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Comment by ragnese | Hacker News Reader

I don't disagree about weighing pros and cons, of course. But I think that bitcoin advocates would argue that the bitcoin has the same "non-infringing uses that benefit people" and that it's simply a matter of time/popularity until the proportion of "good" uses vs. "bad" uses is similar to the dollar.

Not saying that it's true, necessarily. Just that the current balance isn't the end game and it's not totally fair to criticize a brand new tech/tool/whatever against well-established and well-optimized status quo.

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>But I think that bitcoin advocates would argue that the bitcoin has the same "non-infringing uses that benefit people"

I think it would be difficult to argue that it's useful primarily for buying your groceries.

I don't think Bitcoin advocates like following this train of thought any further than "USD is also used for crime".

My point is that the true believers do want to eventually buy groceries with cryptocurrency.

My point is that this conversation is unfair:

Person A: I've just invented a new currency! I think it has better intrinsic properties than USD.

Person B: Well, I can't buy groceries with it right now, so it sucks.

Similar vein:

Person A: I've invented a new thing called the lightbulb. I think it will revolutionize lighting.

Person B: It's more expensive than oil lamps and electrifying buildings would be a massive undertaking. Lightbulbs suck.

If lightbulbs were primarily used for buying opium and running scams on widows in the 19th century I could well understand there being some pushback on the whole idea.

As it was, they were primarily used for lighting rooms from the getgo.

I imagine some historian could probably dig up some sort of analog from 100+ years ago (possibly on tech that never did take off) but this isn't it.

I never owned any BTC. I wouldn't put all of my savings into BTC, but it would be useful for (semi-/sometimes-) anonymous transactions. That makes it better than credit cards, checks, or cash because it can't be CC skimmed or physically robbed.

I would like to buy groceries with it, but I don't want to hold much BTC for very long.

I don't find that they do.

The things that make cash useful for money laundering and black market purchases also make it easy for me to quickly, and without unnecessary ceremony, drop a few dollars in a tip jar, give some money to a panhandler, split the bill at a restaurant, chip in to an office gift pool, pay my kids an allowance, envelope budget, buy ice cream from an ice cream truck, etc. etc. etc.

Bitcoin in particular fails miserably at these sorts of use cases because nobody wants to sit around waiting 10 minutes for a transaction to confirm over a $2 soft serve.

Crypto in general fail because they're complicated and fiddly to work with. This creates way, way too much friction these sorts of casual transactions, and effectively shuts out people who aren't technically sophisticated enough to feel comfortable messing around with this stuff.

That isn't to say that crypto doesn't work as a store of wealth. But, as a circulating, everyday currency, it seems to be stuck in the same situation that Linux on the Desktop has been for the past couple decades: for a variety of reasons, some of them very good and no real fault of its own, per se, the community just doesn't seem to be capable of sorting out the UX.

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