yes, most people are invested in crypto because they wanna get rich with that 355% increase FULL STOP. No one with a brain uses it as currency. For the same reason that inflation is ALWAYS better than deflation. you lose money using bitcoin to buy something.
> yes, most people are invested in crypto because they wanna get rich with that 355% increase FULL STOP.
Wanting to get rich is an excellent incentive for anyone. Most other incentives (e.g. altruism) quickly become perverse as they devolve into status-seeking or coercion through force or in subsidisation and centralised planning.
In fact, without that desire to get rich (acquire resources), it's hard to imagine businesses being incentivised to provide value to the largest number of people in the most efficient way possible. The profit motive is the best incentive humans have encountered because, in a society that respects individual freedom and property rights, the profit motive forces us to innovate to provide others with value in order to receive value from them.
But if acquiring currency and holding it causes you to get rich, that's a serious defect. That means it won't get spent which means the economy grinds to a halt and depression ensues. This is not a feature we want for a currency.
> if acquiring currency and holding it causes you to get rich, that's a serious defect. That means it won't get spent which means the economy grinds to a halt and depression ensues.
I like you was severely brainwashed to believe that inflation and debasement of a currency is great! My father's friend worked at the IMF and would dismiss my notions of deflation as childish. I studied Finance and Mathematics and never once was your view of money seriously questioned.
But it's a lie. In fact, if you think from first principles, you realise that saving, not spending, is the key to economic growth and individual prosperity.[0]
Think about what you were saying: you're effectively claiming that money should be worthless, in which case, why bother trying to earn it? You want to work for and to be paid something valuable not something worthless which you want to throw away as soon as you get it. You want your money to be good enough to save. Saving allows us to defer present consumption for future benefits.
The idea that people will never spend their bitcoin is absurd. Humans have needs that they can't get away from. They also have desires to indulge. They will buy stuff and at the same time they will be incentivised to be prudent if they adopt a Bitcoin Standard. We should want our communities to be prudent.
I didn't say currency should be worthless. Obviously a worthless currency is... worthless. Saving for the future is great. There are lots of ways to save money sans BTC, holding currency just usually isn't one of them.
I don't think bringing in "brainwashing" is helpful to discussion.
> There are lots of ways to save money sans BTC, holding currency just usually isn't one of them.
I'm sure you've travelled around the world. In underdeveloped countries, most people don't have bank accounts and they hold what little currency they can as cash savings. In developed countries, many individuals hold currency in bank accounts with a 0% real rate of interest. In aggregate this is a lot of depreciating money being held. Bitcoin has been appreciating at an average annual rate of 200% over the past decade and anyone can choose at any time, to begin saving their wealth in it.
> I don't think bringing in "brainwashing" is helpful to discussion.
I did not mean to insult you or claim it's your fault. Mea culpa. If you've had a typical western education, especially if you've been to business school or taken a business and economics course somewhere, or even read a modern economics textbook, then you've been brainwashed. We all were. The reason I use that word is to emphasise that we're indoctrinated to never question a system that keeps us in a rat race, wondering why we can't get ahead. I mean, my god, just look at the IMF twitter account https://twitter.com/imfnews/status/1297152792403103745 and the Bank of Jamaica twitter account https://twitter.com/centralbankja/status/1299127633364557826
Bitcoin, at minimum, provides us with a way to measure the value of our fiat currencies and the performance of other assets we might want.
Haven't you heard? It's not a currency any more so it doesn't need to be actually used. It's now an asset like no other, with zero use value but infinite exchange value.
