And yet paper gold really does dilute the value of physical gold, whereas no fork can ever be said to have done that. If we are talking about an asset and store of value then the reason we don’t want a fork, or paper derivatives is because we don’t want to see our asset diluted in value. Paper derivatives do that, forks do not. BTC is a store of value and a better one, so as/if it gains trust it will gain market share. The only real advantage gold has over BTC is independence. BTC is network dependent where physical gold can function in isolation. I suppose gold is a more liquid market too (for now). Other than that BTC is better in just about every way as a store of value/asset. The rise of SAFEcoin would not necessarily mean the end of bitcoin as digital gold.
This is actually an advantage of sorts and is the most obvious refutation of the argument that another crypto “exactly the same” could supplant Bitcoin. Any such thing would be operating on a different Network without all the same infra-structure.
People are only going to swap to something superior,in some way not something the same in any case.[quote=“happybeing, post:35, topic:12979”]
While it is pretty obvious to me that bitcoin (or any cryptocurrency) could be knocked out by a superior rival cryptocurrency.
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This argument can be made against gold in exactly the same way - a crypto-currency being a superior store of value can knock out gold. It does not have to be another similar metal, just a better store of value. This point has been made a few times now and yet remains studiously unanswered… 
This argument can be made against gold in exactly the same way - a crypto-currency being a superior store of value can knock out gold.
you cannot make jewels out of crypto and give it as a present to your wife, can you ? 
No…you can’t… 
If you can make jewels out of gold that’s a property I wasn’t aware of 
We turn gold into jewellery because it is valuable. If it was considered worthless it would not carry as much significance or be a popular choice for people wanting to give gifts and display wealth.
Think I just found my wife’s birthday present 
I think you’ll find this goes both ways: that one of the (many) reasons gold is regarded as valuable is because it is easily made into jewelry… It has not only proven to be an incredibly durable store of value, that value can be gifted in ways that are both aesthetic, and ego boosting for the recipient (displays of affection, bond, wealth etc). These qualities turn out to be important in other highly prized asset classes such as art, antiquities, fine wines etc.
@SwissPrivateBanker’s comment above highlights that this is not the case for cryptocurrencies, though I wish @drehb good luck with his wife’s birthday present
We turn gold into jewellery because it is valuable. If it was considered worthless it would not carry as much significance or be a popular choice for people wanting to give gifts and display wealth.
no, you got it wrong. Look at the periodic table. Most of the matter in the universe is completely unsuitable for money or jewellery.
On the right end side of the table we can dismiss quickly 10 elements, including helium, Argon, an Neon. They are all gas. they would float away.
Mercury and bromine are liquid at room temperature. no good as money at all.
Arsenic is poisonous.
Lets’a have a look at the left hand of the table with alcanine elements. there are 12 in total, like sodium calcium and magnesium. they are no good for money either cause they disolve or explode on contact with water,
Uranium, polonium, thorium are radioactive. some even decompose moments after they were created in laboratories like einsteinium.
other elements are unsuitable as well. iron copper and lead rust or corrode. aluminium is too flimsy to use as coins. Titanium is too hard to smelt
it leaves us with only 8 elements. only 8. They are called noble for a reason. At the center of the table. irridium, osmium, ruthenium, platinium, palladium,rhodium, silver and gold.all of them are extremely rare and difficult to extract. only gold and silver are in sufficient quantity and with low melting point to be a practical money supply.
gold. atomic number 79. we don’t turn it into jewellery because it is valuable. It is valuable because we can turn it into jewellery. it resists time and has this final attraction to the human eyes.it’s not silvery. doesn’t tun green when exposed to air or sulphur, doesn’t tarnish. it is golden.!!! and it passes other test with flying colors.
scarcity, malleability, inertness, durability and uniformity. Gold is valuable because gold is money. gold is money precisely because it holds all these attributes.
(crypto has some of them, even some others, but still, can’t offer a crypto necklace to my wife.)
I[quote=“SwissPrivateBanker, post:49, topic:12979”]
(crypto has some of them, even some others, but still, can’t offer a crypto necklace to my wife.)
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I really must start the the PERLcoin…
Yes fair enough, you make a good point.
I stand behind crypto as a store of value though. 
Yeah, especially in today’s digital society / world
You missed the fact that its a traded currency in open crypto markets against BTC and BTC is traded with USD and other fiat currencies so theres that and you have to factor in time too. So the eventual Safecoin hits a high and you want to cash out so to speak well what happens when BTC is down?
This raises a whole other topic of buying eventual safecoins with USD direct. CEX.IO have a great model that could be replicated for USD > SAFE and SAFE > USD.
Great post. Thought you’d leave something out but certainly took it beyond where I would have had to stop. Its seems to disprove possibly the ancient alien myth about aliens mining the Earth for gold unless Earth had more at one point or there was something special or extra chemicall about gold on Earth. Otherwise just find an asteroid. I want to believe that space faring civilizations could do efficient energy to matter. It strange and although I get that its a vital mineral and even biologically important, I have a kind sentiment of revulsion about it. All the misery associated with it.
I’m in complete agreement with @Tarak
Let me provide a cynical vision to illustrate why I want to see MaidSafe prioritize safecoin.
In the future, I see Ethereum and SAFE as direct competitors, and I think Ethereum will, with a more clumsy technological approach, win out as the backbone for a new decentralized internet.
You can see the beginnings here:
http://swarm-gateways.net/bzz:/theswarm.eth/
Ethereum currently has more money, more developers, and more hype than MaidSafe. This is because it is focused on cryptocurrency development, and cryptocurrency is the technological investor’s current zeitgeist.
I really don’t want to be too negative here, and I hope SAFE becomes the canonical backbone for a new decentralized internet, but it’s easy to imagine something like Ethereum stealing this space.
It’s just because Ethereum is out there and it’s the best platform for a lot of these use-cases at the moment. When it’s not the best platform people will use the best option they have available, particularly if it has some unique functionality which they can only get from one place…
I have not seen any evidence that safe coin isn’t critical to maidsafe. There is just a sequence of layers they feel must be present first. I agree with them too.
But SAFE is a virus, the good kind. Tiny, brutally efficient. Is Etherium more ponderous- as lesser tech like you suggested? Its got good marketing with that line- without fraud or censorship.
I’ll confess to only reading the first half of this very long but interesting debate. Sorry if this was brought up already but I think it holds true.
My valuation logic for Safecoin, if implemented as we currently think it will be is relative to Bitcoin pricing.
The market at time of writing says Bitcoin is worth $1134.
What is Bitcoin?
- It’s a store of wealth - It has ever decreasing inflation just like gold, a big reason people look to gold as long term store. 21M Total
- It is a very simple means to transfer value (at whatever rate the the market gives it) without restriction, censorship, or government overreach
- It is an unchangeable stacking/timestamp record of any data given to it that is confirmed by it.
- It is a speculation tool used much like any other commodity or foreign currency by traders.
- It is very limited in capacity and scaling abilities (these are being worked on, but is civil war)
- Transaction fees
- Has a very long confirmation time.
- Every transaction is traceable between parties.
What is Safe (both network and coin, but obviously linked)
- It is a store of value - very different model than Bitcoin, however still ever decreasing with lost coins and hoarding. 4294967296 of them.
- It is a very simple means to transfer value (at whatever rate the the market gives it) without restriction, censorship, or government overreach
- (Data chains) unchangeable stacking/timestamp record of any data given to it
- It is a speculation tool used much like any other commodity or foreign currency by traders.
- Scaling with size of the network
- No planned transaction fees.
- Nearly instant confirmation.
- Transactions only traceable to the immediate previous owner
Notice there is no divider line. It fixes all of bitcoins problems as well as has everything it does have that currently makes it worth $1134. There will be ~200x more Safecoin than Bitcoin (though different minting system, I’m not accounting for that). $1134/200 = $5.67. That is, what I believe, a floor value based on purely the monetary uses of the coin without the benefits it has over bitcoin. Now add distributed secure redundant data storage and transfer, distributed compute and any other impressive features the team comes up with.
The math is based on maxed out currencies, neither of which will ever happen (millions of lost bitcoins in the early days, recycled Safecoins) but its a decent baseline, or so I believe.
Is SAFE really a speculation tool? Thought it would be harder to game.