How successful has it been to switch to Bitcoin? I hear mixed things about it and wonder how many actually use this currency.
One of those is free and open scientific research.
Bitcoin was designed for just this kind of purpose.
>Putin Signs 'Russian Internet Law' To Disconnect Russia From The World Wide Web
> good for everyone.
with the exception of repressive govenments that want to shut down things like Sci-Hub.
Most of the time, they are suitable for standard payment amounts, but they can spike to quite high levels that make only large amounts worth transacting. This is due to network capacity limitations.
Furthermore, anyone that does not wish to hold BTC - understandable due to its significant volatility - must convert it again into the preferred currency.
Fees = friction, and there's enough friction now that people will only use it when it provides some significant utility.
It's an entirely new beast in the financial instrument space.
It does bear some characteristics of traditional currencies, but not all of them.
Specifically, as it works today, and until Lightning gets some traction, BTC isn't very convenient for small day to day transactions like buying a cup of coffee.
On the flipside, it does have attributes that traditional currencies strictly do not have.
For cases such as the OP, there is no other financial instrument on the planet that will cut it (other than things like Monero / ZCash / MimbleWimble).
Besides being antifragile and censorship resistant, there is also a very strong case to be made for Bitcoin in the 'preservation of wealth' niche (if you are strongly insensitive to short-term volatility, and capable of playing on a 5 year time horizon, that is).
[EDIT]: To answer your question more precisely, Bitcoin has most definitely been a success story for sites like sci-hub, Wikileak and generally speaking, people who try to speak truth to power.
Frankly the failure of "original" Bitcoin to adapt to use as a currency seems to me to be a total failure of vision.
First, the market seems to strongly disagree with you [1]
Second, what seems to me a total failure of vision is trying to shoehorn something as new and disruptive as Bitcoin in the old and worn out yoke of currencies as they used to exist. There's paypal for that.
[1] https://www.tradingview.com/symbols/BCHBTC/?exchange=COINBAS... (choose the 5 yr. view)
Also for VPN providers, and their customers. And generally for people who want to buy stuff and lease online services ~anonymously. If one mixes well enough, that is.
But no matter how you get the Bitcoin, you can get whatever degree of anonymity you want, by mixing it many times. You mix via Tor and nested VPN chains, with a different Whonix VM and mixing service for each mix.
From there, send your coins through a samouari whirlpool https://samouraiwallet.com/whirlpool
Then send them wherever you like.
There is still some counterparty risk (what if you're buying coins from the CIA, or whatever), but it's almost minimal.
Buying coins from a Bitcoin ATM is even easier, if there's one near you.
Enjoy those massive fees!
There is the concern that you'll end up with Bitcoin that's been tainted in one way or another. However, at least some mixing services get coin from miners, so it's clean. And you can check for that in the blockchain.
That's mostly a concern when you're mixing Bitcoin before converting it to meatspace fiat. If you're anonymizing Bitcoin purchased with meatspace fiat, it doesn't matter so much if some is tainted. Or at least, it won't unless tainted coin gets blacklisted.
Just a thought
Most mixers use CoinJoin, which gives you trustless assurances that you won't lose your money. The worst thing you'll lose is your time.
100% of cyber criminals use Bitcoin, that's a lot of people!
With cash, that money can change hands hundreds of times without it ever being tracked by anyone.
The only way a digital currency can ever be safely used for illegal activities if if it can be used and acquired as freely, easily and as anonymously as cash.
From what i've seen there's no digital equivalent to 'handing someone a suitcase full of cash in a dark alley' or receiving your 'cheque' at the end of the day as a wad of cash in an envelope.
With that cash, I can immediately turn around and spend it on some illegal shit and no record any where will ever exist of me being paid or having purchased illegal things. I can then go and spend that money just as easily in a store, where again, no records of where that money came from exists. It'll just appear(or reappear most likely) in circulation magically when the store records it as profit.
Creating a digital currency like this that actually functions as a currency seems unfeasible. Cash only works as it does because everybody just kind of agrees it does or because the government says it does I suppose.
As an addendum and disclaimer, I wrote a lot of this from a first person point of view, that was for dramatic descriptive purposes only and not from any actual personal perspective or activities.
If you really need cash, you can also just (physically) go to someone who has cash and tell them "I'll transfer you some Monero coins if you give me some cash and don't record that you did".
Until a digital currency allows this with the same level of anonyminity and ease, it's not viable as a replacement to cash. Go betweens and other things will still involve some third party to facilitate the conversion to real currency. That's the problem. This digital currency must be equally as legitimately and illegitimately useful immediately upon receipt with no hassle with any and all transactions directly doable in said currency without the need for any third party involvement or recording.
Sure many support Monero, but none at the exclusion of Bitcoin.