Comment by ctchocula
4 years ago
Gold has a usecase for jewelry, manufacturing electronics, dentistry and glassmaking. Yet not even the sum of these applications can justify its market cap of $11.73T, so the difference must come from speculation. I suspect the same is true for Bitcoin.
The difference is that gold has useful applications which act as a floor for pricing and moderate fluctuations. Gold bugs can still lose their shirts speculating but a normal buyer knows the value will never be zero.
Bitcoin is in contrast a pure fiat currency with very weak backing. Nobody has a need for it which can’t be satisfied at least as well by alternatives and it requires a very expensive always-on network to perform transactions. The floor is zero and liquidity is a very real concern.
>Nobody has a need for it which can’t be satisfied at least as well by alternatives
Have you ever tried to send more than $5k, $10k or $20k before? You basically can't with your bank without having to go through a bunch of hurdles or time delays. I can easily do that with bitcoin.
Legit, real need for it that can't be satisfied with alternatives.
In addition the bank is often closed on weekends, and doesn't service you into the night. My bank site "shuts down" at night. Sorry, but my ability to use my money isn't limiting by your waking hours.
I have, actually, and it wasn't hard. It did require a out-of-band confirmation which I considered a good thing since I rarely make transactions that large and never in a case which can't wait until the next business day.
That is, of course, the flip side of that convenience: if you ever make a mistake with your Bitcoin wallet, it's gone with no recourse. Good luck!
I did, without any issues nor delays.
I also dont know what bank you have but I can operate it any day through my app.
And your ability to use your "money" is still limited to having access to some wallet application, internet connection, your keys and chain fees.
Yup, I pay 0 to wire money, but I have fees for blockchains.
I can and I have. I needed to fill out a PDF (digitally) and ask the recipient for their IBAN etc., but they're both magically long strings so that's equivalent to needing someone's wallet address.
After that it was a matter of uploading the form and getting confirmation in a couple days, which I'm gladly willing to accept for peace of mind when it comes to large transfers.
> In addition the bank is often closed on weekends, and doesn't service you into the night. My bank site "shuts down" at night. Sorry, but my ability to use my money isn't limiting by your waking hours.
Odd, banking apps are open 24/7 here and if it's an in-bank transfer it's instantaneous.
And how do I send money to pay a bill with pre-existing systems?
Pay a third party like Venmo, Square, etc a fee, or use my banks (also horribly designed and bad UX system) to send the money slower than watching paint dry. I'd rather pay the Bitcoin Miners that fee than a third party or even by bank.
> And how do I send money to pay a bill with pre-existing systems? > > Pay a third party like Venmo, Square, etc a fee, or use my banks (also horribly designed and bad UX system) to send the money slower than watching paint dry. I'd rather pay the Bitcoin Miners that fee than a third party or even by bank.
Don't forget giving them cash or a check, or a credit card, as billions of people do every day. Fees are a fair point but that's purely a cost and timeliness question: Bitcoin historically has been slower and more expensive but it certainly could be useful as a competitor to horrible companies like Paypal if it can keep the costs down and transaction times low, not to mention scaling the system by 7+ orders of magnitude.
The catch, of course, is that this is not the path to world domination which features prominently in the sales pitch. That caps the maximum value at the percentage Visa, Paypal, etc. charge and if Bitcoin ever matured into serious competition, the credit card companies have plenty of margin to cut.
Apps here (Israel) -- local Venmo alternatives & banking apps -- are as smooth as Bitcoin apps if not more. In addition, all local Venmo alternatives have 0 fees and 0 signup cost (they're all operated by banks due to financial regulations but have 100% interoperability with any bank & credit card).