I'm going to keep this somewhat brief and simple so as to make sure the point is understood.
What is fiat, and why is it important to understand?
"Fiat" refers to a certain top level monetary basis whereby the value of currency is based around for lack of a better word, confidence. Also know as speculation.
First, let's look at what fiat ISN'T.
In ye olden days currency was backed by physical or specific quantities. It varied from gold and silver, to gunpowder, even so abstract as physical labor hours. Whatever it was backed by, it was backed by some specific and quantifiable asset.
The simplest version was of course the gold standard.
1$ = 1oz of gold. (Not a real exchange, just an example.)
What this meant was that the government acted as a guarantor for the mercantilism of its citizens. Money is issued into circulation as backed by proportional physical assets of a nation or state. The wealth of a nation was decided quite literally by the projection of their economic might.
It's not quite so simple, but that's the basic idea.
So what's that whole fiat thing then? What does this matter? Wtf are you talking about?
The reason WSB is called Wall Street Bets is right in the name. Our financial markets have become glorified casinos. However, it's so, so much worse. Those in charge of the markets: The Federal Reserve, Wall Street, deep rooted pseudonational conglomerates; they are the House, and the House always wins.
Value is created or destroyed out of thin air as it benefits those in control of the system.
When the FED prints a trillion dollars to feed and inflate the market, where do you think that that value comes from?
They're betting against the common folk. They're betting against your potential. Shaving away an ounce of flesh to indulge their excess.
I say it so flamboyantly because there is no value there. It's all fake. An illusion. It's a house of cards that stands only as long it's safely tucked away out of sight.
Every dollar you own is only as valuable as the confidence in the system that issues it.
That statement is the reason why the Great Depression happened.
The problem of Bitcoin
So Bitcoin. What does that have to do with anything?
Bitcoin is a fiat currency.
The value is entirely codependent on a system of confidence in the system itself having value.
If that sounds like a tautology that's because it is a tautology.
Bitcoin has been shooting up in value over the past few years. "Bitcoin is the future!" people say. Sure. Maybe. But what do you think changes?
That it has grown so fast and continues to grow to excessive proportions should terrify you. What that means is that it's taking the confidence that was once given to other fiat currency. It's not some cycle of infinite growth.
Should Bitcoin grow to eclipse other currencies it will become a captured asset under a centralized system. It was created entirely to replace national fiat for an international fiat. Those who control the exchanges will control the financial foundation.
How many bitcoins are there total? How many are held out of circulation? Who do you think is buying them to support such a massive growth of valuation? What happens in 20 years when the global banking apparatus owns the majority of bitcoin as well as the major exchanges?
Be warned.
You hear about things like the "Great Reset" a lot these days. Be aware that these plans have been underway since before most of your were born. Bitcoin is not something outside of that plan.
We either end fiat-based policy or we continue to live as slaves.
Bitcoin is an idea. That idea is spawning technologies based on it. Those technologies have real value. The Bitcoin protocol itself seems too bloated to me to really do too much with, but it's a beautiful iteration of people having a financial incentive to act as a decentralized node of information exchange.
What real value?
What physical asset is backing that valuation?
What is stopping the valuation from becoming exactly the same as current USD?
Bitcoin may be a poor example, but Etherum is a good example of what a cryptocurrency can become - programmable, in a sense. Actual utility (you can tie a transaction to an external trigger, allowing the currency itself to act as arbiter in a low-social-trust exchange of goods or services, for example) has value.
All that said, you missed the distinction between currency and money while talking about fiat.
Money has value. Currency has trust... until it doesn't. Anyone got change for a $Z100,000,000,000,000 bill?
I don't make a distinction because as of today there is no distinction.
The last guy who tried to make a realistic distinction ended up getting analy raped to death by a bayonet.
There's potential but my issue remains the same.
Until it becomes intrinsically tied to some physical quality it will be inherently unstable and manipulatable.
It can be done but as so far has not so the argument in my eyes is dead in the water.
First and last is the end of fiat. That is ultimately the only thing that matters.
You and I disagree on the meaning of value, it seems. I'm willing to accept a utility value (beyond mere transactional/trust); you are not. Cryptocurrency has the ability to evolve into something approaching money, although it's a long way off yet.
I agree on not wanting to end up like Gadaffi. Crazy son of a bitch had a good idea with the Afro, if a terrible name.
Right now, specie or specie-backed currency is the only way to have a physical store of value; it's too difficult to have a form of money backed by a less movable commodity like oil or a more-difficult-to-store commodity like electricity, regardless of its inherent value.
Silver coinage should make a comeback.