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New video up! Nima and I discuss the value of Bitcoin, cryptocurrency, and whether Bitcoin meets the criteria to be considered a currency. Is a bitcoin bubble about to burst? What exactly is going on that gives it any value in the first place? Viewing through the lens of modern monetary theory (MMT), can bitcoin be considered a currency? Watch and learn more. I've been seeing a lot spazzticness on facebook recently about the "bitcoin bubble" which is about to burst. Nima and I discuss what exactly a bubble means, the general warning signs of it, and how saying there is a bitcoin bubble is like saying there is a gold bubble. A "bubble" occurs when credit gets overextended and there is no way to pay it back. The real estate bubble of 2008 is a perfect example of this. Real estate prices skyrocketed because mortgages were being handed out like candy to people who obviously would never be able to pay them back. When enough people defaulted on their loans, the bubble popped when the banks couldn't lend anymore to keep the prices rising. What analogous situation is occurring to bitcoin? I've also heard the term "ponzi scheme" thrown around. A ponzi scheme is when future investors are paid with the money from prior investors, which eventually will crash when the ponzi scheme operator runs out of prior investors to pay future ones. Who is the guy paying out dividends from prior BTC investors? No one. Bitcoin technically can't fit the description of a ponzi scheme. What makes bitcoin valuable, or even gives it the potential to be a form of currency? Nima made the argument in an article How the Fiat Money System Can Explain Bitcoin’s Value that because bitcoin miners demand bitcoin for services of accessing the bitcoin blockchain, bitcoin functions in a similar way to fiat money like the US dollar, which gains it's value because it is demanded by its issuer (the US government) for taxes. However, there is a major problem: it's too damn volatile for anyone to save it as a regular currency. What are the missing ingredients? It's hard to tell when we've only seen maybe 8 years of bitcoin--at least when we analyze money, we have 5000 years worth of examples to sift through. The prediction: as more and more people are discovering or simply bumping into bitcoin, the value is naturally going up as more and more people get involved. Because the interest is still relatively small, big investors can make huge differences by moving money in or out of bitcoin ("whale splashing" as Nima termed it). This effect should diminish and possibly even disappear until "everyone is using bitcoin". We also discuss technical problems and technical solutions of cryptocurrencies and blockchains. Feedback is appreciated. Thanks!