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Comment by Mikeb85 | Hacker News Reader

There really is no use for it. Banks have made transactions dirt simple and convenient (especially those outside the US), as well as safe.

The only real use for Bitcoin is for anonymous, difficult to trace transactions (ie. black markets), and speculation.

With my regular bank account and credit card, I can buy products from China to NA to Europe and just about anywhere, can change my funds into a myriad of currencies, and since I have an investment account, can also invest in 19(? have to check with my broker) different countries' stock markets.

The problems Bitcoin claims to be trying to solve were already solved by the banks a while back. Plus banks will insure a fairly large amount of cash (more than most of us will have at any given time).

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> The problems Bitcoin claims to be trying to solve were already solved by the banks a while back.

Bitcoin (according to its website) claims to provide instant P2P transactions and very low processing fees. International bank transactions take days or weeks and have very high fees.

But even more importantly, bitcoins do not require a bank account. All it requires is internet or text messaging access. This is very important for the developing world where many people do not have bank accounts.

> International bank transactions take days or weeks and have very high fees.

Not really. I mean, I'm sure they can if you're moving millions, but small transactions are pretty much instant, even internationally, at least between modern banks in 2 countries. And the fees (if there even are any) are negligible.

Anyhow, that's my experience with my bank. I do know that American banks can be behind the times a bit...

ACH bank transfers in the united states take on average 2-3 days to clear. Instant may mean the funds are available at your bank, but the clearing process may not be complete.

I live in Europe and a wire transfer from/to Greece/UK/Germany takes at least two working days for small amounts, sometimes up to a week. All my friends have similar experiences. Only transferring money between two bank accounts of the same bank is indeed instant.

Fees are not negligible at all: Sending 200 pounds from the UK to US costs an average of 20 pounds or 10% according to https://transferwise.com/transfer-money-to-the-usa.

It still requires a bank account, just a difference sense of the word. If someone only has a phone, they need to store their bitcoin somewhere, and its unlikely to be their phone. So whoever is holding their bitcoin is acting as their bank.

I don't think that's true.

> If someone only has a phone, they need to store their bitcoin somewhere, and its unlikely to be their phone.

Why? Bitcoins do not exist somewhere, bitcoin transactions do, and they are stored in the blockchain. Bitcoins that you own are essentially unspent transactions to your address which is only a few bytes long.

A bitcoin wallet/address is not a bank account by any sense of the world.

You are right, they could store their actual wallet addresses on their phone. But would that actually be a good idea?

I would sure hate to loose all my money because it rained hard while walking home. And all the other dangers that haunt phones.

A counter here of they should be backing up is unacceptable. Many people who are otherwise very knowledgeable don't make backups.

Sure, if they have all their money under a mattress then they are venerable to house fire, theft, and the like. But storing all their money on a cheaply made but affordable electronic device has the same problems, while opening up a ton more possibilities of chronic money loss.

You dont store Bitcoins, you store the private keys to wallets, which are tiny in size and there are many mobile Bitcoin clients.

Check out https://mycelium.com/bitcoinwallet.

It does not require a bank account in that sense.

What you need is to hold your private key. You could, for example, holds your private key somewhere else, and inject that private key to your phone when you need to use it.

There is also a way to create a smart contract that locks the fund until a certain time. And you can make it in such a way that the smart contract is executed by the network, not by an entity.

I don't understand how people could say bitcoin is instant. It makes me think they've never actually tried buying anything with bitcoin.

All the bitcoin stores/processors I have used require 3 or more "confirmations" with each confirmation taking an average of 8 minutes which means each purchase takes at least 24 minutes and sometimes even several hours.

When I tried to sell things with bitcoin, customers told me it was a hassle when a Paypal or credit card transaction completes in seconds. This is the main unfixable problem with bitcoin and that is why I believe it will not take off.

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