{"id":32728,"date":"2021-04-19T19:48:26","date_gmt":"2021-04-20T00:48:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/?p=32728"},"modified":"2021-04-19T19:48:26","modified_gmt":"2021-04-20T00:48:26","slug":"that-inflexibility-was-supposed-to-be-a-feature-ctd-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/2021\/04\/19\/that-inflexibility-was-supposed-to-be-a-feature-ctd-3\/","title":{"rendered":"That Inflexibility Was Supposed To Be A Feature, Ctd"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>When it comes to <a href=\"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/2021\/04\/18\/that-inflexibility-was-supposed-to-be-a-feature-ctd-2\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">bitcoin<\/a>, Megan McArdle is a believer &#8230; <em>in utility<\/em>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Most of the value of a bitcoin has\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.statista.com\/statistics\/326707\/bitcoin-price-index\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">accumulated<\/a>\u00a0in the past 12 months, as the price of a bitcoin increased\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bitcoinprice.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">almost tenfold<\/a>\u00a0since April 2020. Yet underlying that value \u2014 bitcoin\u2019s real-world, non-speculative, non-hobbyist uses \u2014 are things such as\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.scmp.com\/economy\/china-economy\/article\/3098981\/cryptocurrencies-help-chinese-evade-capital-and-currency\">transferring money out of countries with currency controls<\/a>\u00a0or\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2020\/01\/28\/technology\/bitcoin-black-market.html\">dealing in certain illicit goods<\/a>\u00a0or\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.coindesk.com\/bitcoin-adoption-venezuela-research\">offering an alternative to currency in countries experiencing hyperinflation<\/a>. In these contexts, it looks less like a currency than a substitute for expensive jewelry \u2014 something small, reasonably durable and highly valuable, which is thus relatively easy to move across borders undetected or to store and liquidate in case society collapses. But at least jewelry is pretty to look at in the meantime.<\/p>\n<p>The more I think about it, the more I wonder if that isn\u2019t the right analogy. Maybe techno-utopians just like looking at bitcoin the same way brides like being able to see\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.estatediamondjewelry.com\/engagement-ring-calculator\/#:~:text=General%20Rule%3A%20You%20should%20spend,how%20we%20debunk%20this%20theory.\">two months of their spouse\u2019s work<\/a>\u00a0flashing on their hand. And what\u2019s wrong with that?<em> [<a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/opinions\/2021\/04\/19\/after-eight-years-question-remains-whats-point-bitcoin\/?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_source=newsletter&amp;wpisrc=nl_most&amp;carta-url=https:\/\/s2.washingtonpost.com\/car-ln-tr\/31f15ff\/607dad4d9d2fda1dfb54ad41\/59ee10d9ae7e8a504fd8ecd3\/51\/72\/607dad4d9d2fda1dfb54ad41\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>WaPo<\/strong><\/a>]<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I&#8217;ll be keeping an eye out for other skeptical opinions on cryptocurrencies. Given how wrong I&#8217;ve been about <em><strong>Paypal<\/strong><\/em> (&#8220;What unique utility does it have?&#8221;), unpublished, I&#8217;m looking forward to someone unveiling why I can&#8217;t live without cryptocurrencies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When it comes to bitcoin, Megan McArdle is a believer &#8230; in utility: Most of the value of a bitcoin has\u00a0accumulated\u00a0in the past 12 months, as the price of a bitcoin increased\u00a0almost tenfold\u00a0since April 2020. Yet underlying that value \u2014 bitcoin\u2019s real-world, non-speculative, non-hobbyist uses \u2014 are things such as\u00a0transferring \u2026 <a class=\"continue-reading-link\" href=\"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/2021\/04\/19\/that-inflexibility-was-supposed-to-be-a-feature-ctd-3\/\"> Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr; <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32728","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32728","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32728"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32728\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32729,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32728\/revisions\/32729"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32728"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32728"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32728"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}