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Comment by danbruc | Hacker News Reader

Assuming you meant set B with set C - what makes you believe set B will match set W one day? Especially right now set B is incredible tiny compared to set A and there is not much incentive to switch to B which in turn makes it unlikely that set B will quickly converge to set W.

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Most people don't yet understand how infungible the USD is becoming. Argentenians and Venezuelans understand the infungibility of their national currencies much better than Americans do theirs. Wealthy Americans and the wealthy of other nationalities who travel understand it better than those with little savings who are largely bound to their own states. Only big players and those on the fringes of society notice the problems with the USD right now.

As more people leave the official economy every day, the fringes grow larger. The more the US clamps down on foreign banks holding USD, the less attractive the USD will be as a store of wealth.

Isn't a currency fungible by definition - a dollar is a dollar is a dollar? And we are getting away from the question I asked - what are the advantages of using Bitcoins, advantages that average people actually care about today and that are not offset by disadvantages of using Bitcoins.

Iran Sanctions: http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/Programs/p...

Russia Sanctions: http://www.cnn.com/2014/07/16/politics/ukraine-russia-sancti...

Also, USD cash is more fungible than electronic USD.

Again, why the focus on the average person? Does the average person actively, directly participate in space industry? No. Has the average person been profoundly affected by the technologies developed by space programs? Undeniably.

Isn't this the whole goal of Bitcoin? Mass adoption so that you can use Bitcoin at least as easily as your credit card? You can obviously not have mass adoption without the average person. If, on the other hand, you only want Bitcoin as a curiosity used by a hand full of people, accepted by a hand full of business, well, this goal has already been reached.

Funnily enough the Venezuelans and Argentinians solve the infungibility of their national currencies with US dollar-denominated offshore accounts. The US dollar is also the national currency of two other Latin American countries. Call me an extremist if you like, but I think the US is more likely to regulate Bitcoin into near irrelevance (guess what, AML laws can be applied to exchanges and Silicon Valley companies accepting BTC too!) than they are to make it difficult for Banco Central del Ecuador to replenish its dollar reserves. And Russian oligarchs facing sanctions are more likely to keep their money in Russian banks than in the crypocurrency their own government intends to ban http://rt.com/business/187440-bitcoin-ban-russia-cryptocurre...

How many people have left the informal economy to transact exclusively in Bitcoins?

> US dollar-denominated ...

Right because the USD is relatively more fungible for the time being.

> regulate Bitcoin into near irrlevance

That will just make dollars less fungible.

The Russian oligarchs go to Bitcoin coferences. It's on their radar.

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