Is Bitcoin any different from the gold pieces that my 9th-level Ranger collected?

[Orrex]

Granted, that was 20 years ago, and the value of a gold piece has risen since then, but how does the pretend money known as Bitcoin differ from the pretend money that my Ranger scooped up after routing a nest of kobolds?

[TreasonousBastard]

1. Not really.

[msanthrope]

2. No. They may actually be the gold pieces your Ranger collected. I think it's one of the greatest

Ponzi schemes to ever hit the paranoid-libertarian types. They are all so fucking' smart.....

[DetlefK]

3. I don't think so...

Normally, a currency is backed up by something that's a stable long-term-investment, like state-issued bonds or a gold-stash.

But as far as I understood it, Bitcoin is just a new intermediate in the flow of money, not a new currency itself. An amount of currency A is transformed into Bitcoins, then transfered, then transformed into currency B. Therefore it's more of a good than a currency and therefore its value is regulated by supply and demand.

If a currency has no real-life counterpart, no insurance, no back-up, then it's pretend-money.

[randome]

4. Bitcoins are for those who think they can get something for nothing.

Unless you count running a computer algorithm to be 'work'.
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