Bitcoins

[Unclebananahead]

What exactly are Bitcoins? How do they function, and why are anarcho-capitalists so enamored with them?

[evermilion]

I don't know anything about the technical aspects of it, but, basically, it's electronic currency that's anonymous.

[Os Cangaceiros]

https://bitcointalk.org/

^a pretty good site about bitcoins

[Os Cangaceiros]

I think some anarcho-capitalists may be into bitcoins for a couple different reasons, but at the same time it doesn't make much sense for the ones who are obsessed with "fiat currency" (ie currency that's not hooked up to some kind of tangible commodity like gold etc) to have much faith in the e-currency...I'd say it's evidence in the opposite direction, that money is just a agreed-upon mass illusion.

[Unclebananahead]

My general understanding of currency is that it's either tied to some tangible thing, such as gold, silver, platinum etc. Or it's fiat currency, which is worth something because a powerful entity (e.g. a state) says it is. This bitcoin phenomenon is neither, so it has me somewhat confused. I'd like to hear more on the concept that money is just an agreed upon mass illusion.

[Deity]

There is some formula that states how many bitcoins are in "existence". This is how it hold it's proclaimed value; there are only so many.

The hype around this is because no government controls it. It cannot be mass produced and Inflated. It can also be anonymous as there is no way other than the websites they are used at to track them.

This is my understanding of it at least.

[tuwix]

What exactly are Bitcoins? How do they function, and why are anarcho-capitalists so enamored with them?

It is just their dream of currency that is not printed. And Bitcoins is virtual currency which has a limit of units. That means it is deflation currency. And those idiots think that deflation is very good think. The majority Japaneses have different opinion but so-calles anarcho-capitalists don't care anything that outside their “holy books”. :P

[evermilion]

SWIM used them to buy marijuana once.

[Comrade #138672]

Since Bitcoins do not have any apparent use-value, it seems strange that they really have exchange-value. Isn't that defying the labour theory of value? Although the exchange-value of Bitcoins does seem to be related to labour time, because Bitcoins have to be actively "mined". But unlike money they are not related to a real commodity at all.

Can someone explain this?

[Comrade #138672]

I have found a YouTube video of someone who argues that Bitcoins do have "use-value":

N1r7Fcm4pwA

[ckaihatsu]

There is some formula that states how many bitcoins are in "existence". This is how it hold it's proclaimed value; there are only so many.

The hype around this is because no government controls it. It cannot be mass produced and Inflated. It can also be anonymous as there is no way other than the websites they are used at to track them.

This is my understanding of it at least.





It is just their dream of currency that is not printed. And Bitcoins is virtual currency which has a limit of units. That means it is deflation currency. And those idiots think that deflation is very good think. [...]


I was hoping we'd be able to *ignore* this side-track of a topic since it has no bearing on any of our concerns as revolutionaries whatsoever. And as of about a month ago there was still no substantive discussion of it here at RevLeft.

I do find it ironic that, in the name of popular control, the anarcho-capitalists are embracing this monetary scheme that is essentially deflationary and so cannot win support from equity-capital types who will always require ready liquidity. (Last I heard, the entire Bitcoin economy is only about a billion U.S. dollars strong.)





Since Bitcoins do not have any apparent use-value, it seems strange that they really have exchange-value. Isn't that defying the labour theory of value? Although the exchange-value of Bitcoins does seem to be related to labour time, because Bitcoins have to be actively "mined". But unlike money they are not related to a real commodity at all.

Can someone explain this?


As I understand it, the 'Bitcoin mining' is just a mechanistic technique employed to more-or-less-steadily release additional Bitcoins into circulation, according to an overall gradual set schedule. Since the total number of Bitcoins is capped, the entire system is closed and finite, and therefore is deflationary.

Comrades should feel free to harp on the fact that the Bitcoin system is inherently exchange-value-oriented, and so is just a monetary system add-on to global capitalism's *existing* characteristics. The exploited and oppressed worker gains nothing by voluntarily cheerleading one commercial, national, or currency brand over any other, so the Bitcoin scheme is really just another kind of glittering metal deemed to represent 'value' by the powers-that-be.

On a side-note I find it curious and humorous that Bitcoin "mining" -- a nominal portion of distributed banking trust and authority -- is premised on computationally intensive mathematics. It amounts to a kind of math fetish and artificial inflating of computational utility, for the sake of confering a kind of technological-based "legitimacy" onto those who commit themselves accordingly to this protocol for the entirely typical social function of 'clearing-house-ing'.

All we have to do here is merely lift a finger and ask why this Bitcoin-based valuation isn't sensitive to *labor*-based networked concerns, and to how surplus labor value is extracted through the production process.

[Sea]

SWIM used them to buy marijuana once.
Are we really still doing this?

[evermilion]

Are we really still doing this?
Was that not cool, bro?