Aaand it's gone (the $15k). My point is that the Fed effectively devalued the world's reserve currency in order to stimulate the American economy. But some, perhaps significant, percentage of people instead blew that stimulus on a risky, volatile investment that does nothing to boost our productivity. And now the gains have been erased.

By "destroying" are you saying that the seller is stockpiling the USD as if he is Scrooge McDuck? If so, what motivates the seller to hold onto USD despite 4% inflation?

No, it's not gone. You paid $50k for the miner. Miner has $50k, you have a lottery ticket, and no money was created or destroyed.

That depends, doesn't it? Where did I get that BTC? Did I mine it in 2010, or did I buy it last month for $64k?

Maybe I wasn't clear enough.

What I really mean is that we sit down in the same room. You bought the BTC for $1 in 2013. Today I give you $50k in $100 dollar bills, you send me your 1 Bitcoin. I am deliberately ignoring the current exchange rate to prove a point. What happened is that I overpaid by $15k, I immediately lost $15k on this transaction. You got a bargain and gained $15k on top of the $35k you would have gotten from simply holding onto your Bitcoin in this transaction.

jasonlaramburu says "When the price crashes money disappears." but there are still 500 $100 dollar bills in the room. The price "crashed" by $15k the moment I purchased the BTC but the money I gave you didn't disappear, it just changed hands in a very unfair manner.

I suspect this thought experiment is overly simplistic to the point of not being useful. Person A has $50k worth of BTC. Person B has $50k worth of cash (some % of which they got from the stimulus). So now 'the room' has $100k in assets. A and B exchange their assets. A+B still equals $100k. $BTC drops by $15k. A+B=$85k. There is now $85k in assets in the room. $15k was lost.

The room includes all buyers and sellers.

>The room includes all buyers and sellers.

You can expand the model to include all BTC buyers and sellers. It doesn't change the fact that US currency was devalued to generate an economic stimulus. A meaningful % of that stimulus was spent into 'the room.' The value of certain assets in the room was massively overstated and crashed. The stimulus money cannot be recovered, but Americans must live with the inflation and other impacts for many years.

What happens if I buy 100 dollars worth of weed and smoke it all. Where did the 100 dollars go?