Hope Bitcoin Bubble Blows Up For Good

[phaZed]

And your list goes from least important to most important. Store of Value is the MOST important aspect of something to be adopted as money. If you can't hold value then you can't evaluate your assets in the terms of that money and you certainly can't expect to trade an asset that can change in value before the end of the day.

It's not my list, it is presented that way as the economic definition of money - in that order, but not specified as to which is more important or not; no specific order. They are but the criteria to define, "What is money?", as agreed to by economists.

What you miss about store of value is that the "worth" of the "store of value" does not define whether or not it is a store of value. You may argue that a specific money is "worthless" or a "poor store of value"... regardless, it is still a money. People store their worth in Stocks, Bonds and Pensions - all of which are defined by economists to be stores of value. People regularly make bad bets and lose their money on those things or Pensions fold under gov't decisions, yet we don't declare because they lost their value to a low amount, that they are not stocks or bonds or whatnot. It is only until the market has stopped trading a stock or bond in such volume as to be worthless or not worthy of a certain market - at which point we may declare said failed stock or bond to NOT be a money/tradeable asset; il-liquid.

1. A medium of Exchange: Yes you can with select few places buy things with Bitcoin or other Digital currency. But not most places. I CANNOT pay my rent, taxes, electric bill, the grocery store, gasoline, etc with Bitcoin. By definition, a Medium of Exchange must be accepted by all parties. The fact that most people will not accept it means that it is NOT. Could it become that?

The conditions of the medium of exchange matter not... only that it is a medium of exchange. In history, physical currencies were almost never accepted by all parties.. it had to be exchanged for usable money in the Country/State/Territory/County/Camp you were in.
Simply because you wouldn't accept Australian Dollars or Deutschmarks or Confederate Bills doesn't make them "not money".
As for a second thought experiment, if by your logic, there will never be any money - for if a new currency was introduced, it would not be adopted immediately and fully and therefor can't be a medium of exchange.. Obviously, in reality, it takes time for adoption - which we are seeing in leaps and bounds with Bitcoin and Alts... arguably faster than any other in history.

History.com From the founding of the United States to the passage of the National Banking Act, some 8,000 different entities issued currency...

But YOU CAN pay your bills with Bitcoin by using credit services or Exchanges that generally have better fees than traditional Credit Services. Yes, I understand what you are saying.. you are arguing that you can't directly pay for services to the payee. Well, that's not a fault of Bitcoin or any particular Crypto, that's a result of the payee. Some institutions require only checks or Cashiers Checks or Credit cards.. is that a failure of cash? Of course not. In the same vein, I can't pay my bills in Gold, either - are you going to also consider Gold to not be "a medium of exchange"?

2. A unit of accounting: In other words, you do your books and calculate your net worth in Bitcoin. You look at the daily things in your life and know how much in Bitcoin they are worth. Of course not. You do that in dollars. A gallon of Milk right now is $3.25. I'd have to get a calculator out to figure out what it is Bitcoin right now. And that changes every day, sometimes significantly. So that is two strikes. Shall we try for three?

No, not the "financial accounting" term of which I believe you are trying to describe here. I fail to see what using a calculator for milk has to do with much. You seem to be inferring somehow that 'a unit of accounting = a person's ability to know the price of items. So how much is a Gallon of Milk in France or Germany? Don't know without using a calculator? Then it's not a unit of accounting?

A unit of account in economics as to deal with currency is, "a nominal monetary unit of measure or currency used to represent the real value (or cost) of any economic item; i.e. goods, services, assets, liabilities, income, expenses. It is one of three well-known functions of money. It lends meaning to profits, losses, liability, or assets." - Wikipedia

The explanation of "Nominal Monitary unit of Measure"

The Blockchain is the "accounting" method that verifies the "money" to be "tender" - like a serial number or hologram on a bill would do against counterfeits. It is accountable to it's issuance. This is the "decentralization". Bitcoin's Blockchain, difficulty level and finite issuance rules (built into the algorithm) are the defining of "Nominal Monitary unit of Measure".

3. Store of Value. "A store of value is the function of an asset that can be saved, retrieved and exchanged at a later time, and be predictably useful when retrieved" That obviously cannot be said for Bitcoin that had a nearly 47% change in value in 5 days just a few weeks ago. If I have $1000 in the bank I can reasonably be assured that it will buy the same amount of goods on the 1st of the month as it does on the 30th. Yes, it does change but not a so drastic a rate as digital currencies.

Again, the rate of change does not define the property of being a "store of value" - it only defines whether or not it was a good or bad investment. If we were to take your logic, then many traditional investments that are currently considered "stores of value", would not be.
By your logic, the Housing Market collapse in 2007-2009 would exclude "the housing market" from being a store of value.. It lost 34% in a very sharp and quick move.

When the definition says "predictably useful when retrieved" it doesn't mean you will get the same amount or more out - it simply means that the ability to be able to use said item is likely to exist in the future, whatever the value.

 

[Alexey]

Yes, the infamous DAO hack: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_DAO_(organization)
However to put things into perspective, you have to bear in mind a few things: This was much earlier in Ethereum's development when the user base was relatively small and when 1 ETH was worth a mere 10 USD or so. However, despite being considered a relatively new experimental network at the time, the decision to hard-fork Ethereum was not taken lightly (it was discussed with the community at length). And it did not (and could not) happen without a majority consensus.

This is like saying it was only half screwed-up. Maybe actually it was, and now we're waiting for the other half. But I rather have US government screwing up money than Vitalik. US government is reasonably predictable (after all, $100 bill is the same for more than a century). Cryptocurrencies are not predictable, and are not likely to be predictable anytime soon.