Refuting a critic about scarcity

Refuting a critic about scarcity. Okay,
I normally don’t do this, but you know,
people troll my Facebook page now and
then with stuff that doesn’t totally
make sense. I should be taking a shower
right now. Instead, I’m going to answer
a critic. Okay, here we go. So two days
ago I posted a image of the Fidelity
chart with all the attributes of good
money straight from a report called uh
Bitcoin first revisited from Fidelity,
one of the largest and most reputable
organizations in the world. And my post
that went with it said scarcity and
other properties of money. And I go on
the reason Bitcoin is valuable is
because it is scarce. And then I
continue lower on and Bitcoin checks all
of the boxes for what makes an ideal
money. See the image from Fidelity. I
also mention here that gold is not
scarce and fiat currency like the US
dollar uh sorry gold is not digital
meaning you can’t send it over the
internet and fiat currency is not
scarce. Okay. So someone posted here and
I’m going to do a a bit of a line by
line reputation. In fact I might read
his entire post. We’ll see. He says
nonsense.
Scarcity alone does not guarantee value.
Well, of course it doesn’t. We’ve talked
about this before. It’s not scarcity.
It’s credibility of monetary properties
of which scarcity is one. He says
countless things are scarce but
worthless like a digital file I make
today with a fixed supply of one is
quote scarce but that does not make it
valuable. It also needs to have some
usefulness. What makes money useful is
not just scarcity but stability, broad
trust and integration into the economic
system. Okay. Well, first of all, you’re
right. Scarcity by itself, I can draw a
picture and there’s only one in the
world, but it’s not it’s not uh it
doesn’t have monetary properties because
it is not going back to our chart right
here from Fidelity. It is not durable.
My picture is not durable, divisible,
fungeible, portable, verifiable, and it
doesn’t have a track record. So scarce
is one of 1 2 3 four five six seven uh
attributes of money that was literally
in the post. But again this guy is
acting like scarcity is the only one.
But again you have to remember it’s not
the monetary properties it’s the
credibility of the monetary properties
the probability that Bitcoin will only
have 21 million. I can copy the code of
Bitcoin today. I can reduce the amount
to 20 million and I can change the name
from Bitcoin to Joelcoin. And Joelcoin
technically would be more scarce than
Bitcoin because there’d only be 20
million and Bitcoin has 21 million. But
there’s no credibility in that monetary
properties because I can go change it
back to 22 million instead of 20
million. So what matters with monetary
assets is the credibility of their
monetary properties, not just the
monetary properties, which again I
outlined in numerous videos and numerous
posts. Uh but this guy uh you know
focuses on just scarcity and then
basically says he can uh create a
digital file and it’s scarce but that
doesn’t make it valuable. Okay. Then he
goes on to say, but again, what matters
with money is the credibility of their
monetary properties. Not that something
is durable, divisible, fungeible,
portable, verifiable, scarce, and has a
track record. It’s the credibility that
those things will remain true, that it
will stay durable, stay divisible, stay
funible, stay portable, stay verifiable,
stay scarce, and that it will maintain
its track record, the credibility of the
monetary properties. Okay, so this guy
goes on and says it’s not just scarcity,
but stability, broad trust, and
integration into the economic system.
The problem is the US dollar is losing
on all of those. It only goes down, it’s
not stable. It doesn’t have uh uh stable
purchasing power. The purchasing power
of the US dollar is only ever going down
and at an accelerating rate. Broad
trust, the trust in the US dollar is
actually dropping. countries, especially
after the United States uh uh
confiscated all of Russia’s US dollar
reserves back at the start of the Ukra
uh the war between Russia and Ukraine or
I should say Russia’s invasion of
Ukraine. Um when the US government uh
confiscated all of Russia’s US dollar uh
reserves, countries have started to
unwind from the US dollar. So the amount
of US dollars held by foreign
governments is on the decline because
they do not have trust in the US dollar.
They don’t trust that the US dollars
they own will remain theirs. So uh the
US dollar
so the dollar is losing its stability.
It’s not stable. It only goes down. It
is losing the broad trust it once had
because the US government is so fickle
with whose funds it confiscates and
seizes and who it uh you know puts
tariffs on and all of that and also the
integration into the economic system.
Again, Russia got kicked out of the US
dollar system. Other countries are
getting kicked out of the US dollar
system. Um the current presidential
administration in the United States is
discouraging foreign investment in the
United States. The US dollar is
removing itself from the global economic
system. Not integrating, but
disintegrating from the global economic
system. Okay. So then this guy goes on
and says, “Bitcoin may be limited in
issuance, but it’s not scarce in
substitute. There are thousands of
competing cryptocurrencies.” That’s
true, but that’s like saying gold is not
scarce because there’s tons of other
metals. Again, what matters is the
credibility of the monetary properties.
None of the other cryptocurrencies has
the credibility of the monetary
properties. So they are not a
substitute. If they had equal
credibility of those monetary
properties, you would start to see
substitution. But they don’t. Nobody
believes that any of those other
cryptocurrencies is going to maintain
whatever number of tokens. For example,
Sheibba anu has 100 trillion. It’s
either 100red trillion or a thousand
trillion. I don’t know. whatever it is,
some ridiculously not high number of
trillions of coins. But nobody believes
that’s a fixed supply. Nobody believes
Dogecoin’s a fixed supply. It’s not. Um,
Ethereum supply is in a constant state
of flux. Nobody knows what the supply of
any of these uh cryptocurrencies is at a
moment in time or what it will be in the
future. They have no credibility of
those monetary properties. And again,
even if they had credibility of the
scarcity of those monetary properties,
which they don’t, they don’t have the
credibility of durable, divisible,
fungeible, portable, verifiable, and
track record. None of them have that.
So, they are not substitutes regardless.
He says there are thousands of competing
cryptocurrencies. If scarcity were the
only factor, now remember, I didn’t say
scarcity was the only factor. I
literally posted in the post the other
factors that are important. I didn’t say
scarcity was the only factor. There is
seven things on here. That’s not the
only factor. I don’t know why he’s
acting like I said scarcity was the only
factor when I literally posted with the
post an image that had seven attributes,
not one to seven. Anyway, he says if
scarcity were the only factor, then
every altcoin with a fixed supply would
be equally valuable, which clearly isn’t
the case. Again, we talked about this in
numerous videos. It is the credibility
of the monetary properties that matter,
not the monetary properties. And he says
every altcoin with a fix altcoin with a
fixed supply would be equally valuable.
They’re not because nobody believes that
any of those are going to maintain a
fixed supply. Some small number of
people in the case of Ethereum, it’s
Metallic Buterine and the Ethereum
Foundation, some single individual or
small number of individuals can change
the supply because they are not
distributed and decentralized the way
Bitcoin is. Um so again he focuses only
on uh scarcity which is one of the seven
attributes that I literally posted in my
post a an image in the post and I put at
the top of my post scarcity and other
properties of money and I say in my post
and Bitcoin checks all of the boxes that
make an ideal money see image from
fidelity. I literally wrote that in my
post and this guy’s acting like he like
read the first word of my post and then
like lost like lost the ability to
process everything else I said. Anyway,
so then he goes on, “Gold’s non-digital
nature doesn’t diminish its monetary
history.” Well, I never said it did. In
fact, in the literal image, in the
literal image here, it gives gold credit
for track record. See down there at the
bottom, the big green checkbox next to
gold over there where it says it gives
it credit for track record. So this guy
says he says here he says gold’s
non-digital nature doesn’t diminish his
monetary history. Nobody says it did.
Everybody admits gold has monetary
history. The problem is it doesn’t work
in a digital world. He goes on it’s
physical scarcity universal
recognizability. Um so first physical
scarcity. Gold goes up in supply by 2%
every year. So it’s not that scarce
because every 36 years the total amount
of gold that humans can transact with
doubles. something that is doubling
every 36 years. Is that really scarce? I
mean, think about that. Okay, so he says
gold’s physical scarcity, universal
recognizability.
Gold is not universally recognizable. It
takes a $50,000
uh um electrospect, whatever it’s
called, I can’t remember the name of it,
to figure out if gold is gold. You don’t
know if it’s gold. You don’t know if it
has uh an outer layer of gold with
tungsten at the middle. Someone gives
you a gold coin, you have no way of
figuring out that that is actual real
gold without very expensive equipment
and the only way to know for sure is to
melt it down. So again, he says it’s
physical scarcity. It’s not that scarce.
Universal recognizability. It’s not
universally recognizable. It’s gold is
very difficult to essay. Um essay is
when you actually authenticate that a
precious metal is what it is. So a 1oz
gold coin actually has an actual full
ounce of gold in it. that it’s actually
very difficult and technologically
sophisticated to do that. Um, utility.
Okay, gold has utility, but the problem
is it’s utility as money broke down with
the invention of the telegraph because
gold could not go across a wire. And
durability. Now, I’ll give it credit
with for being durable, but again, this
chart very clearly gives gold credit for
being having a track record and being
durable. Nobody’s saying gold’s not
durable. It actually literally says it
in the image that I posted. allows it to
function as money across civilizations
for millennia. Again, it functioned
across uh millennia until one second.
Hey, y’all play on the sideyard, please.
Sideyard.
Um, again, the only reason it worked
across millennia was prior to the
invention of the internet, but really
the invention of the telegraph because
the telegraph was the first uh
opportunity to communicate
electronically. And so with the
invention of the telegraph, gold’s
ability to work across the millennia
broke down. Especially with the
invention of the the internet, the
internet the invention of the internet
was the the uh nail in the coffin of
gold because suddenly the entire world
was communicating and transferring value
electronically and gold cannot do that.
He says meanwhile fiat currencies
one second. Hey y’all go play in the
side sideyard.
He says, “Meanwhile, fiat currencies,
despite infla inflationary tendencies,
inflationary tendencies like it’s
completely out of control. 40% more US
dollars were created out of thin air in
the last 5 years. Inflationary
tendencies. It’s a rampant epidemic.”
Okay. He says, “Meanwhile, fiat
currencies despite inflationary
tendencies remain dominant precisely
because they are backed by states.” Now,
let’s remember first of all, the gold is
losing dominance. Go look at the charts
for the percentage of gold held in
foreign reserves and things like that.
The percentage of foreign transactions
happening and denominated in US dollars
that is falling not rising. Okay. So he
says because they are backed by states
every single fiat currency has
eventually failed except that you know
the ones that were invented less than
you know the US dollars only came off
the gold standard in 1971. So it’s only
what you know 55 years old 56 whatever
54 years old whatever that is. So every
fiat currency has failed and every one
of them was backed by a nation state.
Every failed fiat currency was backed by
a nation state. He says enforced by law.
Every failed fiat currency was also
enforced by law. And he says integrated
with the global financial system. Every
failed fiat currency was once upon a
time whether it was the Dutch currency
or the Spanish currency or the French uh
was French ever world reserve. I can’t
remember. There was like five world
reserve currencies that lost their place
as a world reserve currency. Every one
of them was at one point integrated with
the global financial system until they
weren’t. So then I recommend uh uh
Natalie Brunell’s book, Bitcoin is for
everyone. And he comes back and says,
“Our difference is not due to a lack of
understanding on my part.” Oh yes, my
friend, it absolutely is due to a lack
of understanding on your part. I’m sorry
you didn’t read the Fidelity report,
which you could. You didn’t even read my
whole post, which you could. You didn’t
look at the uh image with all sever
attributes, which was literally right
there at the post. Um he says, “Our
difference is not due to a lack of
understanding on my part. It’s due to a
difference of opinion and integrity.” A
difference of difference of integrity.
Like look, when you’re losing an
argument, you start attacking the
integrity of the person. Now, again,
he’s he he’s questioning my integrity
coming from a locked Facebook account.
So, this guy’s got a locked Facebook
account, so you can’t even see who he
is, what he does, anything about him. I
got a wideopen Facebook account for the
entire world to see. You can see all my
friends. You can see everything about
me. It’s there for the entire world to
see. I am the most transparent person
out there. Um, and he says, apparently,
he’s questioning my integrity. So,
everything this guy needs to know, which
I posted in a reply, everything he needs
to know is on my website, in my YouTube
videos. We talk about the attributes of
good money. We talk about why the
credibility of monetary properties is
what really matters. We talk about why
all those other cryptocurrencies don’t
have the credibility of the monetary
properties. We talk about each of the
monetary properties. We talk about gold
versus fiat currency versus Bitcoin. We
address literally every concern this guy
has in every conceivable way has been
addressed in one of my more than 400
videos and thousands of Facebook posts.
It’s all out there. He could keyword
search the word scarcity. He could
keyword search the word gold. He could
keyword search the word monetary
properties. Basically, almost any big
word he uses in his post, he could
keyword search on my Facebook page or my
YouTube channel. And I meticulously have
all of the best resources right there
where I step step by step and explain it
all. So, normally I don’t engage.
Normally I don’t uh post videos like
this, but it’s a Saturday morning. I
couldn’t resist. I should be taking a
shower, but here we go. So, that is my
reputation of this guy’s post, and I
will post it as a reply to his post. And
there you go. Have a wonderful weekend.