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Comment by char8 | Hacker News Reader

Seems lobsided. Sure Bitcoin suffers from high fees, but it serves well as a savings account. We've also started accepting litecoin payments on our site: I set it up once, and forgot about it. With Paypal it's a never-ending rigamarole.

I've recently closed my bank account, and started using something a bit more up-to-date (Revolut). I believe Bitcoin is the single biggest innovation driver in the tech sector right now.. but sure.. it's a scam.

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Bitcoin is more like a security, with characteristics more akin to rare metals than a savings account. It's entirely unfit for that purpose.

That makes it a commodity, not a security. Securities are very specific things described by the SEC Act and the Howey test.

But if you don't like Bitcoin you can use USD based cryptos like DAI or USDC to transact and conduct peer-to-peer lending, purchase art work, save with higher yield, provide liquidity in a peer to peer marketplace, etc. By no means do you have to choose Bitcoin.

> Sure Bitcoin suffers from high fees, but it serves well as a savings account.

Does it? Your Bitcoin "savings account" would have lost over 45% of its value over the past month and a half.

A friend of mine paid another friend of mine $80 in BTC for a trip we did about 5 years ago. That BTC, never touched, is now worth $5000. At any rate, it's definitely volatile, because the asset class is still a small (but growing) potato in the grand scheme of commodities markets. One thing we can be sure of, it will never go negative in price, unlike oil.

I'd be pretty alarmed if my untouched savings account grew by 6250% over five years.

Would you be alarmed if your untouched savings account debased by 50% or so in purchasing power since then?

Yes. That's the point. Bitcoin serves incredibly poorly as a savings account, along every conceivable axis.

When you save money, do you save for the long term or for 1.5 months from now? If you save for the long term, and you're earning 0.5% interest on your $10K, how much less can you buy with it now, in terms of real estate, rent, stocks, commodities, etc?

Also, note it is entirely possible to invest on what's called a risk curve. You can allocate some portion of your savings, maybe 5-10% as a hedge. No need to go all in. Maybe 0.5%. at any rate, your savings account has cost you 50% or more in purchasing power for meaningful assets in the past 5 years. While you've gained a great deal of purchasing power if you held crypto.

Oil prices didn't go negative, the price of a financial derivative did.

True, but people often just use oil as shorthand for oil futures.

Depends on your timeframe.

Yes i've lost a lot of my net worth compared to last month.

Compared to last year, i'm up 3.5x.

That's one of the things i like about using Bitcoin as a savings account, it makes me think more longterm about my finances.

> I believe Bitcoin is the single biggest innovation driver in the tech sector right now

Not gonna lie, I laughed at this.

Can you please make your substantive points without swipes? It's hard for conversations like this to stay interesting and this sort of exchange tends to push them over a cliff.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

I needed that too.

Yes sorry it was a typo. I meant to write:

> I believe Bitcoin is the single biggest innovation driver in the *fin*tech sector right now.

Obviously not the biggest driver in tech; i don't blame you fr laughing at this statement.

Ah, that statement makes much more sense when you correct it to fintech.

I think I’d be inclined to point towards “neo-banks” as being more innovative in that specific sector, but that’s within “reasonable to disagree” range.

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