Born Dead: Why Bitcoin is an Economic Corpse(reddit.com)

Generally speaking, we know that something which is dead cannot do anything, give anything, or help anyone. In economics, a "dead asset" is one that can no longer give something. Think of a bankrupt company, a defaulted bond, a hyperinflationary currency, a corrupted digital file, a rotten apple, or a totaled car. They offer either nothing or very little to the buyer. All of these things were born alive but eventually died. But what if there is something that was born dead, yet people treat it like a fountain of life? What if people believe it gives so much that trillions of dollars must be spent just to acquire it? This is Bitcoin. You can call it money, currency, digital gold, a token, or a stock, but none of that cellophane packaging can change the fact that it is dead; that it cannot give anything to anyone. When you buy a car, it gives transportation. A digital song gives entertainment. Gold gives luster, conductivity, and resistance to corrosion. When you buy a unit within a system, that system gives you something. A company that issues shares gives shareholders dividends, or funds through share buybacks and liquidations. PayPal or a casino gives dollars or euros to the holders of its units. Debtors to the commercial and central banks, who received loans in the form of dollars or euros, give products, services, labor, or tax settlements to money holders before repaying those loans. This is what it means for an item or a system to be economically alive. But when you buy Bitcoin units, the system gives nothing back. Whether you hold 0.001 BTC or 1,000 BTC, you will never receive anything from Bitcoin’s creator or from the network. The creator merely wrote a protocol for assigning units, while the network simply maintains those units and prevents their duplication. And obviously, you neither bought a usable physical or digital item in proportion to these assignments. Therefore, Bitcoin is economically dead. It is as dead now as it was the day it was born. All the energy, money, and goods that people sacrifice just to hold it simply means they are paying to hold a corpse. It is a bizarre economic ritual of the modern era. submitted by /u/BinaryLyric [link] [Kommentare]