At this point it is clear it's a failed experiment as a medium of payment and it has turned instead into a speculative one.
https://www.blockchain.com/explorer/charts/n-transactions
https://bitcoinvisuals.com/ln-capacity
Edit: another very concrete metric showing Bitcoin adoption is the daily global transactions fees paid to miners (in USD). This isn't the block reward, it is just the real costs (fees) that users are willing to pay to transact on the blockchain. The fact they are increasing implies increasing adoption/utility of Bitcoin: https://ibb.co/PgBm0t8 (note the log scale!) I like this metric as it's a 100% market-based valuation of Bitcoin's utility that is independent of the value of 1 BTC.
Not sure how long until this effects what users pay.
The "gas fee" for handing a banknote to a vendor is ... nil.
The "gas fee" for tapping a card/phone on an NFC payment pad is ... nil (you're probably tracked, ho-hum).
Crypto won't unseat classical until its "gas fees" go zero. At the very least to the payer.
Ask the vendors what their bank fees for handling cash deposits are and revise that statement.
There's no sales tax where you live? (which is entirely possible)
> The "gas fee" for tapping a card/phone on an NFC payment pad is ... nil
Merchants pay a credit card processing fee (2.9% + 30c per transaction) for each transaction. Looks and smells like a "gas fee" to me. It's much less than the ridiculous ETH gas fees, but credit cards cost money to operate. The fee is hidden so the naive consumer thinks they're not paying anything to use the credit card, but that's very much due to the actions of the credit card cartel, Visa/Mastercard.
https://ycharts.com/indicators/ethereum_average_transaction_... https://ycharts.com/indicators/ethereum_average_gas_price
That's the thing about a powerful idea, implemented in code, supported by a large global community, connected by the network -- nobody can kill it.
It's like arguing about whether the world would be a better place without strong cryptography. There are many arguments for and against, people will never agree, and it's a waste of time arguing about it.
It exists, whether you approve of how it's used or not.
And a thing that is unkillable, that will exist in some form for our lifetimes, that a large global community finds useful for whatever reason, will always be valuable.
Then to complain about how exhausting it is to explain nothing and make random claims genuinely sums up most people’s experience with the bitcoin crowd (and their praying on its downfall)
There is still too much money to pull from fresh people.
It's probably still companies which stole money from early adopters and still reinvest.
The fees on crypto are absurd. I thought credit cards were looting in daylight but crypto is on a whole new level.
So in the end it seems there is just lack of political willpower to force global standard for bank transfers.
And regarding instant, feeless transactions - do you believe that electrons carrying current bank transfer messages are slower or more expensive than the ones carrying tokens (physicists, please forgive me)? The only reason token systems are temporary cheaper or faster is if they operate outside of law. Hardly a compliment in my opinion.
Printing fiat money causes speculation.
Easy fiat money is also literally the reason for launching bitcoin (just search for the Genesis block).
So I see your comment as blaming the solution for the problem.
Why buy a Tesla today for a bitcoin if you can buy it for 0.6 bitcoins in an year or something?
Whereas with fiat you have incentives to either invest or spend, but not sit on cash.
Money has no value, none of it, not dollars not bitcoins. Unless you like staring at images of Benjamin Franklin or the Queen of UK, it's worthless.
The entire proposition of imaginary money that is deflative because there will always be less in circulation is ridiculous, and Bitcoin clearly shows that it doesn't work.
Every single time one of my clients added crypto as a mean of payments very few people were interested and we had seen only few transactions till they dropped to 0. And my experience isn't unique, even huge players reported the same happening.
People hoard bitcoin to sell it to the next fool at higher price, there is no convenience or point into using it as a payment tool if you have alternatives, it's just gonna cost you more in fees and transactions and be more inconvenient than credit card/apple-google pay.
There is currently $1.91B worth of wrapped bitcoin (~27k) loaned out on AAVE [0].
So the answer to your question is... a lot of people.
[0] https://app.aave.com/reserve-overview/?underlyingAsset=0x226...
The only "default" is against yourself and you're in control of that at all times.
https://docs.aave.com/faq/depositing-and-earning
https://docs.aave.com/faq/borrowing
This innovation, along with AMM's, are what first brought actual utility to crypto beyond just buy and hold "number go up".
So, what is your point?
So you cannot now take loan for house in bitcoin. At least not using the system you linked. Thus it is entirely useless to even post it in the discussion.
I really don't understand the aggressive response that sounds like you're attacking me personally. Let me remind you of the guidelines here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Define "rich". Anyone can use AAVE, with any amount of tokens and without asking anyone for permission. If anything, AAVE is more accessible than anything else out there. Especially traditional banking which requires a bank account, something that can be difficult or impossible, to obtain on a global scale.
Finally, one can absolutely use AAVE to take a loan for a house. Supply/lend Bitcoin and borrow USDC, take the USDC out as fiat through an offramp such as coinbase.
So take scenario I just started working. I have no money. Where do I get bitcoin worth a house, so I can lock it up and loan likely in future bitcoin against it so I can slowly pay it back?
Just please explain how does the AAVE work in this specific scenario. I even give you 10% of house worth in bitcoin to start with.
You're mixing up your terms and that makes it very difficult to understand what you're saying... "to loan" != "taking loan".
Try to think and speak in terms like: lending and borrowing.
When you go to a bank, you use your credit score (and possibly your bank balance) as collateral to borrow funds.
With AAVE, you lend what tokens you have and you can then borrow against what you've lent.
The only difference is that with AAVE, you don't need a credit score or ask for permission from the bank. Anyone can do it globally 24/7. It is pretty clear from your previous comments in other threads, that you had no idea that this was even a thing because you stopped looking into it in 2017. Times have changed and things have progressed.
> I have no money. Where do I get bitcoin worth a house
You have no money, so you're not going to get a house, sorry. Your example doesn't work at all and I don't think it is going to be worth responding to.
You obviously have a beef with crypto. It isn't for you. That's ok. My point is to clarify the things you are blindly getting wrong.
To me it seems from your explanation that with Bitcoin loans you can only basically turn a collateral amount into the same value in Bitcoin, but not leverage the collateral. Hence, it's only useful if you already have money.
Very much US centric and that's essentially because of Fanny/Freddy and credit reports. That's part of what helped fuel 2008.
There are DeFi sites that enable leveraged borrowing, DeltaPrime [0] is one of them. They are just very small today as that is a relatively new technology.
Is saving "ok" according to your principles?
If so, then when does something stop being "saving" and become "hoarding"?
> Why buy a Tesla today for a bitcoin if you can buy it for 0.6 bitcoins in an year or something?
Because you value a Tesla more, I suppose?
Have you considered that artificially driving people to spend has a great cost in terms of ecology? What if we repaired an old car instead of "being induced by the central bank to buy a new one"? Same about houses, have you ever considered that housing is just so expensive because it's safer than dollars in terms of purchasing power? It's not that the demand suddenly increases by 10% yoy, it's the measuring unit that's being devalued (and there is, indeed, speculation on the further devaluation of the currency)
BTC will never be 100% payment, it's first of all "flight from devaluation". And since it's a free choice, it's much less morally problematic than "forced devaluation" (of other other people's money through central bank policy).
It will have a commonly used payment layer but I agree were not there yet. And even then, countries will not give up their local currency, so you will have BTC as a digital alternative to Gold and "money stored outside the local currency system", with the added advantage that you can hide and transport it very well, even in unsafe spots.
You're better off investing in various ways or just spend it. No rich person in this planet is rich because they have lots of cash. Most billionaires have very little amounts of it.
All that gives money value is the fact that other people want it. It has a constant demand.
Virtually nobody uses Bitcoins for payments, because it's model and self fulfilling prophecy is that price goes up as interest in the coin increases but the amount is stable (if not even decreases by burning or losing access to wallets). Everybody buys to see price go up further and sell.
I've been in crypto a long time before in 2017 I just concluded it was all speculation and green with no real world use.
You're free to do what you want with your money including speculating in Bitcoin, so far it has been a self fulfilling prophecy of more $ in the long run, I'm also free to see it as nothing else but greed.
The very fact that more advanced crypto currencies get no traction even though they really solve Bitcoin pain points is a clear indication that nobody gives two damns about the technology or uses it.
At the base of existence, all "true" value is utility value. Before cash and gold coins, people iron stakes and bronze kettles for currency, but even a bronze kettle is useless if you don't use it for cooking soup for your family and village, and instead use it for decorating your home.
Back then, you're right, it didn't have use cases. That said, the technology has advanced and the use cases do exist today. Decentralized finance is a giant one that continues to grow.