alt Hacker NewsWhat a deeply troubling and cynical comment.
As far as I know, nowhere in the Bitcoin white paper or the original code base. Does it say anything about what you seem to think it's use cases are.
Bitcoin has one main use, digital cash, that can be sent instantly and for free or a very low fee.
Edit: I would agree though, that anything other than that is probably a scam.
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Men of principles often mistake the experience and observations of others for cynicism when it does not align with said principles.
This applies to a great deal, not just bitcoin.
What? "Instantly and for a very low fee"?
Fees have historically gone up above $100 per transaction. They've since added hacks on top of the original Bitcoin protocol to get the price back down again, but the original design was not good for low fees.
And transactions can take 30 minutes or more to settle, that's hardly instant. If you accept a transaction instantly, it's relatively easy for someone to scam you by double spending.
So, no, Bitcoin doesn't make a great digital cash. Maybe a better wire transfer. But the biggest benefit of it is to be unblockable and unrefundable, which makes it great for scames and illegal activity, plus the speculative nature of the pricing, which is great for gambling on.
the problem is as a means of cash it’s inferior to existing systems in pretty much every dimension. more expensive, slower, more risk, higher volatility. the cash story for crypto is not good.
It seems entirely accurate to me, at least in a POSIWID sense.
The original theory of Bitcoin was, as described in the paper, decentralized digital cash. But in practice it was never optimized for what normal people use cash for. As system like that would be something like M-PESA.
Even at the time, cash was declining in usage. In the 18 years since, it has declined a lot more. And for good reason, because what most people want for most things isn't digital cash, but digital money. E.g., debit cards and Venmo.
So pretty naturally Bitcoin has value only for a few niche use cases that are not well served by more effective systems. Various sorts of crime, mostly. Digital cash, sure, but the kind that's transferred in unmarked envelopes slid quietly across the table. The kind that is delivered in a briefcase.
As a side note, it also failed in its goal of being decentralized. The mining power is very concentrated. Much more so than the banking industry, for example. And most users keep their Bitcoin on deposit in centralized services. So it's again basically banking but worse.