alt Hacker NewsWhat? "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.
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I've never seen $100 for a normal sized transaction that seems rather hyperbolic.
Pointing at the BTC transaction fee and saying it is super expensive is like pointing at a problematic car model and saying all cars are bad.
There are any number of other popular coins out there that have the same or better liquidity as BTC that charge tiny fractions of the fees. And also settle in seconds.
You're saying Bitcoin like BTC, but the parent commenter was probably referring to the giant ecosystem of coins, that happens to include BTC, but also many other much faster and cheaper options, that are used to globally remit payments every day.
What it's replacing, by the way, Western Union, Wise and the like, is also pretty unblockable and unrefundable.
>And transactions can take 30 minutes or more to settle >Fees have historically gone up above $100 per transaction
So it's cheaper to use Paypal ?
Bitcoin via the Lightning Network is near cost-free and instant. And it's not a hack, it's just a network of payment channels.