Any question answered...

This is a hell of an explanation!

Very simple question. If Bitcoin is going to make him rich, why is he tooling about taking a wage off me?

He needs a wage until he recovers his hard drive from a Newport landfill.

Tldr was porn involved

Another favor proponents love is that the amount of bitcoin that will ever exist is limited by design, and isn’t controlled by a central authority. This is important for people who want to use it as a store of value because there’s no way, for example, that a central bank decides to issue a fresh batch of bitcoin equivalent to 1/10 of the coins that already exist, like they do with the currency currently, and which incorrectly managed can lead to a devaluation (see Zimbabwe’s trillion dollar bills for an extreme example).

Unless a wizard(ress), AI, or quantum computing do something beyond our current comprehension of what computers can do, once the last coin is mined, that’s it. Bitcoin can be subdivided, so if it increases in value you can pay with smaller fractions of it. The inherent scarcity of it also makes it attractive to people who have grown averse to quantitative easing aka money printers go whirrr.

To sell people, and bike mechanics, something new. For the cyclist, it’s a sleeker bearing set; for bike mechanics, it’s a new (…) tool to install said bearings.

Anyway, enough, I've got to go collect my recalcitrant 14yo...

Collected her (after she's been to see Hamilton on a school trip with the music dept). So I might do part II sometime tomorrow in the style of Lin-Manuel Miranda.

For reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hashcash was the anti-spam use of this kind of proof-of-work system.

When reinforcing a joint of a headtube to top tube by adding a gusset, am I correct in not fully welding it? And leaving the ends open? Ta

That problem was solved in a different way, only for the target to move and keep moving.

I went to have a look at this place and saw the stairway going down into the basement - there’s a business there?? Haha. Looked very much closed / abandoned but will have another look next time I pass by

Staying on Bitcoin for a minute... what can one buy with it?

I think this is where I am struggling to make the leap that it really has any worth. @Greenbank you say if you'd bought £5 worth in 2009 you'd now be a multimillionaire... this is not me doubting that statement, but who would have bought all of that Bitcoin off you, using £ ? And why?

Because if I can't buy a house, a car, or put food on the table - using Bitcoin - why do I want or need it?

This is slightly Devil's advocate, but also me admitting that I still don't really understand it fully!

what can one buy with it?

Drugs, guns, ITAR-restricted components...but mostly fiat currency balances in conventional banks.

struggling to make the leap that it really has any worth

Nothing has any worth until two parties to a bargain agree that it has.

this is not me doubting that statement, but who would have bought all of that Bitcoin off you, using £ ?

The mug who thinks that if they hold it'll also make them a multimillionaire

And why?

See above

Because if I can't ... put food on the table

People early on bought pizzas for multiple bitcoin which would make them the most expensive pizza ever at current "value"

People are buying bitcoin all the time on the open market. Most exchanges have a pretty big order book so there is a significant market depth.

https://www.coinglass.com/merge/BTC-USD

Taking a snap shot of that right now there's about 900 BTC either side of the midpoint. At $70k/BTC that's a crude estimation of a market depth of $63million.

You can buy some things with Bitcoin (that's how The Silk Road used to accept payments) but a lot of people treat it just like any other form of investments. If you buy shares in Apple you can't buy a house with them, or a car, or put food on the table with them. But you can trade them in for real cash at any point. Regardless of the price there will always usually be someone looking to buy and hope the upward trend will continue.

So is Bitcoin a stock rather than a currency?

I don't ever envisage having to make a purchase on the black market.

People early on bought pizzas for multiple bitcoin which would make them the most expensive pizza ever at current "value"

Indeed, one of the early Bitcoin purchases was a delivery pizza for 10,000 BTC (back when that was worth ~$10 in total). Those same 10,000 BTC now would be worth $700million.

(The pizza is kind of irrelevant to the value. If the same person had just bought 10,000 BTC with ~$10 they'd make the same huge profit on it if they had the balls to hold on to it for that long.)

So is Bitcoin a stock rather than a currency?

The point is that it is both. And it avoids many of the problems that affect both. For example, there's no inflation (indeed there can only be deflation as coins are lost).

Some stuff you can buy directly, but most stuff you'd transfer the bitcoin into cash and use that to buy a car or house or whatever. Same as you would with gold or property or shares or whatever.

At the simplest, the people buying it off you are more people who think it is going to go up in value. Some of that is individuals, some is instititional investors, some of that is companies. There's a company out there called Microstrategy that has bought up something like $15bn of bitcoin, Tesla owned something like $1bn at one point.

Regardless of the price there will always usually be someone looking to buy and hope the upward trend will continue.

This is known as the Greater Fool Theory, and it always works until it suddenly doesn't.

More or less, yes

So is Bitcoin a stock rather than a currency?

It's more of a futures contract relying on there being one born every minute.

and it always works until governments stop devaluing their currencies and put interest rates up

Greater Fool Theory

I don't really buy this because "intrinsic value" is such a blurry concept. A share in a business is a piece of paper - it has no intrinsic value either. Its "intrinsic value" comes from society, laws, and a sufficiently large/powerful group of people who are interested in maintaining the system that makes shares valuable. But Bitcoin has those too, so it seems like these people are just drawing an arbitrary line and saying "this value is real and intrisic, but that value is made up".

The whole financial system is made up, money has no value, it all only works because we all agree that it should work.

(I do not own any bitcoin)

Fiat currency has intrinsic value in that the issuing country will let you pay your taxes with it. Since they can enforce payment with violence (ie, imprisonment & confiscation), that's worth something.

Stocks have at least the intrinsic value of the company assets after senior creditors are paid off.

Staying on Bitcoin for a minute... what can one buy with it?

The Emperor's New Clothes are definitely available with Bitcoin.