Can I buy a pizza with it or pay my bills with it? Can my employer pay me in it? Or is it just an “emperor’s new clothes” thing? I just don’t see the tangible value in it. Rhetorical questions, BTW, I know you can’t buy a pizza with it, at least outside of some edge cases that I’m not aware of.

I thought what made money money was everyone agreed it was valuable and was willing to exchange it for goods and services directly. I don’t see that with crypto.

  • early_riser@lemmy.worldOP
    3·
    19 hours ago

    I was on a forum in 2009-2010 when another member posted asking whether they should get into bitcoin. I found a video pitching it, can’t remember if the poster linked it or I googled bitcoin after reading their post. I said it sounded sketchy and advised against it.

    • LePoisson@lemmy.world
      2·
      10 hours ago

      To be fair there’s a lot of crypto currency that was/still is a scam. Also I’d argue that BTC, and crypto in general, still is being treated as a security that’s backed by thin air. Ie: it’s a speculative asset that doesn’t actually have any value.

      There’s nothing really stopping BTC from crashing hard. It’s so wild to me how people treat it.

      I could have bought bitcoin too when it was worth pennies but there was no way to know which crypto the whales were going to bet on for the pump and dump. It’s a missed opportunity but rest assured there’s plenty of universes where Bitcoin amounted to nothing.

    • Atelopus-zeteki@fedia.io
      47·
      19 hours ago

      And BTC went from approximately zero to approximately $100K over that time. What else are you advising against at this time? To be honest, I had read an article on cryptocurrency somewhere around '09, and thought, “wow, this is where currency is headed!” I asked a friend who was a nerdy computer programmer type, and he said it was like tulip mania in The Netherlands, so I didn’t invest. Sigh.

      From Investopedia: (https://www.investopedia.com/what-can-you-buy-with-bitcoin-5179592) - since I don’t know everything, and nobody else has said this…

      *Bitcoin launched in 2009, enabling transactions via crypto debit cards linked to Mastercard and Visa

      *Bitcoin can purchase products like electronics, luxury watches, and cars.

      *The SEC approved the first U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs in January 2024.

      *PayPal lets users buy, sell, and hold cryptocurrency in their accounts.

      *Cryptocurrency debit cards offer an easy way to use Bitcoin for purchases.