The reason that many will give regarding an Objectivist's support for cryptocurrency is that the exchange of value is not based on a government's affirmation of such value, but the real reason may be that it is a "sign of the dollar". It is a way for people who are not centrally localized to exchange value for value in a way that has some degree of privacy.

Do you really want Joe Biden et al. monitoring all transactions over $600? They already monitor transactions over $10000.

Value is set by the amount of whatever currency exists that people are willing to pay. The currency itself has no value until the fad of the day takes people by storm and gives it value.

Gold and silver by different degrees, however, have always been coveted by people and always will be.

Cryptocurrencies are only the latest evolution of the Ponzi scheme, relying on the "greater fool" principle (there's always someone dumber than you are to buy your worthless stuff). The telling factor is when the creator of the scheme suddenly disappears before others get wise to the crime, and the creator of Bitcoin has vanished, just when China made cryptocurrency illegal as a medium of exchange.

I'm glad to see I'm not the only objectivist to recognize immense fraud when I see it. It's a sad sign of how far our society has gone down the magic "something for nothing" rabbit hole. One encouraging thing is that unlike the Albanian Ponzi real estate bomb, or Iceland diving into the subprime mortgage fiasco, it appears no nation has bought into the cryptocurrency fantasy, which could have a huge impact on international finance when the whole illusion vanishes.

Preppers seem to be the only people remaining sane, recognizing what an asylum the world is becoming. Goods of real value, as in foodstuffs, ammunition, precious metals, stockpiles of expendable goods (the toilet paper hoarders aren't the crazy ones), crafting skills to barter with are the treasury of last resort if SHTF.

Real Money is supposed to be store of value and a means to exchange value.
Many things have been used as "real money" in the past, the most recent ones precious metals. They last a long time, but are difficult to carry around in a modern economy.
The idea of paper receipts issued by banks backed by gold was used for a long time, and worked pretty well actually. BUT, when the government took over the issuane of these receipts, they printed more receipts than there was gold to back them up. Then they took away the gold backing altogether. That is where we are today. We have a convenient way to trade using the "dollars", but we lose value continually if we keep them. They arent a store of value at all.

Crypto is a joke based on nothing at all but people;s. Its even worse than the dollars we now use. I think we have better odds here in vegas than crypto gives us. It can go up or down by large amounts based on who knows what.

I am missing the issue here.

Crypto currency does not have its own value, and neither does the dollar or any other currency today. They are all simply a means of liquid exchange (vs trade).

Crypto currency conversion is presently set by the market, completely independently of the central banks. To me, this makes crypto currency completely superior to other currency in that it is not encumbered by government manipulation, a fiscal disease.

The only thing that can damage this purity and virtue is another intrusive government control in support of more central power, and less individual power.

Crypto is weird, but crypto supports everything Ayn stood for.

I have a long response because this is an interesting topic. I think blockchain will change the world, but I'm not sure exactly how.

“Money being the physical representation of a persons labor, his/her sole property to do with what he or she wish's for his/her sole benefit. How does one give his "value" away for nothing or at best potential from nothing?”

The nature of money is a medium of exchange to allow trading value without mutual coincidence of wants. It doesn’t necessarily have value itself. If it did, it would complicate things because a) things of value should be enjoyed or deployed to create more value not set aside to exchange other things of value and b) items of value are finite but human work and ingenuity can create unlimited value.

We could use gold, which has intrinsic uses, but the value in gold is mostly in the reasonable expectation that someone else will take it in trade. Only a small part of its value is from properties like its usefulness in electrical contacts or jewelry. Cryptocurrency is similar except, as you point out, it has zero value. ALL its value comes from the expectation that someone else will accept it in trade.

With gold or other things that have some intrinsic value, you have to carry them around or get a note from a trusted authority that maintains a ledger showing you have gold in a vault and tracking when you transfer to the gold to someone else’s ownership. Blockchain solves that age-old problem of needing a trusted authority to maintain the ledger.

When I use fiat money, I must accept that it depreciates at low, predictable rate, assuming the central bank does its job well. So I can’t hold it for long. I have to get it invested in something of value, like real estate or a business. If I just want to store value with low risk, I use a high-grade low-yield bond fund that keeps up with inflation, which requires fees to experts managing the fund.

I actually think this system is really good, but crypto could be better. With crypto-coins of finite supply, like Bitcoin, there’s a finite amount of money chasing an increasing amount of value in the economy. So while I’m holding Bitcoin, it could actually go up in value without me paying a bond fund manager. I could just hold the hash that unlocks my crypto recorded in the public ledger while I’m waiting to use it on some investment or to buy something to enjoy. I don’t need a bank authority to document I have it or guards to keep it safe. Its the second best place imaginable to keep your treasures safe from parasites, rust, and thieves.

Caveat: I am not sure Bitcoin will be adopted as the primary medium of exchange. Buying coins on the chance that they may be adopted as media of exchange is speculation, not investing.

Blockchain in General: The fact that blockchain solves the ancient problem of maintaining a reliable ledger without a trusted authority makes me think it will have a huge effect on the world. I suspect blockchain-based coins will be used widely as a medium of exchange (like USDs) or store of value (like gold).

“The tally stick” was used as money

https://conversableeconomist.blogspot...

Belief it has value similar to fiat ……

El Salvador recently adopted cryptocurrency as legal tender, so far the only nation to do so.

I never thought I would want any "cryptocurrency".
Actually, I generally prefer to deal in cash, even when checks are obtainable. Even when I have to send money through the mail, I generally buy a money order. I am getting sick of the garbage which is being invented in the modern world. But I don't want to die before I get my debts paid off.

What we call a dollar is a debt note (IOU) from the federal government to the Banks (Federal Reserve) and represents nothing but a promise by the Federal government to tax the people and repay the value of the loan (bond) that the dollar represents. However the government reneges on it's promise of what seemed to be 100 cents at first by taking out more loans (printing more debt - Federal Reserve Notes we call a dollar) to pay for expenses way above the ability of the government to tax it's people for decades into the future. What that does is dilute the promise (value) of each Federal reserve note we call a dollar since the total note amounts in circulation are much more than what the Government can pay from your taxes. Let's say government takes in a million in taxes but has printed two million notes. Each note then is worth 50 cents not 100. The government has now reduced the value of the Fed reserve note Dollar to less than one cent compared to 1918 when it began as a promise for 100 cents. Inflation of prices is actually the equalizing of prices to the actual promised value of the Dollar note.

Cryptocurrency or coins made from mined metals are based on a fixed amount of labor put in to mine either digital or actual coinage It is not based on taxes but rather a fixed value and amount of the underlying metal or digital coins. No worse than trading someone else's IOU that you have to pay from taxes. . .

I think currency is a lot like our history books, influenced and therefore, subjected to the whims of those in power and in control. Objectively, if paper money were to no longer be a trusted medium of exchange for goods/service, then sure, it can then be used to wipe your ass and light a fire to keep you warm, but is that really what you want to fall back on when push comes to shove and the US currency is no longer an accepted form of exchange, like say Venezuela's currency has become? You've defined crypto without really considering the follies of currency as it is today, like fiat currency, which is exactly why our dollars earned today are worth much less tomorrow. As Circuit Guy correctly stated, the only way to win is to exchange it for investment purposes as opposed to speculative purposes. I really think you have to come to the conclusion that values change everyday (sometimes for good and other times for bad, like now), and so do our different media of exchange. Human ingenuity is infinitely capable of producing the next big idea that sends us in a flurry to want to own or be a part of, call it the human condition if you will

Even worse, it does not do what its claimed to do. Since every transaction is recorded, whenever your ID is compromised, your purchasing history can be found.

Good old cash is what protects your privacy

I am certain of one thing. Those people in the House of Reps and half of the Senate probably have Mercury in the water they drink. They sure are doing some crazy things. I'm not a psychiatrist but I know crazy when I see it or hear it.

I really like the idea of "goldbacks": an alternative paper money with actual gold imbedded in it. https://goldback.com/

This is My observation on Crypto Currency lately.

The coins value rises and falls according to usage, interest and the value of the services it represents.
Example: Etherium is a block chain network called the Ether and it's not just for the currencys, it's for all services rendered by each of these companies that create ways to make the Ethernet faster, more secure, autonomous and the future of all communication out of the eyes of the government and Deep States...just like the way the Internet was supposed to be.
There are companies that create more than internet stuff but choose to spur investment in crypto coins instead of stocks on a corrupt exchange.

These technologies will change forever the nature of the internet and vanquish the corrupt tech industry and social medias we are dealing with now.

However, I am not in favor of a crypto dollar. We still need a physical currency because of the vulnerabilities of our electrical grid and communications grid in the coming years...there is nothing that can be done to stop what's coming as of yet...and I think the Fed and UN knows this.

ALL currency is nothing but an abstraction of productive value. This includes those colored pieces of paper denominated in dollars. They provide a convenient short hand for representing one's production of something that is valued by others. But the actual currency has no intrinsic value*. It's only value is in a shared perception of that abstraction.
When you accept $100 from someone for something you created, you have an internal notion of what it took you to make it. When you go to exchange this abstraction for an item that someone else has made, you do a calculation of whether your underlying effort is a reasonable trade for the new thing.
In the case of dollars there is a relatively long history of the shared perception of its value. Cryptocurrencies, not so much. People may continue to value them or they might go the way of the tulips. Time will tell.
*some currencies are supposedly backed by things like gold or other precious metals. But even that is based on a shared perception of its value. Because, apart from its subjective beauty and resistance to corrosion, it's not terribly useful.

Most of the comments here critical of crytpocurrency are a variant of "government or thieves could steal or vandalize cryptocurrency. That's true of anything of value.

We're asking too much of crypto or anything if we expect it to be impervious to theft.

I think many fans of crypto also ask too much of it. They say they want it to be a medium of exchange and a long-term store of value. I think it's great for a medium of exchange, but a long-term store of value is tricky. Value is providing for people's desires, e.g. a business the provides food, apartments, clothes, etc. It seems like crypto zealots want crypto to store value better than actually owning businesses that create value. That's asking a lot of crypto. Real value always comes from people serving one another in mutually agreed trades. Money is a way to do that without barter. If you want to store value, and deploy it to create more value, you have to actually own means of production, not just own a fancy medium of exchange.

Just a thought, maybe it is this……
https://biblehub.com/kjv/isaiah/52-3....