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Comment by gruez | Hacker News Reader

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gruez

>But people do, why?

1. cash is bulky and risky to keep at home

2. inflation eats away at your savings

Bitcoin is designed to solve both issues.

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except it doesn't solve either, because it's still risky to keep (whether with a 'trusted third party' or at home on some physical device... at the end of the day it can't be better than physical possession.. i.e. cash). volatility is a lot worse than stable inflation, and deflation (just HODL!) is much, much worse to the point of demonstrating the degree to which bitcoin is not useful as a monetary unit of exchange.

>it's still risky to keep (whether with a 'trusted third party' or at home on some physical device... at the end of the day it can't be better than physical possession.. i.e. cash).

I'm not sure how you can conclude that password protected, geographically distributed (eg. 2 of 3 multisignature) storage "can't be better than physical possession.. i.e. cash".

I mean a realistic use case that a normal person would actually do… people who are used to just tapping their iPhone twice to pay for things. My mom has absolutely no clue what you’re talking about… at best she might have a ledger nano one day

Bank robberies are no longer a thing in the 21st century. No one loses their savings because of thieves.

They still do, it's just the thieves have the backing of the court system.

https://ij.org/report/seize-first-question-later/

Of course it's still a thing, both regular robberies and digital ones. And people lose savings to online thieves and cheats who take control of their accounts, or manage to perform transfers on their behalf.

At least when you do, you’re fdic insured up to 100k typically

Bitcoin is designed to combat inflation? Please show me how it does this. I am very skeptical of this claim.

Because there will be maximum only 21 millions of bitcoin while US dollar in circulation is doubling every decade or so.

This seems to use the uncommon, Austrian and wrong definition of inflation as being purely an effect of monetary supply.

There is ultimately a fixed supply of Bitcoin, so the money printer can’t go brrrrrt.

How's that working for you? As a hedge against inflation, Bitcoin seems a remarkable failure.

1. Loose the password to your crypto wallet or your physical machine and all your money is gone. Regular people won't go farther than that.

2. Deflationary currencies reduce the urgency to invest or spend and crush economies.

Bitcoin makes both issues worse.

1. Bitcoin may not be bulky but there are still many risks. Losing the wallet, forgetting a password, or theft are still issues!

Then it is an utter failure at both.

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