Bitcoin Forum

If I'm the average adult and I don't know about: Bitcoin, how fiat and our modern financial system work.
Sell me on: why banks/fiat are bad and why Bitcoin is the solution.

Much of the discussion regarding this just consists of buzz words, regurgitated sound bites and cliché talking points.

So first: why are the banks/fiat bad?

Second: How does Bitcoin fix this?

Third: What would make the average consumer care?

(Climate change, obesity and corruption are all massive problems but in a world full of distractions,
no one really gives a shit) Bitcoin has a bit of a PR problem in regards to how the community and developers are going to
make the average consumer give a flying fuck about decentralization. Also keep in mind that most people are
willing to pay middle men if it gives them piece of mind and they don't have to question the world around them
and wrap their brain around new technology.

The first two are ten times easier than the third in my opinion, I'd appreciate replies to be free of jargon, sure most
people on this forum are going to understand you but they're not the ones you need to convince, it's the small
business owner, the person who shops online and the person with a savings account

Cheers.

1. they aren't.
2. it doesn't.
3. he wouldn't.

Honestly, those are all valid and true answers, but I guess you're missing the point here.
Bitcoin offers an alternative and/or complement to the traditional technological finance paradigm, which is basically a continuation of methods developed in early renaissance Italy, ca. 1400-1600.
How and wether Bitcoin's new paradigm will work for consumers and/or against traditional institutions' established business models, is an unanswered question, and part of a large-scale experiment that started on January 3. 2009.

We'll see.

Fiat is inflationary. It's far too tied to government politics.
In most countries, on short term (from earning the money until it's spent) the consumer won't see much of a difference. But there are countries (Venezuela is the top example) where the local currency is a bad joke.
In such countries people can probably buy US Dollar for safety if it's available. Bitcoin is another option.
On long term, even in US one can see that the value of money is decreasing slowly (inflation). Bitcoin is deflationary and should "fix" that, because it's designed to be deflationary.

Yes, I know, this may sound fake in a bearish market, but .. if you look at the averages, you'll see this.
And in the days the markets turns bullish, Bitcoin is also a good investment (although quite risky, tbh).


Average consumer? Well, for now the "history" has shown that the average consumer couldn't care less. He jumps in when everybody shows Bitcoin rising, then, when the rise ends, he will sell, possibly on profit, possibly not. The technology that allows you send anywhere millions of Dollars worth of Bitcoin for the fee of a few cents, the deflationary nature (max 21M Bitcoin ever and clearly some do lose their money forever), the fact that more and more merchants start accepting Bitcoin for their goods/services, like any other proper coin, these are not important for many, unfortunately.

Not bad for the first topic to answer here.

1. Banks are fine, the government is not.
2. The only fix, in my opinion, is the anonymity.
3. It's hard to shift from the current financial system.

1. Banks are selling your data to advertisers and maybe even other interested parties. Also they may share your data with your government.

2. People usually say that Bitcoin also has bad privacy, but you can use mixing, Lightning Network, use Bitcoin to buy Monero when needed. There are also some improvements under way.

3. People don't care much about privacy today, but awareness is growing, people install adblocks, anti-tracking extensions, many consider target ads invasive and creepy. The more people feel watched, the more chances they will use Bitcoin.

1.No one is claiming that fiat and banks are bad. You need to have a cohesive connection between fiat as well as the bitcoin network. For example if you want to send money abroad or trade it is a task, there is conversion and transaction charges, bitcoin can do that easy any where in the world.

2. As I said above bitcoin will cut those delay and hurdles for international traders.

3. What an average consumer needs is the safety of their hard earned savings and we need more development in that aspect in bitcoin. This is a new technology with time you will see more solutions and questions. ;)

you are a long standing member of this "decentralisation community" qwk from you i would have expected a better answer, then this.

but i clarify
1. Fiats or the better term that i use "communal currencies" are complicated and expensive in its transactions and risky in its transaction (money transports, banking institutions, transcontinental transactions, time and cost intensive)
2. the established riskaverse banks, systematically enrich and support the established rich and for that they scam the poor, an open financial market equalises opportunities, and chances, for rich and poor again.
additionally the banks are causing economic crisis, with their attitute towards money, economy and power. which is extremely damaging for enterpreneuers who get more and more difficulties, to get regulariy contracts for their goods and services.
bitcoin is model of a currency/asset that is

1. outside of the banking cartels grip (open financial market)
2. is digital cheaper and saver to transact.

bitcoin is not the final and ultimate solution like the profitmaximising bitcoincentrists/maximalist (agendadriven) want to make everyone to believe, and neither is their created corrupt cryptocurrency index, which the bitcoin founders try to use to enslave the whole world.

the average consumer is also an employee that needs to earn his access to consumption capacieties,
and for that he needs a reliable demand for his work, and being payed for it.
the banking cartels with their trust crisis, will either resolve into old fashioned communism (to keep people working for money) or will start to cause economic volatility and even more security for those average consumers when it comes to earning money, they this way cant obtain purchasing power which they need to thrive and survive.

oh and they could also continue their neofeudal agenda of continously enriching the rich.

so the alternatives to an open financial market via crypto are:

1. neofeudal system, through the established rich billionaires
2. communist system through current banking cartel
3. open financial market that is not digital and global
4. undefined, unsecure and difficult to understand cashless society.


the old legendary members of this forum aren't usually big thinkers outside of their IT coding sphere, or they simply are to afraid to mention those issues.
regards

why should we convince you?

bitcoin wasn't created to replace anything, and it certainly wasn't created to be forced on average Joes as the new currency that they MUST use! bitcoin is an alternative payment system that is working entirely different than the traditional ones. if you like it, then you use it, and if you don't then you don't use it. it is that simple. nobody is going to force you to accept or not accept bitcoin.

fiat:
fiat is created at ZERO cost. thus it has a ZERO base cost layer to its value(gold backing died decades ago)
its created due to debt. when someone signs a credit agreement/promissory notes (credit cards/mortgage agreements,government bonds). the banks create new fiat. and then the recipient has to get other fiat PLUS interest to give back to the bank. this creates an endless loop of zero win for the public and the only winners are banks

banks are also the major custodians(holders/controllers) of the publics fiat. so even though people think they 'own' fiat. the banks are the real ones that both created it, holding it for people, AND making people pay banks back for that..

fiat only has utility due to popularity, sparked off by bankers and then pushed further by bankers making lawmakers ensure fiat remains viable. (such as taxes needing to be paid in fiat, court fines and minimum wage measured in such)

with other currencies emerging. all that pins fiat to remaining a utility is the laws that protect it from becoming useless.
(if public services were no longer paid via tax treasuries but made privatised, than fiat would lose control of utility benefit)

imagine if state schools, trash collection and road maintenance became self funded by people buying cryptocurrency of that service

..
bitcoin:
unlike other altcoins that are PoS(zero value). bitcoin is created using actual electric and calculations that are complex and actually cost people money to create bitcoin. so bitcoin has an underlying value which other coins do not.
bitcoin has so far remained the main popular coin to be used by a multitude of different services so it has a large utility value too.

when you buy bitcoin, you are not then signing contracts to be in any endless loop of having to pay back, or pay into something. once you have it. its your end of. thats why its an asset.
bitcoin does no need laws to push/force utility. its a open free decision. thus offers many things that fiat does not, while also offering an escape of the burden of the fiat environment.

you keep thinking that and stick with your high school economics.
then one day you can ask yourself. why gold is on par with its mining cost and why gold is not $1
you will then soon learn about the dynamics at play

if you think that bitcoin has no underlying value, and that it is no better then a pos coin.. then you have a big learning curve ahead of you.

so here is a tip for your first step. "price" and "value" are not the same

ask yourself why buyers would refuse to buy above Yx of what they can get bitcoin if they mined it
ask yourself why would sellers refuse to sell below Yx of what they bought/mined bitcoin at

you will soon learn the market:mining dynamics. which PoS coin does not have

You should take another look at the reality you're living in. Some buzzwords are not "buzzwords", only truth. I believe it was Aldous Huxley who said something like, the truth would be hard to find in a sea of lies. He said it during the 1930's.


They are "bad" because we put our trust in "their" system, but they don't act in our best interest.

Do your research on fractional reserve banking.


Bitcoin doesn't "fix" it. But we are given a choice to hedge against the banksters.

Hodl Bitcoin, short banksters.


You're merely given a choice. No one should care if you care, or not care.


If they don't believe in it, or if they believe that they don't have a need for it, then they should leave it.

Plus we also shouldn't waste our time on them.

I will take a simple example that happened to me over this weekend. I went to my local Barber for a haircut and they are immigrants from Greece, working in another country. They were talking about MoneyGram and Western Union and how people get ripped off with high fees when they use these services.

This immediately got my attention even though I was not part of the discussion. I simply asked them if they knew how cheap it is to send money to Greece with Bitcoin and this led to a question & answer session and quick training of almost 2 hours. I can now understand their frustration and they have a new way to transfer money to their country without hassles and at a fraction of the price that they are sending it via MoneyGram and Western Union.

Oh, I did not have to pay for my haircut.  ;D  

Well, that's not entirely true. It costs $0.103 to print 1 $20 bill and $0.0166 to mint 1 penny.


If somebody pays for something using a PoS coin, obviously its value isn't zero. If they can exchange it for BTC or $$, obviously its value isn't zero. The value might be subjectively zero to you and 4x its actual price to another. Just because you say something has zero value doesn't mean everybody else thinks this way.

I mean, like you pointed out, the dollar is created at zero cost (or minimal cost for a physical form), yet the USD is the most stable financial instrument in the entire world. Cost of production has little to do with stability, value or price -- utility and fungibility have everything to do with it.

gold sits on 2 markets
commodity and asset.
no one refutes that bitcoin is not a commodity. i even for years have been trying to tell people that bitcoin is unlike gold commodity.
but the gold asset. thats a different market.

seems you do have more to learn

yep you definitely have more to learn

people are not paying for a service. that is your mis understanding of the difference between the price/value/fee

This is a good story. So you sold the Greek barbers on bitcoin?

There is no such dispute until death between Bitcoin and Banks. Credit cards do exist, and are not banks. Paypal does exist, and it is neither bank nor credit card. Transferwise exists, and is not bank, nor credit card, nor Paypal.

Bitcoin offers options for various financial opportunities. It is different and unique.

money creation is done on computers.
banks 'cost' of then creating the physical form is minimal which is covered not by bankers costs. but by public returns
we can argue chicken and egg all year but the physical cost is negligable
EG why is the average bank account at $24k  but banks only want people withdrawing $500 a day
so that the $25k only has a cost of(using your numbers) $2.50 per $25k = $0.002 of circulated 'money' which doesnt cost the banks anything due to the fact that government bonds and other things play into it. again banks pay nothing. its people that pay the negligible amount.



lets word it this way
FIAT  [||||||||||||||||||||||||||||]
PoW  [||||||||||||||||||||||||||||]
PoS   [||||||||||||||||||||||||||||]

red=cost of creation/acquisition cost (mix of physical cost of creation. and previous cost from pure purchase second hand)
orange=laws that enforce utility
green=speculation about utility

by the way, fiat is not stable.
did you know with the US dollar. someone in new york city gets paid a minimum of $15 an hour where as someone outside the city gets paid $7.50
yep same fiat, but different locations yield different values.
even forex changes alot. a decade ago £1 got you $1.65 now its $1.31
prices of bread change often.
people being used to the volatility does not = stable.. it just means they stopped caring about its movement and just pay whatever price they see as they think fiat is the only currency they can use so have no choice

steep learning curve ahead of you

No, but the USD is the most stable financial instrument in the world relative to everything else, including every single other currency.


Yeah, its called COLA - cost of living adjustment. A dollar is still a dollar, its worth more or less relative to the cost of living in your location; that doesn't render it "unstable."


That's because the pound has weakened over the last 10 years relative to the dollar.


Maybe where you live. Where I live the price of things fluctuates somewhat rapidly, because the currency is inflationary compared to the dollar; its lost 14% of its value over the last 5 years. This forces importers to reprice things so they don't take a loss, and this ends up having a downstream effect that raises the price of everything else.

seems your trying too hard to justify all the variations of "dollar" value
you win no awards defending the dollar.

and if you think the pound is to blame for why dollars value against it changes.
then you have to explain the changes of the other 100+ countries

oh wait. its all the other countries faults. i get it you love and adore the dollar and you want to wrap the dollar in cotton wool and protect it.
good luck

Banks are bad because they used your money in risky investors and needed tax money to bail them out. It can't happen with bitcoin, it is decentralised, this prevents economic crashes that causes job losses

There is no need to divide the question into three parts, perhaps Bitcoin advertising is not particularly successful, but if you interview most of the traders who are on the stock exchanges, they will all tell you in one voice how successfully they raised their capital with this famous coin. Yes, many have lost, especially when they bought Bitcoin for 18 thousand dollars, and now they have a huge minus, but this is a mistake of everyone who did it, and it is a big passion and probably greed. I would not say that banks and Fiat are bad, especially since many banks will connect Bitcoin to their system.

Its not hard at all. Different places have different costs of living even within the same country. Nearly every country that's big enough experiences this.


I'm not defending anything. I'm simply telling you. Its the least volatile of all currencies because it is the most widely traded. This isn't an opinion.

https://admiralmarkets.com/education/articles/forex-basics/what-are-the-best-currency-pairs-to-trade



OK look, there's no point in trying to help you understand the point I'm making because you seem intent on belittling me. It has nothing to do with "fault", it has to do with the fact that the dollar-based currency pairings are the most liquid on the planet.

https://www.investopedia.com/articles/forex/11/popular-currencies-and-why-theyre-traded.asp

franky1 might be right, but I welcome you to your journey. There will be a lot for you to learn, but listen to the right people. Who they may be, would be on you. I have no right to judge or persecute anyone, for I am the stupid one, also on my own journey like you. Haha.

1. Banks can legally spend around 90% of the money you give them on their firther investments. They just rely on the fact that usually people keep their money in the bank and don't bother to suddenly withdraw all of it. When they do, it's a catastrophy, bankrupcy and losses of many people. Another thing is banks know your identity, so they can keep track of what you spend your money on. Moreover, they keep charging you for all sorts of things like balance updates, cash withdrawals, account support etc.
2. You store bitcoin in a wallet that belongs to you, so nobody will use your money ever for their own needs, and in the event of instability when people decide to use their money in panic, you have 100% of what you had in btc. The wallet is not connected to your name, so while people can track the transactions, they don't know who you are. This gives you some privacy, at least. Moreover, you only have to pay for tranfers of money from one wallet to another which is usually cheaper if you consider all those payments associated with the bank account.
3. If the first two points didn't provide enough evidence for you to care, then probably rational arguments just don't convince you. However, I think that these people don't have to be convinced! It's the big companies, chains of supermarkets, the most famous online shops etc. that have to be convinced. And I am pretty sure they care about cutting the expenses and enjoying bigger profits. The small ones will follow once they see that the customers of the big ones are already used to cryptos.
So why has it not happened yet? Well, because the market has to recover and stop being that volatile to be taken seriously. Apart from that, bitcoin is probably not even suited for mass adoption, because it cannot handle enough transactions per second. Other cryptos can, though, and bitcoin could still be used in some areas.

in a nutshell, those are your answers.