There is more or less the same places where to spend it as there was 4, 5 years ago. And they all have about the same traffic, which is nearly zero.
Most people only use it for speculation. This can't end well.
I also get paid in bitcoin thanks to bitwage. It's easier to get good (figurative) raises this way instead of depending on your boss x-) If you're wondering how the hell I'm so crazy to "bet" my salary on this, check this shower thought: https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/79zy2d/shower_thou...
Is anyone else fatigued by repeating the same arguments over and over forever? If I just state them here once maybe we can talk about new ideas (pro or con, doesn't matter).
1) There are no "real" cryptocurrency transactions
2) It's all speculation
3) There's no intrinsic value
4) Tulips I say, TULIPS!
5) If you can't pay taxes with it, it's not "real money"
6) Governments will shut it down
7) Transactions aren't really private
8) Mining uses more energy than entire nations
9) Nobody will ever spend a deflationary currency
10) It's only useful for drugs, assassinations, gambling and ransoms
11) It doesn't scale, not enough transactions per second, blockchain will get too big
12) It's too volatile to be useful
13) Since the exchange rate keeps rising it's not useful for payments
14) Since I can't buy coffee with it it's not useful
15) Since fees are high it's not useful
16) It's a scam, Ponzi, pyramid
17) The "market cap" is (a) too small to be relevant, (b) evidence of a bubble
18) Will never completely replace gold / national currencies / corporations so there's no value
19) There are a lot of shady exchanges that (a) get hacked, (b) steal customer deposits, (c) are secretly insolvent
20) If the cryptography gets broken / bugs or exploits are discovered and the whole thing goes to zero
Maybe so many new people are just now getting involved that we keep rehashing a decade of stale thinking?
Let's talk about some new ideas!
As a random example, mining does use more energy than some nations. Why this may be a good thing in a medium of exchange/value store tends to receive somewhat hand wavy responses. If you have a great answer then it might be helpful to share it.
It's just that we've been having the identical arguments over and over for nearly ten years now. We're not advancing our understanding by re-hashing the same tired ideas.
Maybe I'll make a page with common responses to these arguments.
To use your example ... it's true that mining cryptocurrencies consumes a lot of energy. So do casinos. So does Facebook and Starbucks. So does manufacturing weapons.
The world's televisions consume a lot of energy.
Bank office buildings and the millions of bank workers who drive to work every day also use a lot of energy.
The question isn't how much energy a thing uses, it's how much value is derived per watt-hour of energy.
> 20) If the cryptography gets broken the whole thing goes to zero
I bring it up often here and each time I am met with a similar argument that you are making, but loudly ignoring is different from discussing
It's like going to a doctor and each time saying 'ugh, the tired old cancer conversation..can we just talk about something new?!' until the cancer just kills you
As for breaking the cryptography, it's been nearly 10 years now, with all the code in the public domain and massive incentives to find a flaw.
That's why some people call Bitcoin "anti-fragile" since it seems to get stronger the more it's attacked.
But of course it's theoretically possible that the NSA / GCHQ / FAPSI will (or has already) broken the cryptography. What happens then? Do miners stop until the flaw is fixed? Do they roll back to before the compromise? Does the blockchain fork into a new, fixed coin?
I guess that's the beauty of financial assets defined by open-source software. Bugs and exploits happen, they get fixed, and we move ahead on a new version.
Perhaps you are having 'the same discussions repeated ad infinitum.' because of your input stead the actual subject matter
> I guess that's the beauty of financial assets defined by open-source software. Bugs and exploits happen, they get fixed, and we move ahead on a new version.
I am unconcerned with the 'move ahead' bit
My concern is with the assets currently in the blockchain
When I warn those that ask me if they should 'get Bitcoin' that the technology is propped up on unsolved math problems
It is to protect their finances stead attempt to disparage Bitcoin
If the cryptography is broken then the entire blockchain is suspect and needs to be discarded along with the record of any assets locked in it
I respectfully disagree with the idea that Bitcoin's killer-app is to be used as a currency for transactional purposes.
I can't really think of many reasons why you would use crypto to pay for a coffee or a sandwich if you live in the West (or frankly, even most developing nations).
On the other hand, I can definitely see the utility in a censorship-resistant digital medium to store wealth. To me, this latter use case has much, much more potential to serve the unbanked (as well as the banked).
Some use cases I can think off the top of my head:
(1) You are from Syria and need to flee war and escape into Europe – however bank transfers into Europe are almost impossible if you are a common Syrian. Bitcoin allows you to take your wealth with you, in your brain, as you escape across the border, by just memorising your twelve word private key.
(2) You are from Venezuela or Zimbabwe – The government has issued capital controls and is devaluing currency by the day. You transfer your wealth into Bitcoin in order to offset capital erosion due to hyper-inflation. When the situation stabilises, you transfer your Bitcoin back into fiat.
(3) You are Saudi billionaire Al-Waleed bin Talal. The government freezes all your assets in a political coup. If you have a portion of your wealth in Bitcoin, you could protect them from government expropriation and anonymously transfer them to associates or family members abroad.
(4) You are whistleblower Julian Assance and have been cut off from the financial system as a way to censor your speech. Bitcoin allows you to have an unbreakable digital "Swiss bank account" that the authorities are not able to reach.
This reminds me of Peter Thiel's recent words about Bitcoin: "it's like a reserve form of money, it's like gold, and it's just a store of value. You don't need to use it to make payments."
Reference
[1]: https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/26/bitcoin-underestimated-peter...
I can think of one: if you get paid in Bitcoin, having to buy some GBPs just so you can buy a coffee or a sandwich is a hassle.
Do you think your answer is in the spirit of the question?
If you had the choice between a form of currency not controlled by a bunch of extremely corrupt entities that is much more convenient and cheaper in terms of storage and transactions, why would you use traditional money? I can't even transfer money to my friend overseas, it is too difficult.
I realise that I haven't been clear.
The point I was trying to make is only that you don't need for Bitcoin to be a replacement to visa in order to justify current skyrocketing valuation.
I would venture that Bitcoin's censorship-resistant store of value use case is enough to justify current valuation.
Cash is used for some pretty shitty stuff too, so are credit cards, and checks, and just about every other form of payment.
And funnily enough, Bitcoin is about the dumbest thing to use for illicit things, as it's so easily trackable and records of the money's movement is forever carved into the blockchain (so even if it takes someone 10 years to track the money, or even realize it needs to be tracked, it's still going to be there).
But what about the valid and legal use cases of:
1. paying for goods and services without having to give the company i'm paying access to my account information in a way that they can charge more whenever they want, or lose my information and put my financials at risk
2. Receiving payment for goods and services in a form of money that you don't need to worry about "chargebacks", "reversals", or any kind of way of taking money back after it's been sent
Combine both of those things, and I could see a very real reduction in costs of doing business in just about every area.
At least three of those payment acceptors also make to US top 25 list for traffic (Microsoft's bing, reddit, wikipedia) so they aren't exactly zero traffic, either.
https://99bitcoins.com/who-accepts-bitcoins-payment-companie...
I don't even have a dog in this fight, as I don't own any, but this is blatant misinformation.
I just paid my 25k rent deposit using bitcoin too, it was much easier than dealing with a SWIFT wire. It took only minutes for the landlord to be confident that he’s got the money.
I’ve been living without personal bank accounts for multiple years now, and thanks to bitcoin it’s been pretty great.
And no, I won’t be crying if bitcoin drops back to $300.