It’s practically impossible to use Bitcoin as digital cash because it’s so slow and expensive. That was the original problem it purported to solve, but it failed miserably at that.
There are new algorithms in late research phase though for much larger payments (like $5000) that are expected to go into production this year. I’m waiting for that before switching to using lightning network.
For people in the US though they can just go into a Walmart or McDonald’s and use it right now.
Am I right to assume that "use" here is in the same sense[1] that you can "use" "dollars" to pay your Big Mac in Paris with your US credit card? I.e. French McDonald's does not set the price in dollars but euros and does not need to touch dollars with a ten foot pole during the whole process and receives euros in their account?
[1] Which hardly makes any sense to me, to be honest.
Regarding hotels and flights, I book it on internet, and I don’t even know which country the travel agencies are located, and I don’t care.
> It does not make sense (to me) to say that you use dollars to buy a big mac in Paris. You use euros, which your credit card company conveniently bills from you as dollars.
I see your point. To be more precise I use the MasterCard payment network that uses a combination of Mexican Peso, USD, and EUR in the background to settle with the merchant’s bank periodically in the background (and as I use Revolut based Mastercard, it’s even more complex).
Last month the biggest POS company integrated the lightning network, an international payment network protocol, that uses Bitcoin as its settlement currency and Bitcoin network using Strike, and as the POS company does the settlement with the credit card company, the merchant in practice doesn’t see the difference between accepting credit card payment or lightning payment, as it doesn’t handle any of the two (the POS provider handles them).
What's the significance of that $100 dollar amount with the lightning network?
oh yeah, & this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BZoKH-hX_o
but yeah, bitcoin has no utility. you'd just have to wait until The Merge inevitably occurs, or use any of the few PoS cryptocurrencies that are generally better & more capable than bitcoin in every capacity, like Avalanche, Cardano, Fantom, Solana, etc.
Its volatility and UX, as well as how negatively it is perceived currently (by some people) look like bigger blockers to me.
Lightning will definitely not solve it.
edit: tps -> transactions/day
Lightning is a way of using bitcoin. A way of cooperatively creating bitcoin transactions with multiple parties, in such a way that you can minimize the number of on-chain transactions required. It is bitcoin. It has the same security model as bitcoin. It uses the same technology. It is not in any way centralized (it's a p2p network of payment channel connections, with each operator running their own server).
Even worse, if you saw my transaction, then sent me 1BTC worth of goods, then your node becomes offline and I forcefully close the channel with the original balance, I still have my 1BTC and there is no proof anywhere except your node that the transaction ever happened. So no security, unless both nodes are online.
Finally, unless you open direct channels with everyone you want to transact with, you will rely on a 3rd party node that does have such a channel. In practice, this likely means you will use one of a few major nodes that you trust to stay online and not refuse transactions, so the payments are in effect highly centralized.
A system that validates new entries into a database can either be "very cheap and very fast" or "very fault tolerant and very decentralized". The speed of light in networking and the speed of modern CPUs make this unavoidable.
Which that is not Bitcoin and neither is it on-chain.
The parent comment is correct on Bitcoin's failure as a peer-to-peer electronic cash system and all it is instead, is a store of value. This is how you know it has failed in its intended purpose.
That competes pretty well with many bank transfer methods, especially international, which still take many days and cost sometimes $20+.
Not to mention that Bitcoin is so volatile that the transaction's value in real-world currency may be 10% higher or lower within that 24-hour window, and of course you still need to pay someone to convert it into money if you're not planning on being a crypto holder.
I haven't paid anything for international transfers within the SEPA area for years. Depending on the source/destination bank, the transfer can be completed within an hour or so.
Sometimes the solution is simply better banking infrastructure. The banking/payments system in the US is a mess but it doesn't have to be so.
Bank transfers do not cost me and happen instantaneous, not 24 hours.
I can also transfer to the US, and they receive it in 24 hours. It still doesn't cost me.