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Derikoopa OP t1_j28ca20 wrote

Reply to comment by simoncowbell in eli5: Why couldn't a country in debt mint a coin of immense value and use it to pay off the debt? by Derikoopa

Surely, if it's a country decision lt's gone through a treasury, then at the very least, the people in charge of the currency that this country uses have declared it to be worth a billion?

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Belzeturtle t1_j28cfsq wrote

I now declare this comment to be worth $1,000,000. I can sell it to you for $1,000. You wanna buy it?

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Derikoopa OP t1_j28cmrw wrote

In this case I assume it would be Reddit themselves who declare your comment was worth a million

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Constant-Parsley3609 t1_j28eh6r wrote

ANYONE can declare something. It's just a matter of how much stock you put in the declaration.

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simoncowbell t1_j28cqba wrote

No, you can't just declare that a thing is worth a billion dollars if you've got nothing to back it up.

Even the shadiest of financial schemes like NFTs have an idea and a market that may decide an NFT that has no inherent value has a tradeable value, but there has to be something that will persuade other countries that the coin can be converted into a billion dollars.

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A_Garbage_Truck t1_j28orys wrote

the coin itself is not important if its not backed up by either its value in some other commodity(like gold, when the gold standard was still a thing) or the promise of economic staiblity of the entitiy issuing the coin(essentially guaranteeing you at you can at any time exchange said coin for its value on the respective currency)

the1st requires that you actually have said commodity in stock ready ot exchange, whiel the latter requires that your nation has the economic might to be good on this promise else i will not trust that coin.

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