oren_z0 on Nostr: Unpopular opinion: claiming that Bitcoin has value because it is based on “Proof of ...
Unpopular opinion: claiming that Bitcoin has value because it is based on “Proof of Work” sounds like a ridiculous Marxist argument that products should be priced according to the amount of human labor that was put into making them.
Bitcoin has value because:
a. It is useful as a medium-of-exchange (cheaper fees than Fiat + network effect)
b. It is useful as a store-of-value - because its code makes it scarce.
c. The rules above are consistent: in order to attack Bitcoin physically you need to attack thousands of home computers, and in order to attack Bitcoin digitally you also need to compete over scarce assets in the physical world (ASICs + oil-pumps & oil-fields or other energy sources) - and hold these assets continuously.
I can imagine a world where Bitcoin mining computation had required special computers with a magic diamond in them, where these diamonds are scarce and there is no predictable future to make artificial alternatives or centralize the access to them (like access to ASICs and energy can’t be centralized in our world, persumably). In this world the “work” of the computers would be insignificant.
#showerthoughts
Bitcoin has value because:
a. It is useful as a medium-of-exchange (cheaper fees than Fiat + network effect)
b. It is useful as a store-of-value - because its code makes it scarce.
c. The rules above are consistent: in order to attack Bitcoin physically you need to attack thousands of home computers, and in order to attack Bitcoin digitally you also need to compete over scarce assets in the physical world (ASICs + oil-pumps & oil-fields or other energy sources) - and hold these assets continuously.
I can imagine a world where Bitcoin mining computation had required special computers with a magic diamond in them, where these diamonds are scarce and there is no predictable future to make artificial alternatives or centralize the access to them (like access to ASICs and energy can’t be centralized in our world, persumably). In this world the “work” of the computers would be insignificant.
#showerthoughts