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EFF Stops Accepting Bitcoin, Regifts All Donations
Gendou writes "The EFF issued a statement that it will no longer accept Bitcoin donations, has not used any of the donations, and will transfer all past donations to The Bitcoin Faucet. See also additional and forum threads."
The news here is that they were foolish enough to accept them in the first place. I had no idea that their judgment was that bad.
Actually, the implementation was pretty sound. Nobody has cracked the Bitcoin blockchain transfer protocol. Some websites dealing with the stuff got hacked, but that happens all the time. It's the idea that sucked. Satoshi got the crypto right but fucked up the human element, economics.
Foolish to accept them? They might not be worth much of anything but if someone offers you a bitcoin what exactly is the harm in accepting it? I suppose the EFF might have taken bitcoin from a few people who might otherwise have given dollars, but in the grand scheme of things I doubt they lost out on much if anything.
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Fiat currencies are backed by faith in a government. That is to say, faith that the government will continue to provide essential services, or more pessimistically faith that the government will arrest people who do not pay their taxes. Fiat currency derives its value from its utility as a means of paying taxes and government fees, and legally settling debts.
Palm trees and 8
Less money than what? Than nothing? Than no money you have with your assets frozen as bitcoin? Would they get less for selling it than by giving it to "the tap"?
Say, EFF tomorrow receives a donation of one trillion Mozambique dollars. Should they exchange it to USD as soon as possible or worry that selling them all now may earn them less money?
If EFF sets the policy: "sell ASAP at current price" then there is no worry. They are not a currency trade company, they are a charity. They can freely treat Bitcoin as "donation of other goods" and it's their duty to keep the assets in a safe form, not to speculate and wait for best offer for unsafe/volatile goods.
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Here is a fun fact.... the same can happen to the Euro and US dollar. All fake currency suffers from this potential.Hell the Federal Reserve is printing money so fast that the US dollar is going to go flat almost as fast...
GO back to coins made of real copper, nickel, silver and gold. suddenly the currency regains it's value and cant be destroyed..... Unless someone perfects alchemy and turns lead into gold or synthesizes gold.
For the naysayers complaining about carrying coins... do you realize how much a 1 troy oz gold coin is worth?
What intrinsic value do precious metals have that makes them so valuable? Many of them can be made into shiny jewelry, which has some value; there's also some value for use in electronics and other products. Apart from that, the only value they have - just like any other piece of property, physical or otherwise - is their desirability to others.
I don't care for shiny jewelry, and I have no intention of manufacturing products that would use precious metals. Therefore, the only value those metals have to me is their scarcity and the fact that others find them useful. How is this different than the paper money I have in my wallet?
I have no problem with your decision that precious metals are a safer currency for you than USDs or Euros. I fail to understand, however, how government-issued money is a "fake currency". My USDs are accepted in trade for all the products and services I desire, meeting the only criterion - ability to be freely traded - necessary to fulfill its role as a "real" currency.
Any form of currency - USD, Bitcoins, precious metals, seashells, etc. - is simply a shortcut to enable trade without the hassles of bartering. I agree that governments aren't always stable, but neither are commodities markets. Perhaps the USD is about to collapse - but the gold bubble could also pop at any minute. If you want to avoid any currency with the possibility of instability, go back to bartering. Alternatively, trade in your preferred currency with the realization that it is not a panacea.
Haha, good one.
Bitcoin has absolutely no use other than as a fiat currency.
Bitcoins are not a fiat currency. A fiat currency, as should be obvious from its name, has its value set by fiat (decree). No one is decreeing that bitcoins have value, any more than anyone decrees that monopoly money has value. It's fashionable for libertarians to use the word 'fiat' to mean 'worthless', but the two words are not interchangeable.
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