Re: I'm forever blowing bitcoin
" is intrinsically worth a lot of money."
Just a side note on intrinsic value. It's actually a bad thing when money (or any subset, such as currency) has intrinsic value. It should function as a medium of exchange only, else there will be oddities in the process.
Coinage is the classic example, many coins are worth more for their metal content than their face value. Since they also can cost more than their face value to make (materials plus tooling) you'll just be losing value. There are laws against this, but any time copper or nickel shoots up in value, then certain people will hoard nickels, dimes and tuppences (the ones without a steel disc in them). While it's unusual you can still find silver coins in the USA in regular usage. Always nice to get more back in change than you paid :)
So it's important that money doesn't have an intrinsic value, otherwise it buggers up a lot of the workings. That we use something inherently worthless as a way of ascribing value is very confusing.
In much the same way that when you understand how money supply works, either you should feel worried ("what will happen when the peons discover this?") or angry ("wait, ctrl-p and there's now more money?"). There's a good reason you don't get it explained in school, except with regard to Weimer Republic.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
