What Are the Differences? Bitcoin, Monero, Ethereum, And Other Cryptocurrencies Compared

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That's just it - Crypto was supposed to be the internet equivalent of Western Union for transactions. Instead, it's become a speculative store of wealth ("Digital tulips"); counter to its intended purpose.

Given the infinitem of standards, if you're looking for a store of wealth, I'm more in favor of the PHYZ (Pt, Au, Ag, and Pd).
 
This page is unreadable as the ads keep re scrolling the page to stay inside the viewing area!!! Tom's hardware has become intolerable and after 20 years I'm now done with the site.
 
"A stablecoin is a coin ... with its value tied to a fiat currency"
So a stablecoin is a fiat currency tied to another fiat currency, that also has no inherent value?

"Another ... is DigixDAO’s DGX token, which is backed by (real) gold instead of by fiat currencies. That means its value shouldn’t be quite as stable..."
Quite the opposite! One gram of gold will *always* be worth one gram of gold, whereas fiat currencies can have their gold value differ a lot.
The USD was tied to gold until USA had spent all its resources by sending people to the Moon while vaging war in Vietnam at the same time. Instead of just declaring itself bancrupcy they had to let the USD become a fiat currency and now the USD value in gold is much lower than it used to be.

Gold (and silver) is *money*, the rest are just currencies.
 


Sovereign nations can't declare bankruptcy. Please see examples of hyperinflation in Weimar, Hungary, Zimbabwe, and modern Venezuela. It's a death-spiral. When a government is that much in debt, they spend their way into an oblivion much like a drowning person thrashes in the water to keep its head up. It's a wasted effort with an inevitable outcome.



Agreed. But I do understand why we got off the Gold Standard for a whole list of reasons. But it was as they say "penny wise pound foolish". Now the Feds abuse at printing is coming back to haunt us in addition to the uncontrolled spending via our elected heros in office.

It's all moot at the end of the day. PHYZ, or BTC, doesn't matter. Just like what the ancient Romans did, all taxes must be paid back in the Denarius. And that requirement intrinsically sets the monetary standard.
 

...agreed this cryptomining crap needs to be put to a swift end. It's taken two once reasonably affordable hobbies (gaming and CG art) and made them too expensive to enjoy anymore.

 
Olle p hit it spot on. In Gold I Trust is my fiscal motto! As long as digital gold reserves have actual gold backing it’s far safer than any coin or currency. Dollar up dollar down pound up pound down euro up euro...!
An ounce of gold is worth... wait for it... an ounce of gold! That’s hard to beat!
 

Why are hobbies such as gaming or CG inherently more deserving of graphics cards than mining?
 

What "inherent value" do precious metals have?

"Another ... is DigixDAO’s DGX token, which is backed by (real) gold instead of by fiat currencies. That means its value shouldn’t be quite as stable..."
Quite the opposite! One gram of gold will *always* be worth one gram of gold, whereas fiat currencies can have their gold value differ a lot.
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Ok. And one USD will *always* be worth one USD, whereas precious metals can have their fiat value differ a lot.
 


I don't really want to get into the GRAPES here, but have you seen clips of people who are the ones who are really profiting off cryptocurrencies? John Oliver did a great segment on this a few weeks ago. These are the kinds of people who should not be trusted with a billion or more dollars. At least gaming won't tank whole economies the way cryptocurrencies could.
 


The fact elemental atoms are in a finite supply here on planet Earth.

With crypto currency, there's an infinitum of standards; in fact I could create an "stdragon coin" if I wanted too.



You clearly don't know what fiat means. Fiat is a government backed monetary instrument that's NOT backed by a physical commodity. Because PM (precious metals) ARE a physical commodity in of itself, it doesn't need to be backed up by anything else.
 
If Tom's hardware wanted to help the gaming community they'd convince people to move everything to pre-mined coins like Ripple and Tron so GPU's would be reasonable again without having to stop the crypto craze.
 

Yes, you can create your own crypto, that doesn't mean anyone will buy it. When it comes to the currently most valuable coin, Bitcoin, it has a finite supply as well. The next most valuable (ether) has a fixed rate of issuance that cannot be changed (without a hardfork) and their are talk of a hard cap for that as well.

You clearly don't know what fiat means. Fiat is a government backed monetary instrument that's NOT backed by a physical commodity. Because PM (precious metals) ARE a physical commodity in of itself, it doesn't need to be backed up by anything else.
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I understand what fiat currencies are just fine. I was just trying to show how easy it is to flip what @Olle P said around. Given that virtually all purchases people make are in fiat, the fiat value of gold is still very important. On a short term time scale, the purchasing power of precious metals vary more than the purchasing power of USD.


Try creating a PC without some.[/quotemsg]
The price of precious metals far outstrips their inherent value derived from practical applications. To try and pretend that current value of gold is fully supported by its use as a corrosion resistant conductor is disingenuous.
 

Can you be more specific? I did watch the John Oliver piece on crypto, but I can't remember enough to know what you're referring to. Miners aren't necessarily the ones participating in the crypto economy to a large extent. Many of them just sell the coins they mine. Can't see how miners would be hurting anyone (other than causing the price of graphics cards to go up).
 


Amen! Well said.

Cryptocurrency is no different from in-game gold. Gold farmers still still in-game gold for dollars too for any type of game out there. All the varieties are just like all the in-game currencies from all the different games. The sad part is games are actually fun to play most of the time, but crypto farming is boring as hell.
 


Just because the market can be temporarily irrational, just like they hype crypto, or tulips, does NOT mean the price of precious metals are far exceeding their inherent value. Gold for anti-corrosion is just one limited application. This is a strawman argument to fixate on one application.


 


What a load of !@#$%%^!

Must be trying hard to inflate the price of precious metals.

Here is bottom line, the ultimate power of force will dictate what the value of money. The vehicle used to represent that value be it paper, credit, electronic, or precious metal is really just obsfucating that simple fact.

Right now the ultimate power lies in nukes. Government with nukes will set the rules and impose it on everyone, and people will follow along because they understand that government fiat is no joke, and it doesn't matter if it is democratic or klepto-totalitarian like North Korea.

Anyone that think crypto will assume that role of trust/fear without real government backing is fooling themselves. Trying using cryto after nukes have been launched. Good luck buddy.

 

I mentioned that particular use for gold in response to the comment about the use of gold in PCs. But while we're at it, what other practical applications drive the price of gold? AFAIK gold's characteristic of being a good conductor and corrosion resistant are the most important in terms of its practical value.

And how is the price of gold "temporarily irrational"? Gold has been valued by humans long before the even had any real use for it. It has been overvalued (in comparison to its demand for use in practical applications) for literally thousands of years. That's part of why it makes such a good store of value, because it has so much history as being one. But that's not the same as having inherent value.
 


And you can eat that ounce of gold? Right.. Didn't think so.

Tell me just how many vendors will take gold for payment for your pizza? At least the Japanese had better sense when they used rice as currency. At the of the day you can eat it and won't starve to death.
 
I mentioned gold in PC manufacture as simply one real world use and value for it.
One.

Some people have chosen that as the only, and are running with that.

Another (but not only) use is jewelry. And in that...it is worth exactly what people will pay for it.

Crypto is far worse, because there is no inherent use or value.
It is simply "what other people will pay". 100% market speculation.


I wonder what the overlap is between global warming aficionados and home miners is?
 
After reading through the responses, it’s clear to me that some are missing the fundamental understanding of how the market works.

The price of an object can be set to whatever you want; typically it’s based on whatever the market will bear. But fundimentally, the true price is only known at that pivotal moment of transaction between the buyer and seller.

And again, for the last time, Gold, like all physical commodities, has no inherent “fiat value”. That assertion is an oxymoron. In fact, the fiat price of a physical commodity offers a baseline of the value of fiat currency in retrospect, not the physical commodity in question.
 
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