There isn't anything wrong with using existing secure and regulated methods (Paypal, Bank Transfer, etc), Cryptocurrencies claim to be decentralised when underneath they ARE still centralised and manipulated, especially Bitcoin.
I will only admit it has been a good run, but now it is time to for the regulators to step in.
Tell that to the Venezeulans who used bitcoin because their local currency is suffering from severe hyperinflation.
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-47553048
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/venezuela-bitcoin-story-puts-...
I've personally used bitcoin to send money between my brother and myself (he was in Australia at the time, I was in the EU) because it was both faster and cheaper than a bank transfer or western union.
You do realise Bitcoin is unable to scale with a large volume of transactions, grinding it to almost a complete halt.
So even if Bitcoin reaches critical mass, your brother will be waiting a very very long time to receive their funds, all with extremely high fees. Questioning the use of Bitcoin would start and by then the BTC price would have gone down had a mass sell off occurred.
Not hypothetical by the way, actually happened only months ago. [0]
So how is this better than Paypal or Western Union?
https://www.techradar.com/uk/news/massive-bitcoin-selling-sp...
Please research the topic more, the Lightning Network solves this problem and is already being used with no issues in El Salvador.
Sounds like this is a huge issue in El Salvador [0].
Or are you 'just saying this' because...?
Since you claimed it's a solved problem, I am assuming these coins never had congestion issues which is why you chose them?
You present a strong claim that they "ARE still centralized and manipulated, especially Bitcoin". Please present concrete evidence.
Before you argue about WU fees, Bitcoin's fees are no better than Western Union's, hence Transferwise.
> You present a strong claim that they "ARE still centralized and manipulated, especially Bitcoin". Please present concrete evidence.
Princeton University concluded in a study that the bitcoin network is 50% controlled by 5 of the 6 bitcoin mining companies [0] [1] so how is Bitcoin decentralised If it is becoming more centralised by mining organisations and if most of the hashing power is centralised in China?
That seems to be that means that Bitcoin isn't really decentralised then no?
[0] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-01-31/bitcoin-s...
> Before you argue about WU fees, Bitcoin's fees are no better than Western Union's, hence Transferwise.
Early in a new technologies adoption there will be pain points. I consider we are still very early on. Work is actively being done to alleviate this.
Still waiting on your response for high-interest countries and the unbanked.
[0] https://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-taproot-upgrade-dogecoin-te...
So even with concrete evidence, you still cannot even admit this fact that Bitcoin is currently centralised?
Maybe you should read about the 51% attack [0] and then come back to me and say with a straight face about Bitcoin being decentralised.
You mean the 'unbanked' can use digital wallets like M-Pesa and Paytm?
What's wrong with that?
[0] https://academy.binance.com/en/articles/what-is-a-51-percent...
By definition it isn’t centralized. Even in the current state.
Oh come on this is absolutely hyperbolic.
> They do way more harm than good.
Well that was quick. Can we start with the more nuanced position next time? Now we can analyse costs and benefits and perhaps learn something.