Bitcoin

That was true before, but its pretty valuable for modern electronics.

Nowhere near its current worth though.

>That was true before
nope

Gold can be used to make jewelry and electronics. It's a commodity.
Fiat and bitcoin can't be used as anything but money. Both derive their value entirely from artificial scarcity designed by human beings.

>Gold can be used to make jewelry and electronics
That doesn't make gold intrinsically valuable. Just stop.

Cryptocurrencies are superior in every single way. It's a decentralized system (i.e. not controlled by central banks), you don't have to wait days for transactions and pay fees to middlemen. Most have a finite amount. The only reason cryptocurrencies weren't invented alongside the internet is that we didn't have the required infrastructure / processing power yet. The current system of transfering fiat currencies via the internet is like early Netflix where you ordered DVDs but eventually, it was much more efficient to just stream the content and ditch the offline component.

Precious metals will remain hedges against inflation (although cryptocurrencies are argubly superior here as well), they lack the utility of cryptocurrencies.

You can't eat gold, but you can't eat uranium or silk, either. Things have value because they're useful. Gold is useful to make things that are nice to look at, and to make electronics.

Fiat currency is simply a store of value. It has no other use. We as a society agree that a dollar represents so much value, and then we trade dollars for goods and services.
Bitcoin isn't even a store of value because it's too volatile to be used like that. It has the potential to become one, though.

Being decentralized doesn't make it automatically better. Fiat currency derives its value from the support of an authority while Bitcoin derives its current value entirely from speculation that it will be worth more later.
Having a fixed amount also means that there's the issue of the money supply not growing while the economy does. This is a problem with gold as well but it's worse with cryptos since it is impossible to increase the money supply once the cap has been reached.

>pay fees to middlemen
But you do, especially once the cap is reached.

>Gold is useful to make things that are nice to look at
that doesn't make it intrinsically valuable. Those are all subjective parameters

> We as a society agree that a dollar represents so much value, and then we trade dollars for goods and services.
That's not exactly how it works. We don't decide how much it is worth. It is supply and demand relative to other fiat currencies that does.

Bitcoin will probably lose a market share of the drug dealing darkweb to Monero, due to faster transactions and more (at least perceived) security. This is the reason bitcoin is so high, so I see it falling a bit.

Weird times, OP. I'd get in monero or an alt that looks promising if you are getting into cryptos. But if I were you, I would just stick to stocks. These coins are susceptible to exchange hacks, massive pump and dumps, and retarded panic sellers.

-What good is support by an authority when it continues to devalue the currency on a yearly basis. There are plenty of examples of the population not trusting their national currency anymore besides government support
-Decentrelization is more of an argument if governments decided to put their fiat currencies on a private blockchain, which would create a single point of failure / target for hackers.
-The fixed amount is not a problem imo. Bitcoins value will simply increase and it is divisible down to 8 decimal places.
-True, they're not even in the same ballpark though as fees for fiat currency transfers

>that chart
OH FUCK BUY THE DIP

>real money
Please define what is real money

>-What good is support by an authority when it continues to devalue the currency on a yearly basis.
Non-sequitur. Inflation doesn't have any effect on the support the US government gives to the US dollar. You pay your taxes in US dollars, so US dollars are necessary if you want to live in the US.
Besides that, the currency is devalued in a gradual and controlled way. Controlled inflation stimulates spending and investment, and makes debt more attractive.

>There are plenty of examples of the population not trusting their national currency anymore besides government support
Usually because of hyperinflation, which is caused by poor fiscal policy.

>-Decentrelization is more of an argument if governments decided to put their fiat currencies on a private blockchain, which would create a single point of failure / target for hackers.
Why would anyone do that? The point of a blockchain is that it's decentralized. A centralized blockchain is pointless.

>-The fixed amount is not a problem imo. Bitcoins value will simply increase and it is divisible down to 8 decimal places.
What you're describing is deflation.
>Deflation is generally regarded negatively, as it causes a transfer of wealth from borrowers and holders of illiquid assets, to the benefit of savers and of holders of liquid assets and currency, and because confused pricing signals[citation needed] cause malinvestment, in the form of under-investment.

>-True, they're not even in the same ballpark though as fees for fiat currency transfers
That will probably remain true, although the fees are definitely going to rise because miners will simply stop working if the work stops being profitable.

If it's a finite amount where does it even come from? What the fuck does mining coin even mean?

From what I understand, using special computer equipment, to solve complicated math problems.When the problems solved, you are rewarded with bit coins. The more problems that get solved, the harder they get, until the limit of bit coins that they set to have in the market is hit.

Isn't another issue with bitcoin the fact that people are heavily using it as a speculative instrment? I wouldn't be very interested in using a currency with such huge amounts of volatility, as the purchasing power of my holdings could fluctuate widely from day to day.

Also, the built-in deflationary features encourage hoarding and saving instead of circulation, which isn't a great property for a medium of exchange to have.

With Bitcache and MegaUpload 2.0 on the 2017 horizon, growth is quite probable in the immediate sense. If MU2 goes down then the value would tank.

My advice is buy your coins now then when Bitcache and MegaUpload 2.0 come watch the state of the site and coin value carefully. If all goes well it won't go down but if it does go down you're looking at some pretty serious gains if you catch it at the right moment.

*worded this funny

You're looking at some serious gains either way.

The "blockchain" is a public ledger containing every BTC transaction ever made.
In order to append new transactions to the ledger, you need someone to perform a service called "mining." Miners create blocks of transactions that are chained together to form the blockchain. In return, they are given BTC. The system is designed to reward miners with newly-minted BTCs, but the number produced is periodically halved and eventually there will be no more BTC added to the system. Users can also pay a small service fee to miners; this is optional, but higher fees get your transaction processed faster.
Miners need to use specialized hardware optimized for efficiency, because mining involves complex mathematical calculations that use a lot of electricity. This is what keeps mining competitive, so that it's decentralized and difficult to control.