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But aren't we just introducing Bitcoin with conventional currencies as its backing?
by ahquresh 13y ago
But aren't we just introducing Bitcoin with conventional currencies as its backing?
- randallsquared 13y agoNo, backing implies that someone has a legal obligation to supply something in exchange for the thing backed. Gold originally backed USD because paper dollars were literally a contract to pay the bearer a certain amount of gold. Gold and USD now have the same sort of relationship that USD and bitcoin do: neither USD nor bitcoin is backed by anything. Both are still worth something, at the moment, though, which is all you need for an exchange to be possible.
- ahquresh 13y agoI see, I completely misunderstood what mattm was trying to say then. That makes much more sense.