Cons of Bitcoin - why I dislike it.

[CerealKing]

Hi, I've been studying Bitcoin for a very long time. The pros and cons, the things I like and dislike about it. The things that make bitcoin what it is today. I'll say that I have been interested by Bitcoin for a very long time. I used to chat heavily in a site called Wireclub. I spent probably way too much time there, I saw someone mention a cool new currency called bitcoin back in 2013. Everyone pretty much ignored what the guy said but me. I'm curious by nature about anything and when he said "new currency" I decided I had to check into this. Given, by 2013 it was already over 4 years old. But the price was at $58 or so I believe. I remember thinking that seems quite high for one coin.

I decided to do a lot of research about it, I told my wife at the time about it, she had no interest and told me I was wasting my time. I read and read for 3 days straight, trying to figure out how it worked and what it was. I thought about buying a mining machine off eBay and starting to mine it, then I decided that probably wouldn't be a good idea because I couldn't get any certain answer to how many coins a machine would mine in a month. I decided in the end that Bitcoin was a fad and it wouldn't last and that the price was ridiculous at $58 a coin... and of course looking back now compared to today, the spike is nowhere near as high as it is now, but if you put a coin at $14 a coin in January and $58 by March, that's a pretty big spike and I thought it was too risky to invest at that price. I researched how you got no dividends from it ( as if you invested in stocks you would receive dividends ) and that basically it was not a stable coin.

After those 3 days I would do periodic checkups on bitcoin and of course I saw when it hit over $1,000 and remembered when it was $58 a coin and kicking myself for not investing, then of course it fell again back down to the $200-400 range again by 2015 and I thought the peak had come and gone and nothing would ever happen, so again I refused to invest at a $200-$400 per coin valuation. I just thought it was beyond ridiculous.

Skip forward to today, I see no potential in Bitcoin's future. I have followed it and read a lot about it over the years from 2013, and I see it more as a fad that will go away in the future. Everyone praises the fact that it's decentralized and that the blockchain technology, my answer to that is "so?" it's kind of ridiculous that anyone would put their money into this long term. There are so many downsides to bitcoin and so many scammers looking to steal your coins. You have bitcoin hackers, you have eBay hackers...

eBay? so I decided with this crazy 4k plus valuation I'd buy some and sell it on eBay, I sell on there all the time anyway and never have any issues. So I first started with this great deal someone was trying to sell 1 bitcoin for $3,000 so I bought it but the ad said "do not pay, contact me first" I decided to listen and he told me to buy $3,000 worth of iTune gift cards and give him the codes and he'd give me 1 bitcoin. Of course the man had over 2,000 feedbacks and 100% and I knew he had been hacked immediately, so I reported it. I got a message from eBay confirming it. Then I decided to sell bitcoin on eBay since I saw others doing it, I bought 0.1 Satoshi and decided I'd sell it and make some profit when/if it goes up, and it did. So I listed it and 3 times I had buyers buy from me and all 3 had been eBay members since 2000-2001 and very broken disgusting English. All 3 had been hacked and I had to refund all 3 their money. I was contacted by all 3 and was told "Sorry I was hacked, I didn't order any Bitcoin" of course I required them to show me an ID before I sent any anyway. Plus does anyone need to be reminded about Silk road?

Okay, before I ramble on anymore about stories of why bitcoin is terrible and my history with bitcoin over the years

1. I think the currency is too volatile to be considered a currency - I've seen it jump $200 in any direction in less than one hour. I can't go to a car dealership and purchase a car for $50,000 and then by the time it comes to transfer the BTC the guy tells me "oh Bitcoin dropped $200 bucks a coin while you're in here, you have to pay more now..." "uh?" If I go in with USD $50,000 I'll never have to worry about my $50,000 USD fluctuating that much.

2. Nothing should be worth 0.001 USD in 2009-2010 and be worth $4,xxx in 2017... no stock has ever performed that great, and with stock you OWN a piece of the company. I can get dividends, I get reports, less volatile. I hate Amazon wholeheartedly. I think the company is ridiculous and overpriced, and do I have an issue with their valuation on stock? yes I do but at least you own a piece of the company when you buy it, you have something that matters. If you own enough stock in the company, you can even make decisions for the company. You will never have a say in Bitcoin no matter how many you own, which is why things like forks in the system happen with the new and improved Bitcoin cash, which is also a fake currency fighting with this fake currency.

3. The only thing people can say about Bitcoin is it's decentralized and the blockchain... that's all you got? Decentralized is a bad thing, it means the moment the government ( which controls you btw ) decides eh... we don't want bitcoin anymore, banned! ( it happened in Bolivia, Bangladesh etc ) and it could happen in the USA or other countries if they started to feel threatened by it. It's not safe to have too much invested in it. What is backing it anyway? gold? and what is a bitcoin worth and what is gold worth? it's only worth what a consumer is willing to pay for it and if people come to realize Bitcoin is worthless ( it'll happen, just when is the question ) it'll come crashing down and the people that paid $4,000-($10x,xxx?) a coin will feel the pain when they lose everything.

4. Who really knows about Bitcoin? If it wasn't for me 90% of my friends would have never heard of it. My mom wouldn't have, my girlfriend... most people still do not know about Bitcoin in 2017 and the majority that DO know about it don't even understand how it works. You're trying to take a mindset of the AVERAGE person and make them understand something that's quite complex and difficult to learn to the average persons mind. Most people I know are tech savvy yet couldn't tell me the first thing on how to buy a bitcoin or even what a bitcoin is. What about the ones with the most money in the world? the baby boomers? Hal Finney was a rare case my friends, the average baby boomer knows nothing about BTC and how to operate a smartphone for that matter. I consider myself a highly intelligent person but I think it'd be difficult to pay for my groceries or restaurant bill with it. Especially since it's not like a credit/debit card. If my food/service is trash and I want a refund? It's not as simple as just pulling my debit card out or even better, handing me cash back. I just don't understand how it would be easier for me to pay with Bitcoin than it would be swiping a debit card.

5. Debit/credit card is always gonna win. I wanted to get a furnace installed in one of my rental properties a year ago, the man told me it'd be $1,500 dollars but he wanted $1,000 upfront. I was very leery about spending that kind of money upfront but he had a trusted company from reviews I read online, so I asked if he took credit, he said yes. I paid and he said he'd have it in within 3 days. 3 days later he's like "hey uh something came up, I need $250 more... can you do cash? I said no I can do $250 on credit though" he goes "okay that works" So now I have $1,250 invested in this guy. He never calls me again, I called many times no answer. I called my credit card company after a week of not hearing from him and they refunded me all $1,250. If he had asked for me to do it in Bitcoin I would be out my money. There is no way to get my money back

6. What if I send to the wrong Bitcoin address by accident? ( it happens btw ) my money where does it go? it's gone. How can something SO GREAT be so flawed? And what if I was really stupid and those 3 people that ordered my 0.01 BTC from me got me and I sent 0.01 to each? Could I call Satoshi Nakamoto and be like "hey, they got me! lol can you refund me since those scammers did that?... oh wait what Satoshi... you're gone? where did you go?!?!" Exactly, no customer support. PayPal was the one that helped my buyers out from the scammers. PayPal had me covered and them covered. If I mess up with Bitcoin it's gone.

7. Bitcoin isn't as anonymous as you think. I read an article earlier this year that stated the main things that attracted people to Bitcoin in general were not even in place anymore... no fees? gone. Not only gone, but as the prices go up, the fees will rise. Anonymous? not as much as it used to be. There were other things that changed as well, I forget now. I'm sure many of you know though

8. People still compare this to real money, because in the end 95% of people invested in bitcoin aren't in it for the long haul, they're in it so the price will jump a few hundred USD and they'll cash out with their profits. Of course that works great if you bought in at $1,000 and bought 20 coins and then it jumped to $2,500 and you cashed out and made $30,000 profit.. but that's the point, you made $30,000 USD profit. You can now use that $30,000 to buy a car or put a down payment on a nice house somewhere. Not with your bitcoin. I am a real estate investor and I mainly focus on buying foreclosures. I have to show my checking account with proof of funds every time I want to buy a property. I can't say "I have $30,000 USD and 15.2 bitcoins, will the bank take that? no.. what? why!!!! this is crazy!" The bank wants to see what I have in USD, hell they'd even accept euro probably. As long as it's a real currency. The majority of people don't accept Bitcoin as real currency, just because YOU do and everyone on this forum does, doesn't mean IT IS. I can call bottle caps real currency, and in Fallout New Vegas, they are... and will they be if a Fallout happens? who knows, but I know right now Walmart won't accept my bottle caps even if I call it currency, but they won't accept my Bitcoin either, go figure.

9. Hackers - people break into people's wallets and steal bitcoins all the time, and of course you have the big names that got robbed like last year Bitfinix, MtGox and many more to come. Of course there are issues anywhere online. Hackers exist either way you look at it. But if I am hacked and someone steals $50,000 from my bank account, I can get that back after I prove it was stolen and it was not me. If someone hacks my Bitcoin wallet and steals 10 coins? well... you're out of luck! Good luck though!

So in reality, most people that use Bitcoin are scammers, of course you have the investors looking to get rich quick, and many did thanks to this boom. I am NOT saying this is a bad short term investment. I did buy 0.1 BTC because I am trying to make a few bucks off this. I buy stock, real estate. I'm an investor by heart and I've watched it go from early this years under $1,000 price to over $4,000 in a HUGE spike that is obviously a bubble if I've ever seen it. I really think the beginnings of Bitcoin were cool, I find it mysterious and cool how Satoshi Nakamoto just disappeared. But that's my natural being, I always like mysterious. I find the beginnings with SmokeTooMuch and his postings, and Laszlo's pizza deal to be interesting. I think it's cool how Theymos sold 15,000 at 0.003 cents each and Gavin's 5 BTC faucet. I'm not saying all Bitcoin is bad, I'm not against it, but I do see it falling, and falling hard. People are only in it now to get rich quick and they want to get rich quick in USD not in bitcoin, the average person only sees their currency grow in USD, no one buys Wal-mart stock to just own it, they buy it because of the potential they can make in USD, the potential dividends ( which bitcoin doesn't have ) the potential profits they can make in general, but all in USD. All in government backed currency.

I am sure I will think of many more reasons why I don't think Bitcoin is investable for long term, but I want to kind of cut this as short as possible.

Thanks for reading!

"There's certainly a lot of bullishness about bitcoin and cryptocurrency, and that's the case with bubbles in general. The psychology of bubbles fuels it. You just become more convinced that it's going to work. And the higher the price goes, the more convinced you become that you're right. But it's not going up because it's going to work. It's going up because of speculation." In other words, bitcoin’s upward momentum ­– even the price more than doubling within 90 days ­– may be a kind of self-fulfilling pipe dream.

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[CerealKing]

1. I agree bitcoin price is volatile, but no one force you to use this volatile currency. A way to fix it by make deal with the merchant previously and immediately make payment.
2. Don't compare bitcoin or any cryptocurrency with stock. If you think people who have lots of bitcoin should make vote/decision for bitcoin itself, then bitcoin would be controlled by early adopters or rich people.
3. If you really did your research, you should know the reasons. Acceptance by community, how many accept bitcoin as payment method and how many people who would use bitcoin as currency
4. True, but many people or company try to fix this problem such as make more user-friendly wallet, promote bitcoin or make easy terms/condition on how to refund bitcoin payment.
5. I agree use bitcoin is huge risk, especially with scammers. However, escrow or directly pay with bitcoin after you confirm the goods has been received and working properly are ways to avoid it.
6. You should know that refund is impossible since bitcoin is decentralized and make refund option will be abused in many ways. So it's your fault if you send to wrong address.
7. I agree fee is high, but you could become anonymous if you put enough effort such as use HD wallet, use mixer and carefully when send/receive bitcoin to centralized/regulated service.
8. That's the risk of using bitcoin, find place which accept bitcoin, sell bitcoin for fiat or simply don't use it anymore.
9. Usually that's because user fault, not wallet developer or bitcoin itself.

But you still agree regardless that there is HIGH risk involved which should not be there. You tell me not to compare stock to bitcoin but stocks are the only thing to compare it to. It's the only thing that's not "tangible" per say that I can turn into a real currency. Real estate, while an investment is tangible and it matters about location. Location/condition doesn't exist or matter with Bitcoin/stocks, therefore I'll compare again. If I owned 100 shares of eBay no one is able to hack me and steal my shares, there are no issues with me transferring my 100 shares of eBay to anyone at anytime with fear of me being robbed, fears of me losing my shares, fears of fraud. None of it is there. I have used the Robinhood app for over a year and a half now and had no issues with stocks at all. I have had no issues with Bitcoin, but I've read a lot of horror stories of people being robbed. This should NOT be an issue at all. Something so great that people tout is the best thing ever, yet you're having high volume of scams, drugs, and theft? Sounds like I'm investing in Detroit, here take my copper pipes!

2. It is still controlled by people in some sense, that's why the hardfork happened. Because people were unhappy with conditions that Satoshi Nakamoto set.
4. My dad can't even turn a desktop computer on ( not joking ) my dad grew up in the 1950s and knows nothing about technology, to try to get him to adapt to it would be harder than building a bridge from California to Hawaii My point is, MANY people don't understand technology and never will, my mom gets angry at her phone when she touches something wrong and can't figure out how to open facebook back up on her phone, so I have to calm her down and say mom press that icon there, now you go ahead and teach her about blockchain technology and how to open a wallet and use it please... and still half of the world doesn't use the internet yet. But those half that do not use the internet use real currency.
5. You don't have to escrow or do anything like that with PayPal... if I want to order a new laptop online and I pay in Bitcoin and the laptop comes broken, who do I talk to? what if the seller blocks me? what can be done? Nothing.
6. It would be abused I'm sure, but so is Wal-mart's return policy when people go in and steal a $40 dollar item and bring it back to get some kind of compensation and say they bought it. People abuse systems regardless. But just as there are the 5% that ruin it for everyone, there's the 95% that really deserve compensation when they buy a broken item or an item that lasted 3 days before breaking. They deserve a refund. Which is why Walmart and many stores have buyer protection. We need it in place regardless of the abusers. There's abusers in every society, but I try to think that there's more good than bad people in the world. Although it seems the bad people are the ones adopting Bitcoin more than anyone else based on my eBay experiences and articles I've read.
7. The no fee system is what Satoshi and original adopters were so proud about in the beginning.
9. You say user fault, but how do you plan to teach every single user how to protect their wallets? especially the people that are not tech savvy? ( the average person )

An article I read recently - If you decide to buy bitcoin right now, after hearing about the big surge, you’d be buying high. The price of bitcoin may already have peaked (it had to happen before the news covered it, obviously), so anyone who buys right now are taking a dangerous bet. Despite bitcoin being at its highest ever recorded value, you’re counting on it to go even higher. That outcome is based on a volatile geopolitical issue: it depends on how North Korea reacts to current tensions. If North Korea does back down – or agree to do so due to concessions – then bitcoin values (like gold and the Japanese yen) can wind down just as quickly as they spiked.

Cryptocurrencies are a Form of Speculation
As the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has warned, cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin remain a speculative investment. Bitcoin is volatile, and has gone through several spikes and crashes. When these happen, the price movements in bitcoin don’t happen in small increments. Their value follows a whipsaw pattern, and it’s not uncommon to see losses or gains happen in increments of 20 per cent or more. While big gains are possible, it’s equally possible to lose much more than you initially invested. That makes bitcoin appropriate only if you’re looking for a high-risk alternative to complement your portfolio; it’s definitely not something to stake your life savings or retirement fund on.
Cryptocurrencies Can Be Hard to Spend or Liquidate
The main worry with bitcoin – and other cryptocurrencies – is the collapse of secondary markets. If things look bad, few investors will be ready to buy (even if they are, it will be at an extortionate price). When this happens, there are few avenues to exchange your Bitcoin for cash. One of the long term issues with bitcoin has been its lack of use in mainstream markets: you can’t go ezbuy or Carousell and start buying things with it or spend it in your grocery store. This results in a situation where, if bitcoin crashes, your only solution is to (1) sell it for dirt cheap to the few people willing to buy, or (2) hold on to it and hope it recovers, risking the loss of your entire investment if it never does. In any case, this means that money committed to bitcoin is likely to stay that way. You can’t cash it out without risking a loss – so make sure you have other savings on hand before you buy into it."

End of the day, people need a house, people need groceries, people don't need bitcoin. Very risky investment. If I see it drop to the 400 range again, I'll probably get a few coins, but I do not know if there is a permanent future ahead for bitcoin ( or any other cryptocurrency for that matter ) I guess when I'm 80 I'll either look back at this and be like "I was ridiculously stupid" or "I knew I was right!" I guess that part is yet to be seen. But I think it'll be the latter. I don't think this is revolutionary. I don't think there's anything unique about Bitcoin that can't be duplicated, or even made better. What if someone makes a bitcoin that if hacked funds can be returned? wallets were more simple and easy to understand for the average person? where there was so much protection that they have been around for over 15 years without any major scandals like MtGox etc? A place with REAL customer support I can call if I have a question? wait, that place kinda exists. It's called PayPal.

[Kaller]

I say, this post is very long yet very well-written also.
As for the points, you are most certainly right.
See, Bitcoin isn't perfect.
There are tons of new cryptocoins coming each month.
They all have new, more modern and technologically sound features.
Eventually we will get to a point that coins are very secure, anonymous and even refundable.
However, for the time bei g we must settle for what we have now.

[CerealKing]

I say, this post is very long yet very well-written also.
As for the points, you are most certainly right.
See, Bitcoin isn't perfect.
There are tons of new cryptocoins coming each month.
They all have new, more modern and technologically sound features.
Eventually we will get to a point that coins are very secure, anonymous and even refundable.
However, for the time bei g we must settle for what we have now.

Settling with what we have sounds nice, but when the time comes and a new greater technology does come what happens to Bitcoin prices? Do we go back to 0.001 cents again and a forgotten technology replaced by "xxx coin" and what happens to the people that invested $100,000 in Bitcoin and lost everything? I assume the same that happens to anyone that invests and loses out. But the risks are real, and who's to say that after so many cryptocurrencies being made and finally we find the perfect one and the US government gets tired because it's so hard to tax being it's decentralized and they say "either you use our government back crypto or you go to jail." Very possible scenario. I don't know if the government sees Bitcoin as a threat yet, but it's possible in the future. People were arrested in Bolivia recently for spreading the word on Bitcoin.

[milewilda]

I say, this post is very long yet very well-written also.
As for the points, you are most certainly right.
See, Bitcoin isn't perfect.
There are tons of new cryptocoins coming each month.
They all have new, more modern and technologically sound features.
Eventually we will get to a point that coins are very secure, anonymous and even refundable.
However, for the time bei g we must settle for what we have now.

Settling with what we have sounds nice, but when the time comes and a new greater technology does come what happens to Bitcoin prices? Do we go back to 0.001 cents again and a forgotten technology replaced by "xxx coin" and what happens to the people that invested $100,000 in Bitcoin and lost everything? I assume the same that happens to anyone that invests and loses out. But the risks are real, and who's to say that after so many cryptocurrencies being made and finally we find the perfect one and the US government gets tired because it's so hard to tax being it's decentralized and they say "either you use our government back crypto or you go to jail." Very possible scenario. I don't know if the government sees Bitcoin as a threat yet, but it's possible in the future. People were arrested in Bolivia recently for spreading the word on Bitcoin.

All things on this world do really have the risk and thats the risk on involvement on crypto currencies specially on bitcoin.There are lots of coins do exist on the market already and some of them do have better features than bitcoin and as being said there would really be a time that popularity and interest would really be lost in bitcoin and for those who invest big money on bitcoin should really know the risk behind on losing money.

[hitlab]

You have good points. I do agree with your comparison of bitcoins to shares, one does not provide any returns and the other is a stake in a productive company that generates real value. Bitcoin at it's heart is a speculative investment.

The benefit of bitcoin is that it lets people who don't have access to financial services to access a form of banking. Such as in third world countries or for people who don't have the paperwork to open bank accounts. It could potentially bring millions of people out of poverty. The fact that it is decentralized makes it impossible for oppressive governments to control or censor individuals. Those of us who live in first world countries have the luxury of a stable financial system so we never face these problems. People who live in countries in which the currency is unstable have been quick to adopt bitcoin, such as Venezuela, where many shops have started to exclusively accept bitcoin due to hyperinflation. I do believe more people will be driven to use bitcoin as trust in governments decreases.

[Francis Freeman]

I read all your post and I think it could be summarized with only few words: you still prefer centralized money. So feel free to use banks, or centralized companies like paypal. You are not forced to use Bitcoin.

But remember just one thing: if you put your money in your bank account, that money ceases to be your money and becomes theirs. They basically can do anything they want with your money. It could be a bail-in, or banks can apply a sudden fee. They can invest bank account holders' money and they may lose everything and go bankrupt. Then the government, in order to save banks, raise taxes so that taxpayers (like you) can save banks. If you feel better with this, keep on using banks.

[Pursuer]

1. I think the currency is too volatile to be considered a currency

I agree that this is one of the biggest problems that bitcoin facing for becoming a currency but the good news is that the changes like $200 in one hour are so rare that they almost never happen and even if a $200 change happens it won't last, it will coma back to normal level right after.
there is also a solution for that, using services like bitpay which pays the merchant the equivalent fiat value instead.
and on top of it, the crazy volatility has been decreasing as bitcoin grows in popularity and adoption.

2. Nothing should be worth 0.001 USD in 2009-2010 and be worth $4,xxx in 2017... no stock has ever performed that great,

dude you need to research first then say things like that

this is nearly from 2009 bitcoin price to today's price of $267,100 a share

3. The only thing people can say about Bitcoin is it's decentralized and the blockchain... that's all you got? Decentralized is a bad thing, it means the moment the government ( which controls you btw ) decides eh... we don't want bitcoin anymore, banned! ( it happened in Bolivia, Bangladesh etc ) and it could happen in the USA or other countries if they started to feel threatened by it. It's not safe to have too much invested in it. What is backing it anyway? gold? and what is a bitcoin worth and what is gold worth? it's only worth what a consumer is willing to pay for it and if people come to realize Bitcoin is worthless ( it'll happen, just when is the question ) it'll come crashing down and the people that paid $4,000-($10x,xxx?) a coin will feel the pain when they lose everything.

that is the whole point of being decentralized. that if and when a government banned it, nothing happens to bitcoin. it stays alive and continues as before.
yes if a big country like US bans bitcoin someday the price will take a big hit but who cares, it won't kill bitcoin and that means the price will recover eventually.

and all that aside, why are we even talking about price here! clarify first that are you talking about bitcoin as a currency or bitcoin as an investment that you want more profit from.

4. Who really knows about Bitcoin? If it wasn't for me 90% of my friends would have never heard of it. My mom wouldn't have, my girlfriend... most people still do not know about Bitcoin in 2017 and the majority that DO know about it don't even understand how it works. You're trying to take a mindset of the AVERAGE person and make them understand something that's quite complex and difficult to learn to the average persons mind.

do you know how money is printed? I mean the technical details of it, the type of paper, the type of ink they use, the equipment they use, how long it takes, how they make it secure, add that line thingy, and lots of other details?

of course not. you don't know, your mom doesn't know, an average Joe doesn't know either. so why do you want to know the technical details of bitcoin?

all you need to know is how and where to download a wallet and some basic computer stuff like how to install a program
and these days with services like Coinbase that offer a wallet like paypal online there isn't really any need for "complicated stuff". you just make an account and use bitcoin!

5. Debit/credit card is always gonna win.

then use them. if you really feel you need to, and bitcoin is not suitable for that need of yours like your example here then use Debit/Credit cards. nobody is taking them away from you!
and your example is also weird! you say it is a trusted company but yet they said "something came up, so pay us more"!!! that doesn't make any sense!

6. What if I send to the wrong Bitcoin address by accident? ( it happens btw )

no it never happens!
here is my address: 1C8kZHcFBtREhRDrvo3P8LRAoDGXL739Do
change the last 2 letters for example from "Do" to "ab" your wallet will give you an error that this address is wrong.

7. Bitcoin isn't as anonymous as you think. I read an article earlier this year that stated the main things that attracted people to Bitcoin in general were not even in place anymore... no fees? gone. Not only gone, but as the prices go up, the fees will rise. Anonymous? not as much as it used to be. There were other things that changed as well, I forget now. I'm sure many of you know though

bitcoin is not 100% anonymous and it is not 100% traceable either and if someone told you otherwise in any article they were confused and you were on a bad resource.
as for fees, they were never supposed to be "no fees". the fees were a part of bitcoin from nearly the start around 2011 ish IIRC.

8. People still compare this to real money, because in the end 95% of people invested in bitcoin aren't in it for the long haul, they're in it so the price will jump a few hundred USD and they'll cash out with their profits. ..

I don't understand your point here!
bitcoin is still a new technology in its beta stage and is not yet adopted completely so what you expect is unreasonable.

besides, I think you need to take a trip to Japan and look around in their shopping centers then come back and try to repeat what you just said after seeing the bitcoin is accepted here everywhere without tax.

9. Hackers - people break into people's wallets and steal bitcoins all the time, and of course you have the big names that got robbed like last year Bitfinix, MtGox and many more to come. Of course there are issues anywhere online. Hackers exist either way you look at it. But if I am hacked and someone steals $50,000 from my bank account, I can get that back after I prove it was stolen and it was not me. If someone hacks my Bitcoin wallet and steals 10 coins? well... you're out of luck! Good luck though!

credit cards are stolen every second. how many bitcoin wallet is hacked every year?
feel free to hack my wallet!

also what you said about bitfinex,... has nothing to do with bitcoin! that is some third party who either were foolish enough to get hacked or shady enough to rob its users and say they were hacked. what does this have to do anything with bitcoin?

So in reality, most people that use Bitcoin are scammers,

then which one am I after 3-4 years?
which one are all the rest of people like those hundred million dollar payments that go through bitpay each month? are those all scammers buying stuff from legit merchants registered with bitpay?

[pugman]

But you still agree regardless that there is HIGH risk involved which should not be there. You tell me not to compare stock to bitcoin but stocks are the only thing to compare it to. It's the only thing that's not "tangible" per say that I can turn into a real currency. Real estate, while an investment is tangible and it matters about location. Location/condition doesn't exist or matter with Bitcoin/stocks, therefore I'll compare again. If I owned 100 shares of eBay no one is able to hack me and steal my shares, there are no issues with me transferring my 100 shares of eBay to anyone at anytime with fear of me being robbed, fears of me losing my shares, fears of fraud. None of it is there. I have used the Robinhood app for over a year and a half now and had no issues with stocks at all. I have had no issues with Bitcoin, but I've read a lot of horror stories of people being robbed. This should NOT be an issue at all. Something so great that people tout is the best thing ever, yet you're having high volume of scams, drugs, and theft? Sounds like I'm investing in Detroit, here take my copper pipes!

2. It is still controlled by people in some sense, that's why the hardfork happened. Because people were unhappy with conditions that Satoshi Nakamoto set.

5. You don't have to escrow or do anything like that with PayPal... if I want to order a new laptop online and I pay in Bitcoin and the laptop comes broken, who do I talk to? what if the seller blocks me? what can be done? Nothing.
6. It would be abused I'm sure, but so is Wal-mart's return policy when people go in and steal a $40 dollar item and bring it back to get some kind of compensation and say they bought it. People abuse systems regardless. But just as there are the 5% that ruin it for everyone, there's the 95% that really deserve compensation when they buy a broken item or an item that lasted 3 days before breaking. They deserve a refund. Which is why Walmart and many stores have buyer protection. We need it in place regardless of the abusers. There's abusers in every society, but I try to think that there's more good than bad people in the world. Although it seems the bad people are the ones adopting Bitcoin more than anyone else based on my eBay experiences and articles I've read.
7. The no fee system is what Satoshi and original adopters were so proud about in the beginning.
9. You say user fault, but how do you plan to teach every single user how to protect their wallets? especially the people that are not tech savvy? ( the average person )

An article I read recently - If you decide to buy bitcoin right now, after hearing about the big surge, you’d be buying high. The price of bitcoin may already have peaked (it had to happen before the news covered it, obviously), so anyone who buys right now are taking a dangerous bet. Despite bitcoin being at its highest ever recorded value, you’re counting on it to go even higher. That outcome is based on a volatile geopolitical issue: it depends on how North Korea reacts to current tensions. If North Korea does back down – or agree to do so due to concessions – then bitcoin values (like gold and the Japanese yen) can wind down just as quickly as they spiked.

Cryptocurrencies are a Form of Speculation
As the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has warned, cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin remain a speculative investment. Bitcoin is volatile, and has gone through several spikes and crashes. When these happen, the price movements in bitcoin don’t happen in small increments. Their value follows a whipsaw pattern, and it’s not uncommon to see losses or gains happen in increments of 20 per cent or more. While big gains are possible, it’s equally possible to lose much more than you initially invested. That makes bitcoin appropriate only if you’re looking for a high-risk alternative to complement your portfolio; it’s definitely not something to stake your life savings or retirement fund on.
Cryptocurrencies Can Be Hard to Spend or Liquidate
The main worry with bitcoin – and other cryptocurrencies – is the collapse of secondary markets. If things look bad, few investors will be ready to buy (even if they are, it will be at an extortionate price). When this happens, there are few avenues to exchange your Bitcoin for cash. One of the long term issues with bitcoin has been its lack of use in mainstream markets: you can’t go ezbuy or Carousell and start buying things with it or spend it in your grocery store. This results in a situation where, if bitcoin crashes, your only solution is to (1) sell it for dirt cheap to the few people willing to buy, or (2) hold on to it and hope it recovers, risking the loss of your entire investment if it never does. In any case, this means that money committed to bitcoin is likely to stay that way. You can’t cash it out without risking a loss – so make sure you have other savings on hand before you buy into it."

End of the day, people need a house, people need groceries, people don't need bitcoin. Very risky investment. If I see it drop to the 400 range again, I'll probably get a few coins, but I do not know if there is a permanent future ahead for bitcoin ( or any other cryptocurrency for that matter ) I guess when I'm 80 I'll either look back at this and be like "I was ridiculously stupid" or "I knew I was right!" I guess that part is yet to be seen. But I think it'll be the latter. I don't think this is revolutionary. I don't think there's anything unique about Bitcoin that can't be duplicated, or even made better. What if someone makes a bitcoin that if hacked funds can be returned? wallets were more simple and easy to understand for the average person? where there was so much protection that they have been around for over 15 years without any major scandals like MtGox etc? A place with REAL customer support I can call if I have a question? wait, that place kinda exists. It's called PayPal.

I do have to agree whatever you said does make sense,and yes at the end of the most people don't give shit about bitcoin if they have whatever they want i.e. a house,groceries,and much more.And about the updated bitcoin,i guess people would definitely use the updated one with whatever name it has been invented with and again like i said people won't give a shit about bitcoin then.I know a lot of people are not tech savvy but you can't help it as every one takes different time to learn something. And there are people who think that bitcoin can world poverty or change the world standing alone on top of the  world. The hell it wont unless and until each and everyone in the world alive knows how to use tech related stuff, and its only the first thing to do just so you know.

4. My dad can't even turn a desktop computer on ( not joking ) my dad grew up in the 1950s and knows nothing about technology, to try to get him to adapt to it would be harder than building a bridge from California to Hawaii My point is, MANY people don't understand technology and never will, my mom gets angry at her phone when she touches something wrong and can't figure out how to open facebook back up on her phone, so I have to calm her down and say mom press that icon there, now you go ahead and teach her about blockchain technology and how to open a wallet and use it please... and still half of the world doesn't use the internet yet. But those half that do not use the internet use real currency.

Very well said,indeed. My parents are also getting old and i don't know how to explain on how to use bitcoin or any other crypto-currency. It was a bit difficult to explain them  on how to use a phone,but i guess they will get a hang of it after i explain 100  times about crypto to them.

[CerealKing]

Pursuer -

1. Volatility is still a huge problem. You say it is becoming less common with $200 price jumps but yesterday August 19th it was trading at $4,038 at one point, then last night it was at $4,232, before tumbling down again to $4,115... that's still a kind of wide range to be in. Especially since 2 days antecedent on the 17th it was $4,510.

2. Warren Buffett is an investing genius. I have studied Berkshire Hathaway (BRKA, BRKB) There are REAL reasons behind why it BRKA went from $19 dollars in 1964 when Warren Buffett took over to what it is today. You can NOT compare Bitcoin to Berkshire. In the latest quarter Berkshire reported 90 billion dollars of surplus cash. Not including all the companies they own stock in. The entire Bitcoin market cap is worth less than 69 billion. There's no comparison. One is what people believe in, they believe in Bitcoin, therefore the price is what it is and the other is a real company making billions of dollars daily. Plus it wasn't 0.001 cents a share, it was $19 in 1964 which adjusted to 2017 inflation is $150.52, which even by today's standards is expensive for a lot of people.  

Warren Buffet "Stay away from it. It's a mirage, basically...The idea that it has some huge intrinsic value is a joke in my view."

3. If the USA and/or Japan ban Bitcoin it's basically done. There would be no coming back from it. If the majority of people stop using it for fear of prison time, the countries that haven't banned it would not be enough behind it to drive the price up to what it is today. It would die out quickly. Of course that's only a scenario of what if... but that what if question doesn't come to my mind in stocks. Something that's been here since 1817 in the USA and proven to work for the better part of the last 200 years.

4. Yes, coinbase is making it easier, but you're missing the point. I wasn't asking for the average person to become a bitcoin miner, I was asking the average person to use bitcoin. Most can't figure it out. Everyone on this forum can but I'm on a bitcoin forum, but if I was to ask a person for their smartphone and download Coinbase for them and put 100,000 Satoshi in their wallet and said okay go buy something from a vendor that accepts Bitcoin they would probably be confused without being taught how to use it. It's not as easy as swiping a card, and I think this is going to be something that would be an obstacle to overcome in the future. Maybe it can be, but it's something that will have to be taught how to be used and not come natural to most people.... and for that reason I'm out. ( lol )

5. You'll have to bring that up with the HVAC man, I thought he was trustworthy? I guess not. Sorry my example of how my credit card company saved me $1,250 is weird for you.

6. I heard people have done it before? I haven't but I read comments online, maybe things changed? I don't know. I guess I should've did more research on that one but I still think if you did send to the wrong wallet you should be able to recover your funds.

8. Maybe Japan can afford not to tax people? I know the USA is tax hungry and they're even starting to make people that come into the USA declare if they have over $10,000 in cryptocurrencies before they can even come into the USA. It's been a law forever in the USA that you had to declare over $10,000 in cash for tax purposes, now this. They want to control us in any possible way and tax us for anything. I don't agree with it, but it is what it is.

9. I'm not a hacker, but again, read quite a few stories of people putting coins in different wallets in fear of being hacked because there were many that did get hacked. One guy said he got hacked and lost many coins but when he reported it to the police, the police didn't take it seriously because at the time Bitcoin wasn't worth much as they are today and now he basically lost a fortune. I'm not sure the ratio of people being hacked vs credit cards stolen, of course the latter is a lot higher due to the pure volume and acceptance of credit cards, but you're missing the point on that one. I had my credit card stolen once before and someone put $300 on it before it got blocked. ( they blocked it so it couldn't be used anymore, something else bitcoin can not do ) and my credit card company realized the fraud and refunded me my $300...

Maybe I shouldn't have said most are scammers, but it can't be denied that many are. It brings new ways for scammers to hurt people since it's harder to put an ID to their actual wallet and it's non-refundable. I am sure Bill Gates has received death and extortion threats in the past, but it's pretty low when you go after a dying man and his family - During the last year of his life, the Finneys received anonymous calls demanding an extortion fee of 1,000 bitcoin. They became victims of swatting — a hoax "where the perpetrator calls up emergency dispatch using a spoofed telephone number and pretends to have committed a heinous crime in the hopes of provoking an armed police response to the victim’s home" Again, scammers are everywhere, but it just seems like a new place for scammers to come to. Doesn't mean everyone is, but if the system was corrected this would be less of an issue.

Hitlab - I agree that it could help out in situations like Venezuela. I have quite a few friends from Venezuela, none of them mentioned bitcoin to me and one of them has a candy store and her dad owns a grocery store. ( so they have food unlike many there ) and they don't accept bitcoin. I am sure many do but as of now still the main currency people accept is BsF despite the inflation rates. Right now 1 dollar buys 16,256 BSF approximately on the blackmarket, and back in March it was around $1 for 4,500 BsF and then it dropped into the 2,200 range and my friend said to me that she was trying to get the BsF together now so she could buy back some USD on the black market to save for her and her son to leave Venezuela. She didn't mention buying USD to buy bitcoin. I think her main goal is to just get out of that country, as with everyone. As soon as Venezuela starts to calm down and get back on the right track ( hopefully soon, because it's bad there right now ) and North Korea starts to act right ( again, hopefully soon. ) I believe people will start to have more trust in governments again. Although Trump might be an issue too... but that's a completely different topic I'm not wanting to touch.

Edit:
Also something I missed in my first post I know the internet changes some things but imagine if you started to print currency out of your house and distribute it somehow to people. The government would flip. It would be illegal within the first hour even if you said it's decentralized the fact is you printed off a currency and then imagine trying to spend this new currency you just made at stores. It's the same in theory what's happened here which is why I'm sure Satoshi wanted to keep his identity hidden in the beginning for fear of what could happen.

[Bob,no really,bob]

Thanks for your long and thoughtful post.

I do wonder though if you are confusing bitcoin as a currency with other financial services. Reading through your post I think there are three themes in what you are saying:

A) bitcoin is not as secure as credit cards.
Bitcoin is like cash rather than a credit card. Just like cash it’s not fundamentally secure, if I leave a wallet full of cash on the seat of my car it’s likely my car will be broken into and my wallet stolen, if I leave a wallet full of bitcoin on an insecure device it’s likely it will be hacked and stolen.

This is why card cards can charge the fees they can. You pay them through fees for the extra safety they offer of being able to cancel transactions which if you made with cash the cash would gone. There is nothing that stops a credit card company offering the same service using bitcoin as the currency rather than USD, I’m fact you probably will se that in a few years.

B) bitcoin goes up and down in value
Right now bitcoin is new, and we don’t know if it will be the crypto currency that survives in the long term. However in the long run a deflationary currency like bitcoin will always outperform holding money as cash, as the value of USD drops consistently year by year as more is created by the financial system. Bitcoin is not a stock, it doesn’t add value and pay a dividend like a company would. If anything it’s like gold, it’s value goes up as other currencies go down in value over the long run.

C) the infrastructure around bitcoin is not mature
Right now owning bitcoin is harder than owning cash or a credit card. Crypto currency is only going mainstream now and it’s going to get a lot easier to use in the new few years as the financial services industry adds more products on top of it. Already this year for the first time people who use investment banking services can open a bitcoin account, in a year or so most investment funds will own at least bitcoin. The mature products and services you are looking to use are on their way, but by the time they are here the chance to own a whole bitcoin for the average consumer will have long gone.

[CerealKing]

Thanks for your long and thoughtful post.

I do wonder though if you are confusing bitcoin as a currency with other financial services. Reading through your post I think there are three themes in what you are saying:

A) bitcoin is not as secure as credit cards.
Bitcoin is like cash rather than a credit card. Just like cash it’s not fundamentally secure, if I leave a wallet full of cash on the seat of my car it’s likely my car will be broken into and my wallet stolen, if I leave a wallet full of bitcoin on an insecure device it’s likely it will be hacked and stolen.

This is why card cards can charge the fees they can. You pay them through fees for the extra safety they offer of being able to cancel transactions which if you made with cash the cash would gone. There is nothing that stops a credit card company offering the same service using bitcoin as the currency rather than USD, I’m fact you probably will se that in a few years.

B) bitcoin goes up and down in value
Right now bitcoin is new, and we don’t know if it will be the crypto currency that survives in the long term. However in the long run a deflationary currency like bitcoin will always outperform holding money as cash, as the value of USD drops consistently year by year as more is created by the financial system. Bitcoin is not a stock, it doesn’t add value and pay a dividend like a company would. If anything it’s like gold, it’s value goes up as other currencies go down in value over the long run.

C) the infrastructure around bitcoin is not mature
Right now owning bitcoin is harder than owning cash or a credit card. Crypto currency is only going mainstream now and it’s going to get a lot easier to use in the new few years as the financial services industry adds more products on top of it. Already this year for the first time people who use investment banking services can open a bitcoin account, in a year or so most investment funds will own at least bitcoin. The mature products and services you are looking to use are on their way, but by the time they are here the chance to own a whole bitcoin for the average consumer will have long gone.

A. I can leave my cash in my house and wake up in 5 days and not worry that my USD is worthless. Bitcoin could crash at anytime, or it could go up thousands more. The point is we don't know. If we're comparing it to a cash currency it should be as stable as a cash currency, not in a bubble.  Plus you're kind of missing the point, cash is tangible. Bitcoin is not, if I lose anything on the internet, I should be able to get it back.

B. Who is to say that though? I get it's a program that someone made, but who is to say it is a currency? You can look at other altcoins like dogecoin and see they're almost worthless because there is no cap, but the thing is, it's all fake. Nothing is to say this is worth more or less except for people's feelings towards it. I think the article I quoted in my first post says it best ""There's certainly a lot of bullishness about bitcoin and cryptocurrency, and that's the case with bubbles in general. The psychology of bubbles fuels it. You just become more convinced that it's going to work. And the higher the price goes, the more convinced you become that you're right. But it's not going up because it's going to work. It's going up because of speculation." In other words, bitcoin’s upward momentum ­– even the price more than doubling within 90 days ­– may be a kind of self-fulfilling pipe dream."

In reality Bitcoin is only worth what you think it's worth and same goes with any cryptocurrency. They could all fail at any given time. This is a new technology.

Also everyone likes to point out the USD and the mint printing more and more each year, but no one takes into effect how much the government destroys each year. Here's a nice article on that: https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/04/the-destruction-of-money-who-does-it-why-when-and-how/236990/ but in case you don't want to click the link - Think about money being created. A furiously spinning printing press might come to mind. Now imagine money being destroyed. Do you think of a three-story shredder, a bonfire, a wide blue recycling bin?

You might have noticed that it's pretty hard to find any cash printed much earlier than the 1990s in circulation. Just as more money is constantly being created, it's also constantly being destroyed. Who are the destroyers of money, and how do they do it?

In 2010, 2.6 billion $1 bills were destroyed. ( keep in mind that was only $1 dollar bills, not $5's, $10's, $20's, $50's and even $100's which also get destroyed )

So yes there is inflation with USD but there's also the government behind it keeping inflation down by destroying old money, something else that won't happen in Bitcoin. There is no one really behind it anymore keeping it anything more than a fun hobby because you very well could lose everything you have invested in it.

C. I highly doubt that most places will start taking Bitcoin for many reasons, if I owned a business the only way I'd dream of taking Bitcoin if I could quickly turn it into USD ( so my money would be safe and secure ) not in something that's fake. I read through a lot of these forums and most people are always talking about whether they should hodl their bitcoins or sell them to realize their profit. If bitcoin was a currency, there would be no need to sell to realize a profit. You already have your profit. Why sell? I don't go around trying to sell my USD for a profit, I use it to buy groceries, houses, etc... look around the forums and see how many people talk about the money they've made by investing in bitcoin. Not that the money was bitcoin.

Plus, there are only a handful of people that own a majority of bitcoins, early adopters and people like the Winklevoss twins. Most people own no bitcoin, and most people that do own very very little. The amount of people that believe in bitcoin on a mass scale is actually really low. Too many if's about the technology and I see nothing amazing about the blockchain, and how only 21 million coins will ever be produced. I don't see how that could ever stop inflation. If anything I think it could help fuel it, think about my Venezuelan example up there how 1 USD used to be under 2,000 BsF and now it's over 16k BsF... think in 200 years if Bitcoin is the only currency ( lol ) and it's split up among so many people that for a loaf of bread it costs 100 Satoshi, a gallon of milk 250 Satoshi... and they're making no more of it, the blockchain is done. People will get sick of that and a new technology will emerge saying you can now buy a loaf of bread for 1 Shanaynay because this blockchain technology is new. Keep in mind that all these new technology's are using the same blockchain technology as well. I don't get how or why that's important to it. I guess Satoshi wanted the people to feel like they were doing something productive by "mining"

I just see too many down sides to Bitcoin and too many upsides to government controlled money... and trust me, I'll be the first one to tell you I'm not a fan of the government and/or taxes, but I see more potential in it than I do in bitcoin... plus at the end of the day it's a lot easier to use by far.

[Hazir]

4. Who really knows about Bitcoin? If it wasn't for me 90% of my friends would have never heard of it. My mom wouldn't have, my girlfriend... most people still do not know about Bitcoin in 2017 and the majority that DO know about it don't even understand how it works.

Bitcoin is still a relatively new concept and tech behind it is not widely known. This is only natural, give it time. How many people know about the Internet in the mid 90.?
Internet was used by crazy people who used modems and paid for every minute of connection, and no one knew exactly how it works either.
Look what happened to the Internet now - every single person is using it every day.

[the-doctor]

Man the hackers thing is such a big cons... I do not know if ever will find a way to fix this. But today the computers are so vulnerable so you cannot trust to hold signifant ammount of money in BTC if you invest flat at virst. It is just not safe there are so many way to penetrate and even cold storage it is not solution. IMO

[CerealKing]

Man the hackers thing is such a big cons... I do not know if ever will find a way to fix this. But today the computers are so vulnerable so you cannot trust to hold signifant ammount of money in BTC if you invest flat at virst. It is just not safe there are so many way to penetrate and even cold storage it is not solution. IMO

As long as there are files out there on the internet, hackers will exist. The sad truth about the internet. There's not much one can do about it. But that is one of the many reasons as mentioned I feel Bitcoin is too risky to invest a lot of capital in.

[CerealKing]

4. Who really knows about Bitcoin? If it wasn't for me 90% of my friends would have never heard of it. My mom wouldn't have, my girlfriend... most people still do not know about Bitcoin in 2017 and the majority that DO know about it don't even understand how it works.

Bitcoin is still a relatively new concept and tech behind it is not widely known. This is only natural, give it time. How many people know about the Internet in the mid 90.?
Internet was used by crazy people who used modems and paid for every minute of connection, and no one knew exactly how it works either.
Look what happened to the Internet now - every single person is using it every day.

Half the people in the world still don't have internet connection. Of course I get your point though, but it's still yet to be proven that Bitcoin can be mainstream as the internet, or even facebook for that matter. There's also always something that can and will come up that could replace Bitcoin. A good example of that is MySpace was king in 2004, they had many opportunities to buy Facebook but refused. Facebook took over and won, Facebook knows that this is a good possibility that someone will someday overtake them, so whenever they see a company coming up, they don't make the same mistake Rupert Murdoch did, they buy it no matter the cost. WhatsApp was 19 billion dollars. They bought Instagram, they tried more than once to buy SnapChat with Mark Zuckerberg even going to their house and knocking on their front door personally, they refused to sell and Facebook copied their features in hopes of killing out SnapChat knowing it could be some kind of competition to them.

So now there's where other issues come in, something better will always come up. Satoshi is nowhere to be found and there are no owners of the Bitcoin system, thus they can not keep buying competition as they come up and threaten them. I don't think they can compete when other currencies come up, especially if one is so much better. People say Bitcoin is the father, therefore it'll remain. LiveJournal was the father of Social media, then Xenga, then Friendster, Hi5, MySpace... how many of you on this forum use those on a daily basis? how many use Facebook?

Plus this is all even considering that the government doesn't decide to ban it outright. I read on this forum somewhere yesterday how if the government banned it, people would still use it. People use drugs and that too, is banned by the government. Drugs has a real effect behind it, you get high, you have a feeling of joy. There are reasons people use drugs, they want that feeling of not being sober. You don't get any kind of high from Bitcoins, it is supposed to be a currency, if the government did ban it, how would you use it? to buy a house? a car? go to the store and buy groceries? If the government does ban it and you continue to use Bitcoin, you're doing for hobby purposes only. There's no real investment behind it anymore as it could not be used anywhere publicly, which is what a currency is meant to be used for btw.

[Bob,no really,bob]

So yes there is inflation with USD but there's also the government behind it keeping inflation down by destroying old money, something else that won't happen in Bitcoin

How about coins that are no longer accessible? Private keys can be lost or their owner can die without revealing how to access them. Less coins, higher price.

The amount of money growing in the total money supply (from debt etc as well as actually printing dollar bills) way exceeds the amount of currency physically destroyed. Look at what a $100 bought in 1999 vs how much that same $100 buys today. $100 today buys a whole lot less fuel, food and rent.

I guess that’s one of the big advantages of bitcoin:
- it’s a deflationary currency and so can be used as a store of wealth in troubled economic times. It’s more likely to increase in value than the USD which we know will drop in value over the next few years.
- it’s not tied to geography and won’t be caught up in a trade war. If the world moves away from the USD as a global reserve currency (as nearly happened when the Euro came along) then the USD will tank. If you are in the U.K. holding pounds really sucks right now with brexit still reducing the value of every penny. Bitcoin, once its stable, allows for greater security than any one geographic currency.
- it cheap to transfer funds if you transferring large amounts
- it has MOST of the privacy of using cash with most of the advantages of using a quick to use debit card.

I agree with the OP though in that we are so early in the development of crypto currencies that buying bitcoin is a hobby rather than a long term investment. I’m very bullish about crypto in general but I’m not putting in more than an amount I’m willing to loose and these days I’m buying a basket of currencies not just holding bitcoin. There is no way to pick the crypto winner or winners today. In face we know that some of the current high market cap coins won’t be here in a few years - we just don’t know which.

[CerealKing]

So yes there is inflation with USD but there's also the government behind it keeping inflation down by destroying old money, something else that won't happen in Bitcoin

How about coins that are no longer accessible? Private keys can be lost or their owner can die without revealing how to access them. Less coins, higher price.

The amount of money growing in the total money supply (from debt etc as well as actually printing dollar bills) way exceeds the amount of currency physically destroyed. Look at what a $100 bought in 1999 vs how much that same $100 buys today. $100 today buys a whole lot less fuel, food and rent.

I guess that’s one of the big advantages of bitcoin:
- it’s a deflationary currency and so can be used as a store of wealth in troubled economic times. It’s more likely to increase in value than the USD which we know will drop in value over the next few years.
- it’s not tied to geography and won’t be caught up in a trade war. If the world moves away from the USD as a global reserve currency (as nearly happened when the Euro came along) then the USD will tank. If you are in the U.K. holding pounds really sucks right now with brexit still reducing the value of every penny. Bitcoin, once its stable, allows for greater security than any one geographic currency.
- it cheap to transfer funds if you transferring large amounts
- it has MOST of the privacy of using cash with most of the advantages of using a quick to use debit card.

I agree with the OP though in that we are so early in the development of crypto currencies that buying bitcoin is a hobby rather than a long term investment. I’m very bullish about crypto in general but I’m not putting in more than an amount I’m willing to loose and these days I’m buying a basket of currencies not just holding bitcoin. There is no way to pick the crypto winner or winners today. In face we know that some of the current high market cap coins won’t be here in a few years - we just don’t know which.

I remember in 2006 and 2007 we were paying almost 4 dollars a gallon in South Florida, and the national average if I read correctly was $1.30 a gallon in 1999. I'm paying now $2.05 or so a gallon here in Ohio. If anything, gas got cheaper over the years. As did many things. The house I am closing on in Huber heights in a few weeks last sold in 1997 for $72,000, I'm purchasing the property now (albeit it needs some work) for $17,500. I used to pay $3.00-$3.50 for a gallon of milk, I now pay 0.98 cents. The house I live in now, I paid $21,000 cash for it, it last sold for over $55,000 in 2002. I grew up in a house in Florida, where the average house was $150,000 a house by 2002 and $230,000 a house by 2006 ( peak economy ) by 2008 they were worth $55,000-$75,000... there will always be inflation, but time and time again currencies and economies have properly corrected themselves. I do understand that over the years many things have gone up, and I have just shown you a few examples ( I have more ) but I also have some I can show you that are higher now too, as I'm sure anyone could. But with that also comes higher wages. So it makes up for the partial inflation, and when you have higher wages, and spend less on gas, milk, bread, buying a property, and even rent in some areas. It makes life a lot easier. I used to own a rental duplex in 2015 in Dayton, Ohio. The rent I charged was $475 per unit, 2 bedrooms, 1 bathroom. Albeit, it was Dayton and not Beverly Hills or SF. ( But then again, that goes back to the location rule of real estate.)

I used to live in Dayton in 2009 and rent down the same road where I ended up buying my duplex was $425 for a 1 bedroom 1 bathroom and $525 for 2 bedroom 1 bathroom. Rent did not increase at all, actually due to competition of other apartment buildings in the area, I had to lower my rent to $475 to get people because now I can find a 2b/1b there for $500 all utilities included ( I wasn't including utilities, I had to make some money lol )

My point is, the US seems kind of stable, maybe in Venezuela this could be great. I just don't see a need for it at the moment here in the USA. If you know about the genesis block that was first mined by Satoshi Nakamoto himself it had a hidden message "The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks" But in all reality the economy was just adjusting itself to a normal, natural level before it got out of hand. I admire his thinking that he wanted to create a currency that would not crash and could be used in times of turmoil like The Great Recession, but it's already been proven up to this point that it's an investment, not a currency. 99% of the people that invest in Bitcoin invest in hopes it goes up so they can sell out for USD, YEN, SGD, or whatever their currency is. They don't buy it in hopes of using it on their next grocery visit. Therefore, I don't see how Bitcoin protects anyone from inflation, if anything bitcoin itself is inflated right now with its crazy prices. I just think that this is not what Satoshi Nakamoto had in mind when he/they designed it. But then again he/they own around 1 million Bitcoins, so maybe this is what they want? That's to be determined.

- it’s not tied to geography and won’t be caught up in a trade war. If the world moves away from the USD as a global reserve currency (as nearly happened when the Euro came along) then the USD will tank. If you are in the U.K. holding pounds really sucks right now with brexit still reducing the value of every penny. Bitcoin, once its stable, allows for greater security than any one geographic currency. ----- That's yet to be proven.

[Holliday]

[CryptoBry]

I guess you have to understand that Bitcoin is not actually aiming for all people of this planet to be using it. Bitcoin is here for everybody but not everybody can be for Bitcoin. We have to accept that fact because we are still a free marketplace. And even if you would not want anything to do with Bitcoin, I am sure you are not a big loss with the King of cryptocurrencies because Bitcoin can go on without you.

Bitcoin is never perfect and will never be because it is just also man-made but compared to other innovation this can be far-reaching in scope and application. By the way, maybe 5 years from now, I hope you can be able to go back to this post of yours and make some serious evaluation of your orientation and decision. We all have to make some choices and it is okay...it is all right...if you have already decided not to go with Bitcoin anymore.