this post was submitted on 15 May 2025

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Anon describes currency (infosec.pub)

submitted 10 months ago by Zenoctate@lemmy.world to c/greentext@sh.itjust.works

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[–] NOT_RICK@lemmy.world 43 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Painfully obvious “punchline”

[–] Oka@sopuli.xyz 5 points 10 months ago

Not for me!

[–] untakenusername@sh.itjust.works 21 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I'm actually pissed Bitcoin is so deflationary because that incentives people to invest and hold it, and sure that causes the price to rise a ton, but it also lowers the pressure on people to sell it, making it less like a currency and more like an investment.

Satoshi low-key just wanted to be rich, otherwise there wouldn't have been a cap on the number of Bitcoins that can exist

good thing there's other currencies that actually don't suck

[–] green_copper@kbin.earth 9 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Yea, it is sad to see that many of crypto-coin project are handled as trading assets and not as what it started with: open currency. I would love to see more stability so that cryptocurrencies can be used for buying stuff more easily.

otherwise there wouldn't have been a cap on the number of Bitcoins that can exist

there are other reasons for this: an uncapped coin is inflationary, so it can loose its value given enough time, no matter what happens to the economy around it. But then again, many projects without a cap try to set the emission-rate so that it somewhat balances creation with burn (for example by lost wallets or transactions to invalid addresses).

[–] untakenusername@sh.itjust.works 5 points 10 months ago

I really prefer that second option to cause deflation because it allows currencies to be only slightly deflationary, but not too much like bitcoin which has just turned into an investment

[+] Zenoctate@lemmy.world 6 points 10 months ago (10 children)

[deleted]

[–] Gladaed@feddit.org 51 points 10 months ago (1 children)

That's reductive.

It's backed by the economic and militaristic might of the issuing country.

[–] atro_city@fedia.io 14 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Strongest military in the world can't defeat tariffs.

[–] green_copper@kbin.earth 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Did they try to shoot at them though?

[–] vrighter@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 10 months ago

and if that doesn't work, try a nuke

[–] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 13 points 10 months ago (1 children)

That's... not how that works. It runs on supply and demand, just like gold backed currency, but it's supply and demand for the currency instead of the underlying asset. If you want to control inflation/deflation, fiat is the way.

[–] Zenoctate@lemmy.world 2 points 10 months ago

Well I didn't really gave much of a thought when writing. I was narrowminded. This makes sense

[–] Alexstarfire@lemmy.world 12 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Anything is only worth as much as someone else wants it. Everything comes down to supply and demand. Currency is just a medium so you don't have to trade fish for lumber in order to trade the lumber for some bacon. Also, pretty convenient to be paid in currency instead of fish, lumber, or bacon. You can use it to directly buy/get what you want.

If no wants to buy or sell the currency then it's a pretty worthless currency. That's why you can't just crate your own currency and buy things with Bob's Bucks.

[–] FireRetardant@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago

This is why Ricky had it right with his hashcoins. He could treat them as currency and exchange them for goods, the other party could then do the same using it as a currency, or just smoke the hashcoin as if it were a good.

[–] anothercatgirl@lemmy.blahaj.zone 11 points 10 months ago

Currencies often run on tax law. If you earned and produced and imported valuable goods or services, you have to pay tax in your local country's currency.

[–] missingno@fedia.io 10 points 10 months ago (1 children)

That is how currency typically works, yes. If you want it to be backed by gold or whatever, well then what's the gold backed by? Both the dollar and gold are only valuable because we decided they are, there's not much meaningful difference.

[–] savedbythezsh@sh.itjust.works -1 points 10 months ago (2 children)

There is much meaningful difference - gold has widespread practical use, while paper currency does not

[–] 0ops@lemm.ee 2 points 10 months ago

Gold's practical value to this day is still dwarfed both by its value as a subjectively pretty metal for jewelry and as an investment/storage of value. If the world at once decided that we'd no longer purchase gold unless we were part of a supply chain making a product with it (like is already the case with most non-money goods), the prices would crater. The number of people holding gold for practical reasons is pretty small, most hold or desire to hold gold because there's near-universal demand for it because everyone else desires to hold gold because there's universal demand because everyone else desires to hold gold... get the picture? Everyone is trying to be someone else's middle-man, and sure some of that gold makes it's way into practical use, but most of it is just the snake eating it's own tail.

That's what makes it effectively no different from paper currency, artificially inflated value is just an inherent property of any money. Any good that becomes money is going to have it's value increase because supply decreased because all or a significant portion of a money's owners own it only to store value without any intention of using it themselves.

[–] Dragonstaff@leminal.space 1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

US dollars are necessary to pay taxes to the US government and, currently, most oil transactions are in US dollars. This use is exponentially larger than the practical use of gold.

[–] Kolanaki@pawb.social 7 points 10 months ago (3 children)

It used to be backed by gold until 1971.

[–] DahGangalang 8 points 10 months ago (2 children)

And what was the gold backed by?

[–] untakenusername@sh.itjust.works 3 points 10 months ago

being deflationary I think

[–] Kolanaki@pawb.social 1 points 10 months ago

Greed.

[–] BakerBagel@midwest.social 3 points 10 months ago

Only officially. The US effectivly dropped the gold standard in 1933 because it was making the Great Depression worse. Money was completely stagnant, and the federal worl projects FDR championed to get the economy moving again couldn't be funded when the government couldn't get access to more gold.

[–] chicken@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 10 months ago

I think the other answers people are giving are wrong. It's backed by debt and the enforcement of that debt.

[–] magic_lobster_party@fedia.io 5 points 10 months ago

The US dollar gives access to the US market. People want the US dollar because they want to buy things in the US.

Well, that is unless some president enacts some stupid policies.

[–] lurch@sh.itjust.works 4 points 10 months ago (2 children)

they used to back it with gold, didn't they? gues nixon ran out while the printing press went brrrrr

[–] AllNewTypeFace@leminal.space 15 points 10 months ago (2 children)

They abandoned the gold standard because it suffered from acute boom and bust cycles.

[–] atro_city@fedia.io 7 points 10 months ago (1 children)

They abandoned the gold standard because they couldn't mine enough gold to back the amount they were lending.

[–] Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world 9 points 10 months ago

Couldn't mine gold in the US. The Soviet Union was the biggest gold producer the world back then. So in effect, the Soviet Union controlled the West's money supply while they were on the gold standard.

[–] MachineFab812@discuss.tchncs.de 0 points 10 months ago

The boom and bust cycles never went away though. They merely threw up enough barriers for the commoners to believe they are safe, while also locking most commoners out of meaningful participation in the markets.

[–] palmtrees2309@lemm.ee 5 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Woodrow Wilson hate day.

[–] lessthanluigi@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 10 months ago

Stiffy Wilson lol

[–] ryedaft@sh.itjust.works 3 points 10 months ago

You should read that Terry Pratchett book about money. Money? Printing Money? It explains pretty well why money exists and how it's backed. And it's funny.