Bitcoin Forum

I am having an argument with a friend in a group, and he informed me that he is unaware of the use of cryptocurrencies except to just exchange for FIAT currencies as and that he does not believe that decentralization can be something will not solve the issues of social differences.

I request that if possible, the most knowledgeable on the subject send messages so that I can be giving him more knowledge about the use of these services.

Remembering that the idea here is to gather as much of this information as possible for people who still recognize Bitcoin or cryptocurrencies as investment currencies.

You could just point them over to the marketplace section of this forum, to demonstrate that Bitcoin can be used as a currency, and isn't just a "investment currency". Besides, these days you can pay for almost anything in Bitcoin with payment gateways like BitPay, and the like. If you want some examples of mainstream companies that are accepting Bitcoin, take Namecheap, Microsoft, and once upon a time Steam did.

There's also jobs which pay in Bitcoin. You can find some of them listed on Angel list, and probably elsewhere. If you've taken a look at the marketplace section, you've likely found a lot of things which Bitcoin can be used to purchase.

The only really thing that Bitcoin hasn't touched upon, at least in the mainstream is groceries, and property. There are ways to use your Bitcoin to purchase these, but no real direct, and within the mainstream scope.

At the moment you might consider Bitcoin to be more an investment opportunity, than its usefulness as a currency. However, I'm not sure why that would be a bad thing, and doesn't change the fact that many people use it as a currency just fine, but specifically to you or your friend it might serve better as an investment. The best thing you could do, is ask your friend what he would like to purchase with Bitcoin for it to be deemed a currency to him. I would wager whatever his answer is there's a way of going about it, maybe not directly in the mainstream companies, but there will be an alternative.

I can speak for Bitcoin:

1. You can transfer value in a trustless manner— without needing the permission of banks and centralized services.
2. Bitcoin can't be inflated at will by centralized authorities.
3. With Bitcoin, you have true ownership of your wealth. No one can take it away from you and lock you out of your wealth (assuming your wallet doesn't get hacked).

Saying that Bitcoin is only for exchanging to fiat currencies totally undermines it's characteristics. It's almost like saying that a car is a just a box of steel and that a smartphone is just a thin brick made of plastic and aluminum.

Mostly, the people who say that decentralization is not important are mostly people who live comfortable in countries that are currently doing fine, and that are totally oblivious on what's happening in other monetarily fucked up countries such as Zimbabwe and Venezuela.

I share your opinion, I even showed him some of the points observed here.

However in the country where we live, the idea that Bitcoin or cryptocurrencies only serve to make an investment and obtain a financial profit is a reality, almost always you buy cryptocurrencies to sell yourself next and have more government money (FIAT).

I pointed to the growth of decentralized trading platforms as one of the great advances that we are making at that time, where we are no longer being held hostage by centralized systems that aim, exclusively, to attract partners and owners of these developments.

In countries where the government currency is not so accessible by the majority of the population, the use of cryptocurrencies has become a reality, however as noted by our friend Welsh, there are gaps that still need to be filled, for example, the basics can reach the table of the most disabled population.

Between decentralized exchanges and the use of Bitcoin, I believe that the biggest sin is still having to resort to government currencies to buy food.

How do you see that this could be resolved in more future times with the use of decentralization?

Personally, I don't think I couldn't name any country which has not got very skewed economics, and how they treat money. The very fact that you can print money is flawed. Although, decentralization isn't what makes Bitcoin a currency, but its certainly the most appealing factor of the currency, that I think most people who use it as a currency value highly.

If we were to look at why Bitcoin is a good currency, then I think most of the reasons you listed are valid. I don't think this is an argument on Bitcoin being a currency, but how the original posters friend views the currency as a more investment, than its usefulness as a currency. Which in its current state I can understand that viewpoint. Many people who are involved in Bitcoin, are treating it as an investment opportunity in which they cash out for fiat currencies at their desired price. This influx of investors has been impacted by mainstream news talking about the recent surges in prices of Bitcoin which as a result has created this mindset which I don't completely blame them for. However, as we know many people use Bitcoin as a currency , and exchange it for goods, and services. Its been doing that for years, and we are seeing more, and more mainstream companies adopt the currency.

His fiat money in the bank can be taken by the central authority since it ain't decentralized. If he has millions and authorities find some faults on him, he'd be scrambling to find here to get money because he can't withdraw his funds anymore.  Decentralization is freedom.

But I wouldn't be arguing with friends, it's best to just argue with someone who isn't your friend. Even if you win or lose the argument, you'll about to lose one if you do that.

In a way, I share his concern in terms that we are always going back to the conventional system, even after more than 10 years of cryptocurrency creation, to be able to maintain ourselves as human beings.

In our case, specifically, we are unemployed and in our country we still don't have many options for financial return with cryptocurrencies, however we still managed to keep making some exchanges.

The biggest difficulty in accepting the currency as a de facto payment method is that we still need to go back to our FIAT to buy food for our families.

And going into this matter, we have problems already perceived, such as transaction limits, KYC, limits on deposits and withdrawals within these centralized platforms.

I still do not see, as in fact, we will be able to advance to a level where we will be able to fill these gaps so simple, but so essential for the maintenance of human life.

And I actually wouldn't refute it tbh. Most of the late adopters of Bitcoin are in it for the financial profit/investment they could get, they aren't really using crypto supposedly for what it is for. They don't even realize what Bitcoin being decentralized means (probably) and just hodl it and hope for the best. Though can't exactly blame them, the progress that was mostly in the know is about Bitcoin being an asset after all, so maybe just give it time is the best. If you explain everything that was what Bitcoin is, and yet they still refuse, it just simply means that they don't understand what it really means. They don't understand what decentralization is, what a trustless system is, and what it means to get out of the control of a central authority (which is ingrained in the minds of most people imo).

In reality, depending on your specific location, Bitcoin is indeed hardly used as a form of currency or payment. But that does not mean that Bitcoin can only be used if exchanged to fiat first. At the very least, you can buy a Tesla with Bitcoin or a Lamborghini somewhere if you hate electric cars.

As to Bitcoin's decentralization, it is not created to solve social issues such as social differences. You tell your friend that Bitcoin is not here as a sort of a redeemer. Tell your friend, or perhaps including yourself, that Bitcoin is a mere payment system alternative. It does not address each and every problem there is in the world.

Anyway, sometimes we don't have to counter all kinds of arguments against Bitcoin. Some of them are actually true.

I really can't comment on this because I haven't dug deep onto other currencies besides the USD, but I could see how you think that.

While there's a lot of fuckery with fiat currencies in general though, I'm sure you'd agree that some countries handle their currencies a lot better than others that are currently already underwater. They're probably all going to end up the same way though, it's probably just that other countries are better at delaying the inevitable.

Cryptocurrencies are good for my life. I am speaking for my experience only, not you or your friends.

With bitcoin and alternate cryptocurrencies, I don't have to go to any offices to file any documents, wait for verification when I need to buy or sell anything. I will lose amny hours when I buy or sell a real estate asset. It is one of the most terrible way to waste of my time. I invest to get financial free but it is not the ultimate goal that is to have as much free time as possible.

With bitcoin & cryptocurrencies, I am totally free from financial to legal aspect (no need to go to offices of governmental agencies and wait for their supports). I certainly try to protect myself from fraudulent activities and dark money from money laundering.

When you look at cryptocurrencies then obviously your friend is correct because first of all bitcoin is lost among 10000 cryptocurrencies and secondly out of all the altcoins only a handful of not so popular coins may have the potential of being actually used but all of them remain unused and serve only one purpose which is being traded.
But if you look deeper you will realize that you should ignore altcoins and realize they are like a worse version of penny stocks. Then you only have bitcoin to look at and you realize that it is widely used as a currency too among bitcoiners. There are lots of businesses both online and offline that are accepting it as payment. There are even countries that have accepted bitcoin as a currency not just a commodity. A quick google search of "where can I spend bitcoin" will give you a lot of results too.

If I were you, I will leave the argument with that friend and let him choose what he wants. We can't force them to inform the right thing if they deny the truth, but we can still tell them about the right thing and leave him.

If you want to explain about bitcoin, you need to let that person accept and have an open mind about something new. But if they do not want to accept it, then we do not have to argue with them because that will be a waste of time. If he found the right thing by himself, he will come back to you and give you time to explain more about bitcoin. Leave him for a while will be the good thing that you can do. Otherwise, your friendship with him will not be good as before.

Exactly, you let them come to you and not the other way around because that is how most scammers work their way into duping people and it is the instinct of a lot of people to avoid people that are annoying or nagging them even if it means helping them. But you can always try approaching them first but do not force them, let them know the basics and just let those words marinate in their thoughts and have them decide if they want to do it.

Good statement, if the friends need more information concerning the usefulness of Bitcoin let he or her go further research,  besides Google is there to break every information down to everybody, leaning things about cryptocurrency is so easily now, weather through manual learning or internet learning, no more time to be giving a random answers from different angles, it's better you direct him or personally research of the importants of Bitcoin and send the link to the person that needed to know much usefulness of cryptocurrency especially bitcoin.

Not to mention that it will be convenient for you that they are doing their own research about bitcoin and other bitcoin related stuff because you might be wasting your time explaining to them and then they are just like I don't want to do it but in the case of DYOR they are responsible for the discovery so they will not blame anyone when they do something stupid or they don't want to get in on it.

I use my crypto to pay bills,buy load and even top up for my online games.
It is the other things that I used my crypto besides trading and investing.
At first it was also my expression on crypto it is just for trading but I found a way to use it in real life.

I am going to differ a bit from most replies and I am going to agree with your friend a little bit. As of today, Bitcoin is succeeding as the best store of value in the world. As such, it is an investment, and in some cases, like gold, it can be used to make payments, but this is not its main function. This differs from Satoshi's original idea, but I don't care, the fact is that Bitcoin is succeeding and that's the important thing.

I thank you for the responses of all the friends here on the forum, I tried to show him the point of view of each one of you, but he insists on not listening to me ...

I feel that she does not have an open mind for the new and that it helps us to focus on what really matters is to remove these bonds imposed on Bitcoin as a bargaining chip by FIAT and not as a currency itself, as in fact it is.

I will no longer try to explain it to him, but if in the future he wants to learn more about the subject, I will be referring him again to this forum and this topic so that he can learn more about all the technology and the usual currency in the real world.

Thank you all!

There are several things Bitcoin and Blockchain Technology can used for. Outside investment and paying of bills. The gaming platform are enjoying the decentralization brought by this awesome tech. The academic sector, Auto-mobile, Health sector etc are not left out.

But do you realize that they are too abstract?
Because we still don't have a greater focus on the basics: food.

What good is it to be able to buy a soft or a car if I can't buy rice or noodles to keep me alive?

I believe that this focus should become more constant than the others, after all this is essential the rest is superfluous.

I understand your concern, because it's also mine. It's a pitty we can't pay for food and basic services such as electricty, water and gas with bitcoins. So far bitcoin is a strong way to protect your patrimony and to earn extra income by working online, but as currency it's barely accepted by the sectors which play a big role in our daily lives.
Unfortunatelly there isn't much we can do besides waiting till adoption gets stronger. Meanwhile you can use a third party service to convert your btcs to fiat in real time when shopping.

Firstly, is bitcoin legal in your country? Or legal for what? As only a digital asset or even for a "currency".
because, in my country, it is also not legal as a currency, so that the thought as him is very often to be found, Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are only for increasing the profits and then exchanging them for fiat.

However, what we are experiencing doesn't mean to reflect all things about that itself. That is why we need to be open-minded to the world where there are so many differences between one another. Every country will have its own regulation and every regulation will give an impact on the use of crypto itself.
We can see some merchants actually accept Bitcoin as a payment method and also salary. But, it may not be too significant because it is still rare to be found.

Very good your observation!
In my country we do not have regulations on digital currencies, so we have no problem with the acceptance and use of this payment method in establishments, however as you mentioned, the high cost of Bitcoin itself is a game changer, so we have other currencies at a lower price, making, in a way, a contribution towards the acceptance of financial cryptography in the most diverse places.

As a whole, whenever we take Bitcoin or cryptocurrencies and try to compete with state currencies we will encounter barriers ...

I believe that here, in this regard, we will always have this problem of choosing what can be usual in the middle of cryptocurrencies and to what extent it becomes legal (legally speaking) in the applied region.

My advice is not to argue with your friends to determine what is right or wrong regarding Bitcoin. You just have to say your opinion about Bitcoin,
and it's your friend's business to accept it or not. Sometimes there are some people who just aren't open-minded and just believe what they believe.
Like your friends, including people who have a good income, therefore they are more supportive of fiat. I will not blame people who hate Bitcoin,
because we really can't make everyone like Bitcoin. There will always be people who hate Bitcoin and think negatively about Bitcoin, and we have
to understand with that.

I agree with you. We do not have to argue with them because every people will have their own perception about bitcoin and we can not say that they are wrong, although what they know is not right. We can tell the truth to them, but we can not force them to accept what we say, and we can let them find out by themselves. I am done with those people like that, and I prefer to leave them with their thinking because they can not open their minds to accept other people's perception and only want to argue that they are right.

It cannot be denied, bitcoin holders do not do many bitcoin transactions in their daily lives. Volatility can also affect a person's willingness to spend their bitcoins at that time, such as "if I could buy item X with 0.1BTC tomorrow, I would wait instead of spending my .012BTC today". In fact, they prefer to swap and back up some of their assets to fiat to buy anything over the next few days.

I think bitcoin currently only really serves as an alternative means of payment for cross-border transactions. People (who understand) prefer this solution to avoid complicated administrative processes, problems of flexibility and efficiency.

not everyone considers bitcoin as an investment currency, there are people who think bitcoin is a transaction tool, there are also people who just want to transact without involving a bank, but your friends are right, most people think of it like an investment, and teach your friends to understand the service  this so he can take advantage of it too, a decentralized fiat currency regulated by the government and local banks in his country.

Bitcoin isn't just an asset for investment only, it is used for transactions nearby and across countries, sending fiat from a particular country to another country seems to be a bit stressful because there will be a need to go to the bank and fill in forms and this might take much time depending on how fast the services of the bank is, but in bitcoin non of these is required we can make transactions with anyone anywhere in the world with some few minutes, bitcoin saves us the stress of going to bank to make transactions across countries, not just that presently most companies and businesses accepts bitcoin as payments so bitcoin isn't just an investment tool.

As we know, cryptocurrency is a currency that is made of a computing system and is decentralized (no person or party controls bitcoin). Meanwhile, fiat money is a currency that is legalized by the government of a country. Fiat is also a symbol of a country. So don't juxtapose Crypto with Fiat because even though it has uses in transactions, Crypto is more seen from its investment system and not all countries have the same legality of Crypto. So in my opinion, use Crypto as an investment.

I totally agree with you concerning the advantages of bitcoin over fiat.
One do not have to pay high transaction fee that one would have to pay if one has to be make those transfers with the bank. Now, one can do it with less fees and less transaction time.
Secondly because bitcoin isn't controlled by the government, it can not be inflated

You should know that bitcoin can be used as an investment tool by just buying and hodling for some time for the price to increase due to its volatility.

Op, I'm sorry that even great replies by others in this thread didn't convince your friend. It's next to impossible to change someone's mind when they're already feeling strong about it. However, you could try to go from afar and focus on the things which you both agree with. It can be that fiat has its issues, such as constant devaluation which can also lead to hyperinflation if it gets out of control. Or that banks are not great because they charge you for keeping your money, and they track every transaction you make. Then you can go to Bitcoin offering not a perfect and fully adopted solution, but a chance to do things differently. With Bitcoin, a person can be fully in charge of one's money, and Bitcoin's limited supply means that there's no constant devaluation going on. Only then you can present some examples, such as that Tesla now accepts Bitcoin (https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-56508568) as payment for cars, or that there are various places all over the world  (https://coinmap.org/view/#/world/18.06231230/-5.27343750/3)where one can pay with Bitcoin.

Bitcoin is decentralized and distributed asset. There is no single owner of it and can there can't be a single owner of bitcoin. Bitcoin is designed in a way that miners (hundreds of thousands) are securing and generating new coins. Rest you can find very resource on Google.

But those people that also uses it for transaction or payment also having that thought that it's a good investment. And it is inevitable for them to think of it for a second that they should be holding it instead.
With the high price of it, that's what everyone's thought about it and besides, no one ignores the idea that it's really for transaction too because you can send and receive it.

Well, there are people who recognize bitcoin as an investment while others use it to exchange for FIAT. Let's be honest, bitcoin hasnt been fully adapted yet and people need money to purchase goods and services. Businesses who sell the necessities of their customers often dont accept bitcoin as payment, as a result individuals who lack the money, turn to bitcoin and exchange it for FIAT. While others who believe in bitcoin "supremacy" hold this coins for a very long time.

Like it or not, fiat is still the main currency. Cryptocurrency is a medium to represent fiat in digital way.

Bitcoin nowadays becomes asset rather than currency, but for sure the goal is still fiat.
Why I can say that? Because most people still talk about fiat price target for bitcoin.

Bitcoin might be not the future, but blockahin with its decentralization is the thing that will be the root of digital world.
Decentralization of cryptocurrency is an examples of democratization of currency.
You take full control of your currency, and no one will have a role higher/lower than you, because all is equal.

The recent evenets of people using their portfolio to invest in bitcoin and cryptocurrency should advise him of the use of cryptocurrency. whether he admits it or not, it remains what it is, a solution to centtralization and consensus mechanism as theglobe is embracing it. Tell him to consider Microstrategy and Greyscale investments in crypto and see the future.

Its unfortunate that your friend is unaware with the vast utilization that Cryptocurrencies provide. Its true that it can be exchange into Fiat Currencies but Cryptos and Bitcoin is much more than that. Instead of having an argument, why wont you show him some applications that uses Cryptocurrencies as something useful to other people. There are a lot of platforms in which we can use Crypto's and even the forum is something that could present that applications.