-white than how that argument was framed before. It’s seems to me, then, unlikely that BTC will reach threshold adoption, but we can only await such a black swan-ish scenario or some kind of creative explanation of how it will happen. Like a BTC religion could start and gain popularity or something. If you knew most Mormons (for instance) would accept BTCs, that would be something.
No idea how this would happen, though, and I can also sympathize with the reaction of, “Don’t waste my time with idle speculation of far-fetched scenarios.” On the other hand, there isn’t much else to look forward to or pin hopes on in this field, as far as I know, so there is a natural draw to speculation about things like BitCoin.
I do believe the albeit tiny step to the Euro-dollar is a move in that direction,. If and when the civilized world poplulation is born to the right or requirement to own a pc or even just a permanently assigned cell phone with full internet access, then my friend, the door will open to the quickest secure financial service company. Perhaps one in existence now..Like maybe PayPal…lol
Allow me to refer, however, to your ending paragraphs. If you’ll notice the action of the FBI of the US, internet gambling sites seized for money-laundering, among other things., Even managed, I understand, some international arrests.
And in final thought, I’m afraid the curatorship of such an empirical responsibility to ethics should probably be in the hands of an alien organization.
Mankind, in good conscience, could not possibly trust that someone, if not many, would eventually “hack” the system…
Excuse me…have you never clipped a coupon from a newspaper!!!
Is that not currency for a limited market expectation?
I AM new to the area here. And many of these debates are interesting and in some cases challenging.
As difficult as it sometime seems, I try to complete a thought before I start a REPLY.
Last comment..then I must move on: If I opened a website, called it “BTC”. Accepted currencies of any origin and based the exchange rate on current international rates; if I posted my website along side such current entities as PayPal., my friends, I’d have a BTC banking system!!! The point we all may be too zealeous to remember, every system, every dime, every ruple, every sweet, spendable BTC, is nothing more than: 001100011110001110, remember??? I wish they would have made it XX’s & 00’s just for the comedy.
@AJ: Bitcoin has no value in direct exchange so it could never come to have value in indirect exchange. When I say “no value” I mean it in the practical sense not in a philosophical or absolute sense. Used Chia pets and empty Avon perfume bottles also have no value in direct exchange even though you can find them in garage sales for 25 cents. I’m not sure why anyone ever buys them but people do weird things. Collecting Bitcoins is the same as buying empty Avon perfume bottles at garage sales. To call Bitcoin “money” is the result of the overly active imaginations of Bitcoin enthusiasts who prefer to imagine themselves doing something more momentous than buying used Chia pets.
To the extent that Bitcoins can be exchanged for real goods and services, I suspect this is a by-product of the exchangeability of Bitcoins for real money, a for-profit service offered by some Bitcoin enthusiasts. To that extent, Bitcoin is not actually money but a digital money-substitute. I see this in the same vein as the LETS enthusiasts or Ithaca Hours types.
Clayton -
@AJ: It’s a mistake to think of money as having something to do with a “threshold”. A monetary good was already valuable in direct exchange before it came into use in indirect exchange and it would already have been among the most marketable goods. The use of money in indirect exchange is a merely pragmatic matter and nothing more than self-interest need be assumed. There is no cooperation or “threshold of adoption” required.
Clayton -