I don’t even understand this statement so I’m going with “No. Not remotely.” as a default.
Amount of value.
Just like a Smoot is a measurement of length.
You could enumerate the value of a Smoot-coin in Bitcoin, or in any other currency or that you have a conversion for. Bitcoin is easiest, since it just requires crawling the blockchain and reading some numbers. But you could also “measure” it by seeing how many hotdogs you can buy with it.
Similarly, you could enumerate a Smoot in feet and inches or in hogsheads per acre or in fractional bridge-lengths. Feet and inches is probably easiest, but they’re all equally valid.
Saying that my Smoot-coin is defined in terms of Bitcoins is like saying that a Smoot is defined in terms of inches.
“It” being a reference to … Bitcoins! Tada. You’re not escaping it.
But the Smoot is not defined in terms of inches. It’s defined in terms of a Smoot. Someone can invent a new unit of length even if they’ve never heard of inches, meters, etc. Or in fact being aware that other people have defined they’re own units of measure. That a new unit is so many of some other units is not needed in this case.
But in the case of Bitcoin, you’re stuck. That’s it.
Think about the residents of the planet Frazfraga. They have a unit of length. It is in no way connected to the inch in their minds. They’ve never heard of it. But they can measure things and so on just fine. They no doubt know about gold and have basic measures for it. No concept of troy ounce. And yet they buy/sell gold as well. They also have currency to account for this trade.
OTOH they don’t have any measure of Bitcoins. Can’t imagine coming up with one.
(Note to self: SciFi story idea 4,388,201: In the future Bitcoin is the only legal tender on Earth. The planet Frazfraga, by some miracle, invented the exact same cryptocurrency in every detail but they have a head start of a few centuries. Their Bitcoin-equivalent is far less valuable due to all the Bitcoin-mining with advanced tech. They discover Earth is using the same system. They flood Earth with their crypto-validated coins, destroying our economy and buy up all our resources cheap. Cue Rod Serling voice-over …)
Part of the confusion here is that there are two length measurements called “Smoot”. The Customary Smoot is defined as the height of Oliver Smoot, while the Standard Smoot is defined as 67 inches. The Customary Smoot measures the same thing as the inch does, lengths, but it is defined independently of inches, and it is possible for the conversion factor from Customary Smoots and inches to vary with time, if Oliver Smoot’s height changes. In the same way, a completely new cryptocurrency would measure the same thing as bitcoins do, monetary value, but is defined independently of bitcoins, and it is possible for the conversion factor from this new currency to bitcoins to vary with time.
Meanwhile, the Standard Smoot cannot change relative to the inch, because it is defined in terms of it. In the same way, a kilobitcoin cannot change relative to a bitcoin, because it is likewise defined in terms of it.
No matter which definition of the Smoot you take, there is in fact a cryptocurrency analogous to it.
I think the disconnect here might be that the word “Bitcoin” is both a unit and a concept.
Gold is a substance that you can measure the physical quantities of in weight/volume/etc. Two groups that have wholly different
Bitcoin (the concept) is a protocol/algorithm/language that describes some operations. The value stored in a given account is commonly enumerated in Bitcoin (the unit) by interpreting a string of bytes in a protocol message as a number and then dividing that number by 100 million. Seems pretty arbitrary to me. The base-10-ness of it certainly is. You could just as easily interpret the string of bytes as an ascii string and have “fleem” in the account. It would buy as many hotdogs. Or an alien race that somehow dreamed up a bit-compatible protocol might instead refer to the amount in their accounts as “Smoots”, where a Smoot is what happens when you interpret those bytes as a number and divide by something sensible, like 3^9965 (these are 3-fingered aliens, and 9965 is a holy number).
Arbitrary!
And, if that doesn’t bring us to agreement, I think I’ll just leave it there and agree to disagree.
Except to finish one of my thoughts, left unfinished.
“Two groups that have wholly different” was supposed to continue “systems of measurement would still measure the same properties of gold.”
I pointed out up thread what I meant in using “arbitrary” in this context. I meant in terms of options. There are infinitely many options for real units like distance and weight. There are no practical options for Bitcoins (and only Bitcoins) that don’t involve referring to Bitcoins themselves.
Note that a Smoot was defined as the height of Oliver Smoot on a fixed day. How his height changes since then is immaterial. The indirect fact that it is a certain height in inches is a consequence of all similar measures. But no tape measure was needed to measure the length of the Harvard Bridge.
Ditto any other cryptocurrency you imagine. That it turns out to be X many Bitcoins (at a given moment) is an indirect property. Not something that it was “born” with. Unless you refer to Bitcoins (!) in it’s definition.
OK, then, define a certain unit of currency as the price of a Subway 12" BMT on a particular date. That’s a price that can be expressed in bitcoins (or in dollars or euros or yen or ounces of gold or whatever else you’d like), but which is not defined in terms of bitcoins.
There are infinitely many numbers you could divide or multiply the byte-string in a bitcoin message by to come up with an alternative unit.
The choice of “divide by 100 million and call it a Bitcoin” is arbitrary.
Again, note that this is a definition based on Bitcoins itself. Something you do not need to do for length, weight, etc.
This is getting all very echo-ey.
[QUOTE=Chronos]
OK, then, define a certain unit of currency as the price of a Subway 12" BMT on a particular date. That’s a price that can be expressed in bitcoins (or in dollars or euros or yen or ounces of gold or whatever else you’d like), but which is not defined in terms of bitcoins.
[/QUOTE]
This is basically irrelevant to any point I’ve made. And it’s incomplete. What does “the price of” mean? That implies it has been measured in something else. Now if you just said “A Subway 12” BMT on a particular date*." was a new unit of currency, then fine. The fact that that new measure or any other can be mapped into something else is … kind of freakin’ obvious. So I don’t see the point at all.
A unit being defined without citing any other unit is one thing. A unit being mappable to another unit is something else.
- Although the “a particular date” is going to cause problems in terms of conversion within that same currency. Not all Subway 12" BMTs are going to be equivalent. And, in this case, specifying a unique Subway 12" BMT makes that one quite valuable and will mess things up. Again, assuming the point is define a currency without referencing any other currency* in the definition*.
Agreed. I said I was done, then I responded anyway since I (again) thought that there was a clear path to agreement.
Apparently not. We’ve both made our case, and we haven’t convinced each other. I’m not sure if it’s because we’re disagreeing on the meaning of some critical word (like “arbitrary” or “options”), or if one of us (mis)-understands Bitcoin more than the other, but whatever. We could go round and round for ages at this rate.