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191 points aorloff | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.001s | source
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andy99 ◴[] No.44467803[source]
Most interesting to me is that people are worried about a $2B transaction moving the market.

How does that compare to the market depth of actual currencies or commodities? BTC, being objectively worthless, must be much more sensitive to people wanting to sell I'd expect.

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bboygravity ◴[] No.44467823[source]
How is BTC objectively worthless (I'm guessing you mean "intrinsicly worthlesss"?) as opposed to USD or other major currencies?
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anothernewdude ◴[] No.44467871[source]
Other currencies get their value because the governments that provide them make people pay taxes. If you want to pay the tax the US government charges you, you're going to need some USD - so there's guaranteed demand, and hence intrinsic worth.

There's also other debt that the US government provides in USD - which provides value as well, in the form of bonds.

BTC has no such driver of wealth. Except perhaps money laundering/transfers without AML provisions.

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1. analog31 ◴[] No.44468271{3}[source]
This doesn't explain why the currencies of different countries behave differently.

In my view, money is a technology. People use a technology if they find it to be useful. I know this sounds circular, but bear with me. A "major" currency is designed to be useful as a medium of exchange, temporary store of value, and tool of government economic policy. For it to serve these purposes, a government has to moderate its own behavior to some extent.

Thus my view is that the value of a major currency is based, not on the expectation of paying taxes in the future, but on more general expectations of the future behavior of the government.

With that said, paying taxes is good use for money that's a short term store of value, because you rarely need to hold onto your tax money for more than a year before paying it.