re: #56 Ian G.

And if not that, I’ll take currency backed by absolutely nothing because teh intertubes!

I can’t fathom the dudebro mind.

I will admit to being woefully undereducated on the nature of currency, but how is a US Dollar any more of a fiat currency than Bitcoins?

The only thing guaranteed by the face value of a USD is that I can use a $5 bill to pay $5 worth of public debt; taxes, fees, etc. Outside of that, what that $5 can actually buy is subject to things like inflation, supply and demand, etc.

To me, Bitcoin fails as a currency precisely because everything is still pegged to the value of the USD (or, potentially, some other currency). People are gloating about the fact that their BTCs jump from $800 to $1000 in value, but I would be hesitant to exchange USD for BTC if the price fluctuates by 20-25% in a matter of days or hours.

No one in their right minds will price their goods and services in BTC for the same reason. If I sell a shiny new Apple laptop for 1.5BTC, that could mean $1200 one day and $1500 the next. (Or $400 if the price crashes again.)

And we won’t even get into the pump-and-dump and boom/bust cycles of people blatantly manipulating the price of BTC.

Am I totally off-base here?