It seems to me that crypto currency is the new tulip bulbs.

[Sogo]

No inherent value. Just mad speculation….

We better head off the heist of our gold that the crypto Republicans have planned in the new session of Congress.

[Wounded Bear]

1. Vaporware...nt

[Clouds Passing]

2. They're gonna steal everything they possibly can. That's the only way they know how to be in the world.

It’s called psychopathy.

[MineralMan]

3. Except that there were some actual tulip bulbs.

There is nothing with crypto currency. It has zero intrinsic value. Nothing backs it. It is just a belief that it has some value, somehow.

[rampartd]

7. burning vast amounts of fossil fjuel to solve some imaginary equation may be a cute trick

but i don't care to empty ft knox to reward them

this is a classic ponzi scheme that has run out of suckers so the run to the sucker of last resort - the us taxpayers.

[MineralMan]

16. Yup!

[bluestarone]

24. Yep! Would love to see Musk invest 100% of his Billions in it!

If it's so good, why doesn't he do that?

[GiqueCee]

25. the feverish desire for Tulips...

... in 1637 still wrought some serious havoc on Holland's economy. Allowing imaginary tulip bulbs (Crypto-currency) to replace gold as the base of our nation's economic value will be the coup d'gras Putin so fervently desires. We already took a giant step in that direction when we went off the Gold Standard. Basing our economic system on consumer consumption is just as amorphous as play money, but, in order to survive, everyone has to believe the Emperor's clothes are real. Pssst... they're not.
The careers of those responsible for perpetrating this scheme should be introduced to the guillotine. The very idea of such a substitution is high treason on steroids.

[MineralMan]

29. Crypto currency and Tulips do have something in common.

They're both elaborate scams designed to enrich a few people, at the cost of disaster for others. At least tulips are pretty to look at. They're just not a good commodity for speculation. Crypto currency is based on pure speculation. It's essentially worthless.

As for national currencies, they are backed only by the faith people have in the governments of those countries. The Dollar is in danger, too. But, then gold is also essentially without no real value. It has some uses, and is pretty, like tulips, but its value is based on the same thing as other standards. It has value because people believe it has value.

[Seinan Sensei]

32. I've got a banana taped to a wall, which I'd be happy to sell you

$120,000 please

[LeftInTX]

34. Gold is valuable. Tulip bulbs are pretty much junk after one season.

Windmills create artificial growing conditions, so maybe they keep them alive for a few seasons over there. (The windmills are currently a big part of their bulb industry and are utilized for all of their bulbs, not just tulips)

Tulips are picky bulbs from Turkey which need six weeks with temps below 40 degrees, high altitude and dry summers to survive more than one season.

Europe was fascinated with the colorful bulbs, but the Dutch also introduced a virus that created streaks and further decreased their ability to survive more than one season.

I live in Texas, where tulips can't be grown unless refrigerated, but I've read that in many locales up north, they're annuals, or short lived perennials. This is due to wet summers.

If you want to exchange valuable bulbs, invest in crinums and secondly amaryllis.

[MineralMan]

45. Gold's value is arbitrary, as well.

It's only that valuable because people believe it is. Copper and Silver are almost as conductive of electricity. Silver is very malleable, too. Gold does have the resistance to corrosion that most other metals do not. However, it's valuable in part because of its rarity and its attractive color and luster when used in jewelry.

[LeftInTX]

50. Gold is more or less permanent. Tulips rot!

[MineralMan]

54. Gold is static. Tulips grow and increase in numbers.

Plant tulips and each plant will generate new bulbs. Over time you get an increase in your supply for your labor in growing them. Gold does nothing like that, It doesn't reproduce.

In addition, new varieties of tulip are created through genetic change and cross-pollination. Some of those new varieties can have a higher value that the original. Tulips are a good investment if you grow tulips and increase your supply of them.

[LeftInTX]

56. If you have the right growing conditions!

They will rot in the winter in South Texas..won't even last until spring!

[MineralMan]

59. They generate new bulbs in the ground here in Minnesota.

However, they are much loved by our local rabbits, who keep them in check very nicely. I have a bulb bed along the front of my house. One year, I planted about 150 varied bulbs in it. Many of the plants have now naturalized and are increasing in numbers each year. The tulips, on the other hand, have gotten fewer each year. The rabbits eat them when they are young, but after they bloom. The plant is gone and doesn't generate new bulbs.

Daffodils do very well here. So do giant Alliums. The bulb bed looks different every year.

[GiqueCee]

48. I think perhaps intrinsic value...

... is ultimately determined by something's actual utility, not necessarily by its artificial scarcity, as in the case of diamonds. Though diamonds can cut stuff. When you desperately need to loosen a screw, a screwdriver is of greater value than a gold nugget.
But it's all relative, I suppose.
BTW, I love your posts. I always learn something new. Thanks.

[MineralMan]

49. Yes. Gold has uses, of course, but mostly it has been used for decorative

reasons. I remember that, in my youth, gold was valued at, I think, $35 per ounce. That was the official government valuation. When that official valuation went away, the value of gold started rising. I don't use gold as an investment, but I think it's around $2500 per ounce or near that figure. For me, I buy gold only to please my wife from time to time. And I'm sure I pay much much more than its actual value for the pieces of jewelry I buy.

[GiqueCee]

52. My wife loves gold and diamonds, too...

... Wives can get expensive. But then, they're probably gonna save the world, so it's a win-win.

[MineralMan]

55. They can also be very rewarding. Treating wives well is a good idea.

Or so I've learned.

[CousinIT]

4. Muskrat and ReallySlimy . . .

. . . are unelected bureaucrats put in SHitler's criminal enterprise to destroy the gov't, raid the treasury (dumping it into their pockets & into bitcoin), raid our Soc Sec trust fund, and make off with all the money, leaving Americans without a functioning gov't and destitute.

Muskrat & ReallySlimy are the unelected bureaucrats they complain about, not our civil servants. Our civil servants work for us (which is why SHitler wants them gone). He wants servants who will serve HIM only.

SHitler's criminal enterprise are the robber barons put there to destroy our country, our government and our lives.

[peregrinus]

5. The whole thing seems to be a figment of gamer's imaginations

So mining bitcoin requires trillions of computations a second (or whatever the actual number is) to create the block chain and that requires actual physical space in the form of servers and those servers require a tremendous amount of energy. Energy that comes from the actual power grid. So it’s really just a simulation of actual mining that is incredibly wasteful and produces no real product. Can someone who knows about bitcoin tell me if that’s an accurate assessment?

[bucolic_frolic]

6. Crypto, NFT's, and gold are similar

Useless baubles that everyone agrees is a store of value. Used for adornment and decor. Maybe gold has a few industrial uses. But crypto will prove more volatile. It's all a con game on the public. None of them will feed, heat, heal, or transport you. They are luxury commodities.

[William Seger]

20. There's a reason gold prices are fairly stable, while crypto and NFT fluctuate wildly

It's because the demand for crypto is driven by exactly one factor, and it's the same thing that keeps casinos open: the get-rich-quick mentality.

[The Madcap]

21. Gold has actual physical uses, though, unlike crypto and nft's

[DinahMoeHum]

39. Silver, even more so.

n/t

[lame54]

47. New cryptos pop up all the time...

After centuries of trying they still can't make gold

[Blues Heron]

8. except people actually use Crypto -its not just a flower to look at

[William Seger]

18. Yep, it's just the thing for untraceable transactions

As an actual currency, it's beyond absurd. The most important thing you want from a currency is stability, which crypto will never have. The next most important is universal acceptance, and due to that first problem, that'll never happen.

Crypto is a high-tech gambling game, period.

[Emile]

9. Trump is bringing in One World Government and

Crypto currency will replace the dollar. Tell that to Right-Wingers.

[FalloutShelter]

10. Magic Beans

[TexasBushwhacker]

33. Beanie Babies! N/t

[wryter2000]

11. Yes

The trouble is (as I understand it) people who have it want the rest of us to underwrite it with real money.

[Rebl2]

12. Yep!

[MiHale]

13. Crypto is 'god' currency...it really doesn't exist unless you believe in it...

[surfered]

14. Winter's coming...and in Texas, we froze in the dark before Crypto started using mass quantities of our electricity.

[Historic NY]

15. POOF...............

]

[PortTack]

17. Yes...this

[NewHendoLib]

19. The difference is that one can understand tulips. Crypto is Bullshit

[Celerity]

22. This is a fatally flawed analogy that has been repeated here on DU for well over a decade.

1. Bitcoin is a fungible asset, tulips are not. (fungibility is the property of a good or a commodity whose individual units are essentially interchangeable)

2. Bitcoin is durable, tulips are not. Tulips are a plant with a limited lifespan, especially for the flowers once they bloom. Bitcoin, once mined, goes onto the permanent de-centralised blockchain public ledger. To transfer bitcoin, the blockchain verifies the sender's public and private keys, and the recipient is given a new private key. The transaction is recorded on the blockchain in a file and becomes part of an automatic verification process.

3. Tulips require a complex physical supply chain/delivery process, one that can take a long time and can be impacted by physical conditions. Bitcoin can be transferred to someone anywhere on the planet within seconds or minutes, via any device that can access the stored bitcoin and the blockchain on the internet.

4. Divisibility: One Bitcoin can be divided into multiple smaller units. A tulip cannot be divided in such manner.

[Klarkashton]

26. It has no value until it is converted into actual

Currency. It can be traded, but in the end it's value is based on an actual currency. Might as well be golden age comic books.

[Celerity]

35. Non responsive to my critique of the OP's flawed analogy, plus this:

It has no value until it is converted into actual Currency.

is not true.

You can purchase things outright with bitcoin without converting the bitcoin to any other currency.

[Sogo]

37. "You can purchase things outright with bitcoin without converting the bitcoin to any other currency."

....as long as the person you're purchasing from will accept that it has value, that they can turn around and pay their mortgage with it.....

[Celerity]

43. The person that accepts bitcoin in exchange for goods or services doesn't have to redeem it in order for the transaction

to take place.

[ProfessorGAC]

40. Eventually....

...it has to be converted at the first supply stage, at least until the volume of bitcoin is sufficiently high, with a velocity substantial enough to support an overall economy.
It has only the former at this point.

[Celerity]

46. The number of bitcoins is finite. 21 million, of which around 20 million have already been mined. Of that 20 million,

between approximately 4 to 8 million bitcoin (depending on what estimate you believe) have been permanently lost (due to lost/forgotten private keys, a person dying or becoming incapacitated without passing on the private keys to another person(s), destroyed wallets, destroyed hardware, etc etc).

Due to the increasing complexity of the algorithmic puzzles needed to be solved to mine a new block, it will be a long time (some estimates say over 100 years) before all 21 million have been mined. That increasing puzzle complexity is why the mining costs are now so high, as it now takes massive processing power to solve the puzzles.

[ProfessorGAC]

57. Yes, I Saw That...

...the first time you posted it.
Really is tangential to my economic point.

[Klarkashton]

58. It's a trade, it assumes that the Bitcoin has a dollar

Value. It's all bogus.

[Celerity]

60. More non-responsiveness to my original reply that you replied to (my refutation of the OP's flawed analogy).

As for this:

It's a trade, it assumes that the Bitcoin has a dollar Value. It's all bogus.

It DOES have a real, market-determined dollar value, no assumptions needed. That is not at all 'bogus'.

People have been trashing BTC for well over a decade on DU (as shown by multiple long-standing DUers posting these doom predictions over the years), saying it is done, cooked, worthless, a scam, etc etc, even as it has risen in price hundreds (in some early cases, thousands) of times greater in real, redeemable value since the initial slatings of it started.

The doomsters' predictive record has been atrociously incorrect in reality, yet they keep on repeating it all, in a cost-free Martingale-style 'double-down forever' mode. For them, no matter how wrong they were, they just trod on and on in the same manner with little to no price paid in re credibility and/or factual correctness.

Many even preface it all with the standard 'I do not understand bitcoin, and/or cryptocurrencies, and/or non cryptocurrency-related blockchain technology in general' admissions, yet for whatever reason they simply demand that their lack of knowledge of it all should be utterly ignored, that their simple dislike of it is all that is needed to make their (proven to be wrong on a long historical basis) negative stances the only legitimate ones, the only acceptable ones.

[masmdu]

27. It gets tiring having to explain it again and again...oh well.

BTW, the next big thing in crypto is apparently tokenization of real world assets. Already happening. (See Ondo and XRP)

[Sogo]

38. " It gets tiring having to explain it again and again...oh well."

I wonder how many pastors on Sundays have that same thought.....

[homegirl]

30. Plant one

tulip bulb, it will bloom once a year. In a few years when you dig up the bulb there will be a few more bulbs than you planted in that spot. Even works with potted tulips you buy in the Super Market.

[Celerity]

41. You are now introducing both labour cost and effort, plus tulips still have inherent non-fungibility.

you said:

Plant one tulip bulb, it will bloom once a year. In a few years when you dig up the bulb there will be a few more bulbs than you planted in that spot.

The original tulips are not a permanent manifestation. Bitcoins are. You do not have to inject labour to maintain them (bitcoin), and to keep the potential value (ie the value they currently hold at the time of redemption for another asset, say US dollars or Euros, or some other asset or goods). You do have to inject labour with tulips to maintain any potential value once the original tulip, in its original living form, becomes destroyed.

Also, in regards to fungibility, the products of that tulip labour are not the same as the original tulip, they are by definition, a new thing, not identical to the original. They are not automatically interchangeable with any or all other tulips, unlike a bitcoin, which is completely exchangeable on a like-for-like basis with another bitcoin.

[LeftInTX]

51. Tulips are not well adapted long term to NW Europe or the Eastern US.

They need dry summers. Rain during their dormant season induces rot.

[Basso8vb]

23. Think Enron

[Mr. Sparkle]

28. it's also the biggest waste of energy on the planet

[Maeve]

31. Anyone remember the Beanie Baby craze?

Or the Boomer obsession with antiques? Both went thru the roof, only to sink in value when a new generation said "meh".
Yes, bitcoin has made millionaires...and bankrupt others. Yes, it can be traded across borders. It may also disappear in a nanosecond with the hack attack that is being developed by someone right now.
It's the best of the crypto currencies right now, but.....
I'll remain a skeptic.

[Diraven]

36. Wait until they start pushing TrumpCoin

I can almost guarantee that they'll start advocating for government accounts and business transactions to switch to TrumpCoin instead of dollars. Especially once the deportations and tariffs start tanking the economy. They'll claim that it's because the "deep state" government is bad and has failed so dollars are weak and we need to switch to crypto which of course will go up just from the increased demand.

[Callie1979]

42. Right now, Crypto is speculative only. Its NOT a currency unless you're a fool

That could change in the future
But right NOW, any transaction funded by Bitcoin/crypto has a loser on one side of it regardless of what anyone says.
For example, when trump bought burgers using Satoshi tokens, the amount he paid for the total bill was valued at about 997$ Today those Satoshi's are only worth less than HALF that.
Bitcoin would be even worse. Imagine buying a car for 1 bitcoin around the first of this year. That car wouldve been priced around 42,000. Wouldnt you feel like a dumbass today.

[DinahMoeHum]

44. There is a big issue of TRUST, or lack thereof. . .

. . .when it comes to cryptocurrency.

NYU marketing professor Scott Galloway explains this in an essay back in 2022:

https://www.profgalloway.com/trustless/

[C_U_L8R]

53. Tulip? Its more like a Corpse Flower.

That crypto-bro stink won't come off.

[nitpicked]

61. As I said before, it's hopeium

That Thump will push policies that will make it easier to trade Bitcoin (and other crypto) for goods and services.