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Comment by munksbeer | Hacker News Reader

Yes, I agree, bitcoin (I'm using bitcoin as a proxy for others here) does that. But it turns out that most of the world doesn't value that property all that highly when combined with all the downsides of bitcoin.

The vast majority of transactions are from people buying and selling crypto, not for real world cases, just trying to make a profit in fiat.

We've had 15 years now, and we can still ignore crypto. Most people do. I chose not to, in case it made me rich, and it seems to be working ok towards that goal.

I don't see what you mean by "giving up", because that is still presupposing that there is a real problem that the technology is solving, that people are ignoring out of laziness or spite or something.

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I'm not going to argue you or anyone should find the value aforementioned.

But I think the "it's been 15 years" argument is hollow. Clearly Bitcoin has an every-growing community of dedicated holders, and Bitcoin has surely increased the general skepticism of the monetary system.

I think you are conflating a speculative vehicle with an inflation hedge. Bitcoin is surely great for both depending on your timeline, but you strawman it a bit by appealing to the lowest common denominator who doesn't get and doesn't hold it.

It's provably scarce, it's highly locally securable (big job, but possible for most) and as a scarce asset, it's relatively cheap and easy to transfer. Yes, it failed as money (on the base layer), and that was its stated goal, but I'll readily give credit where it is due.

Thousands of cryptocurrencies are scarce. I can create a new one tomorrow which will also be scarce. That is necessary but not sufficient to create value.

It isn't cheap and easy to transfer. Tech nerds find it so, but get out the bubble and almost no-one else does.

The things I like about bitcoin is that it is indeed a trust free transaction mechanism, and provided you evade the law, there is no inbuilt mechanism to sanction anyone from using it. And yes, in theory it presents an alternative to traditional finance. I like that we have this now, as a threat so to speak.

Fantastic.

But now what? In reality, almost no-one cares. That is just the raw reality. It is too complicated, too insecure, too risky for most of society. I personally do not see any of this being overcome, and I never expect it to become anything other than a speculative vehicle in which most chain transactions are just people buying and selling it from each other for fiat money.

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