On: Dwolla Begins PayPal-Style Account Suspensions for...

[jlgreco]

As long as you can exchange bitcoins for drugs delivered to your front door in first-class packages, it will be fairly trivial to exchange bitcoins for cash if you really need to. Legalization of all narcotics would hurt bitcoin far more than anything else the government could manage.

As far as I see it, it is not really a currency but rather a tool. A tool that remains operational so long as it has any "value" at all.

[Nursie → jlgreco]

"As long as you can exchange bitcoins for drugs delivered to your front door in first-class packages, it will be fairly trivial to exchange bitcoins for cash if you really need to."

Sure, but having it declared illegal would definitely restrict the growth potential of the currency. At the moment its proponents envision/fantasize about it becoming huge and general-purpose, with a presence in the physical world (see bitpay etc). If a large nation like the US were to declare it illegal would certainly put a dent in that.

I disagree with a lot about BTC, in terms of the economic choices made in its model rather than the technical ones, but I find it continually fascinating to watch it as a phenomenon.

[jevinskie → Nursie]

Qddqee

[jevinskie → jevinskie]

Apologies, I butt-commented!

[LatvjuAvs → Nursie]

It really is as an expression where one lacks legal rights to express himself.

Or one is subjugated by man with more guns, but still he finds a way.

I doubt it will become huge and general purpose, but it will serve well for some services.

And do not forget, the nation does nothing, there is few people that declare and change.

[slygent → jlgreco]

Surely currencies are nothing but tools for exchange, and their value is as a medium of exchange?

[jlgreco → slygent]

Most currencies are also used to store wealth and invest. Bitcoin can be, and is, used like that, but I think that use of it is foolish.

I see "bitcoin" as a currency not too unlike I see "paypal" as a currency. That is, not particularly.

[jerguismi → jlgreco]

> but I think that use of it is foolish.

Why foolish? Risky, but not necessarily foolish. The bitcoin exchange rate has been going up all the time. Even with simple strategies such as dollar-cost averaging you would probably have done pretty well within the last couple of years.

[hackinthebochs → jerguismi]

I think its foolish because your investment is based on something that you have no control over, nor any ability to rationally judge risk. The US government could collapse the value of bitcoin in an instant by declaring it illegal. It's probably only a matter of time until they do this actually. Unless you have a good reason to think this won't be for another X years, investing is a bad bet.

[wonderyak → slygent]

It probably depends on whom you ask and what the currency is. Something like Bitcoin could be seen as very subversive. Money is an asset/liability relationship, there is no intrinsic value in a fiat currency.