Bitcoin SV as a commodity

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You have bought some Bitcoin SV, but you are a commodity speculator? Why do I ask that?

Bitcoin is “electronic cash,” right? However, why does the title of the Bitcoin white paper say, “electronic cash system”? We should pay attention to the various voices that point out: BSV is a commodity.

It is not the easiest topic to discuss, but if we do not educate ourselves on that we might be commodity speculators without knowing we are commodity speculators. That could end ugly.

Who is describing Bitcoin as a commodity?

The first time I heard of Bitcoin as a commodity in detail was when I read the articles from John Pitts on Bitcoin as a computational commodity and bartering with Bitcoin. If you hold any Bitcoin SV, I highly recommend reading these two pieces—else you might not really know what you are doing.

“BitCoin is a computational commodity; stop thinking of it as money (…). BitCoin fluctuates like ANY commodity—there is no promises made about its value,” Pitts writes.

Wait, wait, wait. What are we even doing if we “buy and sell” with Bitcoin SV? Are we actually buying and selling, or are we bartering? Even Nouriel Roubini, who is not known to have a lot of clarity on what Bitcoin really is, made a statement at the CoinGeek conference in Zurich pointing at bartering with Bitcoin.

“The fundamental value of Bitcoin (BTC) is not zero, it is negative (…) It is literally going back to barter, because you cannot even compare the relative price of two goods and services,” Roubini said.

Commodities? Bartering? Bitcoin? More voices on that

So we have two voices talking about Bitcoin as a commodity and bartering with Bitcoin. But there are more. Let us hear what blockchain consultant Jerry Chan says:

“If we accept that becoming a commodity money requires that an asset first must be a commodity, then Bitcoin must have some sort of commodity use case before it can even have a chance at becoming a money,” Chan writes in his article on Bitcoin SV as a store of value.

Another statement concerning Bitcoin and bartering comes from Alejandro Diaz de Leon, the governor of the Bank of Mexico.

“Whoever receives bitcoin in exchange for a good or service, we believe that (transaction) is more akin to bartering because that person is exchanging a good for a good, but not really money for a good,” Diaz de Leon said.

And then we have Dr. Craig Wright discussing Bitcoin as a commodity in detail:

In this video, Wright points out that a commodity needs to have utility and be standardized. Changing Bitcoin would make contracts in and with Bitcoin difficult. Think of BSV being set in stone in this regard. A summary of the whole video can be read here.

Why I brought up all of this

I am wondering if all the people within the Bitcoin SV space actually see their BSV as a commodity. To be honest, I don’t think they do.

What do you know about commodity speculation? About cycles that commodities have to go through? Are we aware that Bitcoin is a new and special commodity, as described by Pitts: “computational commodity” and “commoditized form of computation.”

A commodity can become money— read Chan’s article again.

We do not even have to talk about BTC “speculators” here. BTC has a huge problem becoming a commodity, because it is not standardized (as BTC has been changed and might be changed at any time again). There is also no real use case for BTC other than being speculated on, which in itself is not making it a commodity, but a digital vehicle to gamble with—basically just software, an online game.

Dr. Craig Wright wrote in his article “Money is Time and Energy”:

Bitcoin doesn’t replace banks. It is an electronic cash system and not a banking system. We have moved from the system that involved both banks and cash towards one where cash is disappearing, which is problematic in many ways. Banks don’t replace cash, and Bitcoin doesn’t replace banks.

Money is time and energy, as Wright says. Time stamp on each transaction. Energy used by nodes. Bitcoin as a commodity is fascinating.

Watch: CoinGeek Zurich panel, The History of Money & The Future of Bitcoin