> But the upkeep cost of protecting the gold is continuous in the same way as bitcoin mining.
This completely misses the point, which was one of magnitude:
>> The upkeep cost for Bitcoin is, and by necessity must be, PROPORTIOANAL TO THE VALUE REPRESENTED by Bitcoin.
Also, that upkeep cost is 100.00% to protect the value of existing bitcoin.
C.f., gold:
> If you want to own some gold you need to protect it (usually with the state apparatus of violence, which has massive externalities).
I don't need continuous mining of bitcoin to protect my non-bitcoin stuff.
However, I do need the "state apparatus of violence" to protect my non-gold stuff, including things like my house and my body, and oh yeah, my fucking mining rig!
If all gold disappeared tomorrow, would anything about the "state apparatus of violence" change? No, of course not. That is absurd.
I never understood the "violence" argument against government. In that sense of the word "violence", there is no alternative that does not at some level also come down to the threat of force. The "state apparatus of violence" won't look so bad after you've dismantled the state in favor of something approaching anarcho-capitalism and are then close to Hobbe's state of nature: nasty, british, and short.
This completely misses the point, which was one of magnitude:
>> The upkeep cost for Bitcoin is, and by necessity must be, PROPORTIOANAL TO THE VALUE REPRESENTED by Bitcoin.
Also, that upkeep cost is 100.00% to protect the value of existing bitcoin.
C.f., gold:
> If you want to own some gold you need to protect it (usually with the state apparatus of violence, which has massive externalities).
I don't need continuous mining of bitcoin to protect my non-bitcoin stuff.
However, I do need the "state apparatus of violence" to protect my non-gold stuff, including things like my house and my body, and oh yeah, my fucking mining rig!
If all gold disappeared tomorrow, would anything about the "state apparatus of violence" change? No, of course not. That is absurd.