Saw an article in The Hill last week that, “The value of most cryptocurrencies have plummeted in recent weeks, wiping out billions of dollars of wealth.”

Aside from the story needing a good editor (it should be “the value….HAS plummeted), I confess that I do not have the slightest idea why I should buy, sell, or invest in cryptocurrency.  And the Super Bowl commercials for it were pretty useless for me.  I wonder if they were paid for in cryptocurrency.

As I understand what I read from “helpful” internet sites, it’s a kind of currency that exists “digitally or virtually.”  There is no central or national issuing agency for the stuff.  There’s no FDIC.  It seems to be an anarchic system that creates something out of nothing other than the mind of someone who decides to start issuing “it.”  That person decides how many dollars buy a unit of whatever “it” is and people go nuts buying some of it. The person who creates it gets a lot of dollars and the person who buys it gets——

Well, some kind of units that have no physical properties. In other words, you can’t reach in your pocket and pull out some cryptochange to put in the parking meter. There’s nothing printed on paper for me to pull out of my wallet to buy a lottery ticket.

I get the idea that beads, shells, buttons, coins, and pieces of paper have value only if two parties agree on what their value is. But there seems to be no single worldwide party that determines what any particular “unit” is worth, as in an Indian Rupee is worth so many United States dollars, which are backed by a bunch of gold stored in Kentucky, which is itself valuable because somebody has decided it is.  But at least it is something somebody can see, touch, feel and perhaps even smell.

How much in “real” money will it cost me to buy 1,000 cryptosomethings?  And if I buy it or them as an investment, how will I realize any “real” money in return? Is this stuff more secure than the money I have stashed through the investment counselors at my local bank—who I don’t think have any, of my chidren’t inheritance invested in this electronic wampum.

Apparently there are coins of some kind, or tokens, or something in at least some of these operations but what is the common substance or means of exchange that establishes their worth—as in a dollar is the equivalent of so many Euros, or so many rubles equal a dollar?

Can I pay my taxes in cryptocurrency? When I look in the church offering plate and see that it’s pretty empty of tangible funds can I be comforted to know that it is heaped with non-tangible units?  Some sources say this stuff appears to be like stock.  If I buy some for $X and then sell it for $Z I might be liable for a capital gains tax and I would have to pay that in dollars.

Right?

But when I buy stock in American Veeblefleetzer, I know there’s a brick and mortar building tht is making veeblefleetzers.  If I invest in cryptostuff, am I investing in air?

I went to Kaspersky.com, which seems to know something about this, but I was not comforted when I was told, “If you own cryptocurrency, you don’t own anything tangible.  What you own is a key that allows you to move a record or a unit of measure from one person to another without a trusted third party.”

Kind of like our ancestors traded three beaver skins for a knife, I guess.  Except it’s not.

In this case it seems as if it’s more three  beaver skin units for a VIRTUAL knife unit—which I guess can be used to skin more beavers units that are chewing down tree units and building dam units on stream units.

Are the human equivalents of this system Unit-arians?   I spoke to a group of them a few months ago.  They looked pretty real to me.  I think I touched one or two of them and they seemed very solid.  Not virtual.

Curiously, Kaspersky says using a credit card to buy cryptothings is “risky.” Well, I guess using a piece of tangible plastic to buy a virtual unit of something that is stored in an electronic wallet that I cannot carry my credit card in, in my pocket, is——

Darned if I know.

Can you imagine what a turmoil things would be in if Missouri tried to pay for Medicaid expansion in cryptocurrency?

Here’s something else that I wonder about:

If, sometime in the future after I have departed this bewildering new economic world, these means of exchange that have been so common for centuries are completely replaced by cryptothings, what will be the purpose of Fort Knox?

Will gold reserves mean anything in a world where there is no central or issuing agency for various cryptocurrencies that might be established, the value is which is determined by whomever does the establishing?

Will a Pound still be a Pound the world around? You know, pound, as in £?

The Yen?

The Rupee?

The Leu?

The Sol?

The Euro?

I guess they’ll have value as collector’s items.  And then people will use virtual currency to buy them as decorative collectables and people of the future will look a our clothes and wonder what pockets were for.