Comment by gwbas1c

Bitcoin and similar are computationally intensive to run because of a thing called decentralization. Visa and Mastercard don't need consensus to perform payments, but they for sure don't have a single server running, I am sure they have more servers than bitcoin nodes, without counting on stripe, paypal, ... and other payment providers IN THE WORLD :)

There is something called lightning, which is p2p payments through bitcoin!

> Furthermore, a currency needs a government (or similar kind of body) to manage its stability, by printing (and buying) money. Otherwise, we'll see wide fluctuations in value like what happens with Bitcoin.

call the economists! a currency needs a government! But only from 1971 onwards, before that people didn't have currencies! Oh, you don't want to use the US dollar? the best currency ever!? I guess we'll have to bomb your country and neighboring ones to change your mind.

> to manage its stability

aka lose 2-4% of purchasing power per year. Thank you central bank! you saved us!

> Otherwise, we'll see wide fluctuations in value like what happens with Bitcoin

Oh no! The horror! A currency that can also go up!!! I guess we need a central bank for oil! to keep the price of oil stable! And food too!

Bitcoin is not suited for payments. Bitcoiners use lightning.

But to be clear, all payment innovations in crypto happen on EVMs and L2s. And in 2026, stuff is extremely scaleable and computationally cheap.

True on the main chain of Bitcoin. Bitcoin payments on the lightning network are not computationally intense.