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And lost 99% of its value!

How do you compare a traditional transaction to one that is uncensorable by anyone?

IRS considers it an asset not money.

I think the people in the panama papers would disagree.

This is false, you just have to wait for more confirmations. And if miners are censoring transactions there will be a fork where you can use your coins.

Exactly the point. Satoshi created the issuance curve of Bitcoin to mirror the amount of gold that was dug up.

Another worrying development on the bitfinex story is that one of its employees has removed the warrant canary from his twitter profile.

https://twitter.com/el33th4xor/status/941707765910818816

I think this is a bearish signal until its clarified.

There have been low transaction fees in the past and they can return. Currently that is not the case.

The crypto market trades more on sentiment first, then technicals.

> One caveat with Bitcoin is that the network is so slow (effectively just 3 transactions per second) that a crash would be spread out over time.

This is false, the majority of people selling already have their coins on coinbase or other exchanges and would not add to the transaction volume hitting the blockchain.

>you aren't any more free than you were under the banks, you're just beholden to a different master - the people who maintain the cryptocurrency networks.

Exactly. Bitcoin just like fiat is backed by trust in those who run the network. Bitcoin doesn't solve many problems as a store of value right now if you trust the government not to print trillions like they did after the 2009 crisis.

If you don't trust the developers, don't trust the coin.

>BTC could go to $0 tomorrow. Suppose the US Gov. makes everyone legally declare their BTC assets as assets and they are subject to taxation etc..

BTC is ALREADY taxed as an asset. If you buy $4 worth of BTC, price goes up 20% and the next day you buy a coffee for $5 that is a Taxable event that you need to record and submit a record of your 1$ gain to the IRS to be taxed. Currencies like the euro ect have an exemption for low dollar amounts of gains that BTC does not currently have. If you hold for a year, you can get the 15% long term capital gains.

>Because nobody is using BTC as a currency

People used to when there were low fees. We will get low fees again, but until then, it opens up the chance for other coins to take BTCs market share.

>Or illegal medicine/performance enhancing drugs/...

Like overpriced medication that is unaffordable in the US.

This is low level trolling. Visa and Mastercard are not decentralized. Centralization is an easy way to scale. They are not apples and oranges.

Also, Bitcoin settles transactions in 30 days, merchants get their funds in 30 days if they are lucky to not have the charge back.

Apples and oranges.

Bitcoin is the conservative approach to any change that decreases the keystone of decentralization that allows it to survive. The market is deciding what it values.

Terrible analogy. To be more accurate, you would copy america and change the policies you want. Then the market decides on what they believe in and want.

Ignore exchanges where there is 0 trading fees like the big one in Korea.

How does the government seize bitcoins when you have memorized your private key? They cannot read your mind.

Here is more information about the topic :https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Brainwallet

They have done a lot. However they were pushing too hard for the NY Segwit 2X agreement and complaining loudly of high fees. They still have not upgraded their software to support segwit addresses but still had the time to support the 2X fork. It seems very disingenuous and I wish I had a company that supported what I believe in to recommend for new users.

It is ridiculous to complain about fees and continue to drag your feet to implement tech that is lowering fees in production right now that other companies already have activated.

If you are certain it will collapse you can make a lot of money shorting it. If you are 100% sure, there is no downside.

What do you see as the core value bitcoin provides? Outside of wild speculation?

This graphic is useful but misses the context of past failed hardforks/attacks such as BitcoinXT and BitcoinUnlimited.

Longest PoW being the main chain was not described in the context of contentious changes to consensus code. By that definition, a 51% attack that censors transactions would be the longest PoW and be defined as 'Bitcoin'. The great thing about Bitcoin is that the users are able to each make their own decision on what Bitcoin is. Bitcoin needs to be anti fragile and will constantly be under these attacks, because if it fails, we need something better.

This is all new territory and the appeal to authority by citing the white paper is less helpful than most people believe.

I think its unfair to dismiss the currency aspect of bitcoin. The use case for the developed world is 95% speculation 5% buying contraband online however, for people in Venezuela[1], girls learning to code in Afghanistan[2], or women in Saudi Arabi who can't legally open a bank account, Bitcoin is solving problems that under banked people have now. Of course the ecosystem needs to mature so grandma can use it safely, but that will come with time.

[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/24/bitcoin-mining-is-popular-in... [2] https://www.coindesk.com/how-bitcoin-helps-afghan-girls-achi...

There is no doubt the pets.com equivalent of ICO startups that won't deliver anything of value. On the other hand, the googles, and Amazons of the crypto world are being built today and if they provide enough value they will survive when the liquidity tide washes away.

Bitcoin as a currency doesn't solve any problems for people in developed countries. For the 5 billion plus who are underbanked due to lack of access or government red tape, it solves a big problem. Maybe you live in a country where there is hyper inflation like Venezuela or Argentina, or you are a female in Saudi Arabia and you cannot open a bank account, or you need to purchase prescription drugs online because you cannot afford it. Bitcoin is not perfect, but it actually solves problems for some people. We mostly buy Bitcoin in the west as speculation.

I think the point was that is a slippery slope. Where do you draw the line? Do we trust the restrictions we have placed on our government to not violate our rights?

The value proposition has always been that if it can succeed success being defined as being one of the major crypto currencies to see adoption, then just taking 1% of the global gold market, black market transactions, and remittances; its worth around 5k-ish already.

I would consider it a gamble and not an investment. Some call it a new asset class that isn't correlated to other assets, which is valued by portfolio managers. Its high risk high reward, if you understand why it has value and want exposure to the risk, put in enough that you are fine losing. This is still a grand social experiment and still could plummet in price at ANY time.The government regulatory clarification we have seen over the past few years has lessened the risk of a government crackdown at least.

This is not financial advice.

The continuing existence of Bitcoin disproves this. What do you base your point on?

Unless you want to totally eliminate counter party risk or execute an unstoppable transaction. Most use cases do not require these benefits.