Gadgetory

humans don't really need anything except for food shelter clothing and clean water theoretically if everyone had the perfect amount of each of those things we would have no need for money and everyone would live happily ever after in the real world some people have more water than others but perhaps less access to food or clothing and trading or bartering for a better balance has always been necessary but picture this the local mall with every shopper carrying around like bolts of cloth or construction grade lumber to each shopkeeper one by one trying to find the one who both has what they need and needs the thing that they happen to be carrying kind of ridiculous that is why we need currency compared to cattle for instance it's easier to use more durable and more compact not to mention it smells better metals notably gold and silver were used as currency for thousands of years then widespread adoption of government regulated centralized banking in the 19th and 20th centuries brought about money this currency exists in the form of promises stored electronically and printed on paper handy sure but unlike metals whose value we all agree on with money we rely on someone else to tell us what it's worth which leads us to why there are people who want a new alternative to centralized banks regulated currencies are ultimately controlled by people and are therefore more easily manipulated for gain by those in a position of power with a deep understanding of the system with Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies like anything it's possible to gain the system for personal gain but they are not centrally controlled supply and demand are the main drivers of their worth and the built-in limit to how much can exist just like precious metals should in the long term prevent mass devaluation and the inflation that's caused by central bank's printing money that they don't have okay so if we want to be more like metals why not just go back to gold well there are other advantages too unlike gold which is inconvenient to move around Bitcoin is stored and transferred digitally in a virtual wallet and unlike cash each bitcoin has a public transaction history that makes theoretically impossible to counterfeit all right so how do I get them well method number one is to use a computer to solve cryptographic problems you can get more details on this in the Bitcoin sub form online as tech tips comm method number two like any other type of money is to exchange goods or services for it or even other currency using an exchange so sounds great right I sure think so the obvious question though at this point is what can go wrong and the answer is lots at the moment not to many merchants accept bitcoins so it's kind of hard to spend without regulation or predictable demand valuation can swing up and down wildly some governments notably Russia and China at the time of filming are resistant to cryptocurrency and have gone as far as to ban the use of Bitcoin and like anything new the security of the system is still largely unproven can i truly buy something anonymously can it be easily stolen from me digitally can anyone promise me that this will still exist in one ten or a hundred years currency relies on trust and only time will tell which cryptocurrency if any we can trust for our retirement funds what can we count on Bitcoin Lloyd dogs don't do each coin dogecoin whatever you want to call it well I don't know but I'll tell you what we can count on Linus telling us what a great idea it is to head over to audible.com slash tech wiki to learn about their monthly audiobook subscription audible.com is the number one spot on the internet for audiobooks you know books that read themselves to you with your smartphone or other device they have over a hundred and fifty thousand choices including a personal favorite of mine the secret diary of adrian mole by sue townsend i read this as a kid and the only complaint i had about it was that a lot of the diary entries hid shockingly close to home making it the kind of thing that would be awkward to read alongside my parents maybe that's an idea give audible.com a try the first one is free and listen to it together with your pre adolescent or adolescent son just for a lark anyway guys thanks for watching like this video if you liked it dislike it if you disliked it leave a comment and let me know your thoughts on Bitcoin or other crypto currencies and of course you can exchange comments with each other because the new youtube comment system is so much better than the old one etc etc etc thank you google for the large sums of cash that gave me for saying that actually they didn't and I was being ironic anyway and as all these guys don't forget to subscribe to tech quickie from our fastest possible videos just like this one