Will Bitcoin Replace the Dollar?

[rdubwiley]

[MADem]

1. Short answer. No. They're like Beanie Babies nowadays. A fad. nt

[Major Nikon]

2. The biggest real value to them was the anonymity aspect

The fad caught on because you could buy drugs online with them. Now that the feds are on to it this is becoming quite problematic and some bitcoin exchanges are being required to collect personal info. Some have also lost millions to hackers.

I don't look for the fad to last. If I had any significant investment in them I'd be selling.

[MADem]

3. I feel like they're about to jump the shark, myself. We'll see... nt

[MrMickeysMom]

4. I'm not ready to write this off...

Which one of these are more credible or less extinguishable?

1) The United States continuing to print money with nothing to back the dollar

2) An accountable system based on rare numbers that have specific value

[Veilex]

5. I see this an awful lot... so I'd like to try to dispel it a bit:

"The United States continuing to print money with nothing to back the dollar"
I'm mostly concerned with the "With nothing to back the dollar" aspect of the statement.
The Dollar is backed by the country's credit... which is in turn backed by a continual show
of ability to pay our debts, one way or another. Add to that, the actual value of federal holdings
to include buildings and land and the dollar is actually heavily backed.

I realize people usually mean "backed by gold"... but in this case, trust (which should probably be read as "credit&quot
is as good as gold.

[Art_from_Ark]

6. So when the Chinese cash in their $ trillion in Treasuries

we'll just sign over the Treasury Building to them, maybe throw in a couple of national parks, and call it even?

[MrMickeysMom]

7. … and to finish your very accurate point...

… this means that the dollar is backed by the United States military industry, a.k.a., war machine.

The country's ability to pay our debts has and will forever be committed to the biggest portion of our budget, which is defense.

The gold standard would have been better, though I'm not sure how much better, in this age. Bitcoins are tied to a "thing" that is demonstrated to have a finite value towards goods and services, in an expanding base.