Bitcoin simply cannot replace fiat

[b!z]

http://letstalkbitcoin.com/bitcoin-simply-cannot-replace-fiat/#.UpmkkcRpmEw

Yes or no? What do you think?

[User705]

Replace the word bitcoin and fiat in that article with cars and horses, fax machine and letters, tv and live entertainment, computers and pen & paper, smartphone and ehh whatever ...  By now it should sink in.

[JTrain_51]

The only way bitcoin will take over fiat if those little countrys start using it and other countrys catch on

[ajax3592]

Well it will remain as an alternative to fiat, since 25% of the adult population of world is Illiterate. They can't even read numbers, how would they handle virtual wallets.

Nice article there btw John.

[jubalix]

haha , wrong

see even if bitcoin can't some crypto will fill the gap, between store of wealth crypto and daily small buy crypto.


Eg see emunie EMU.
http://forum.emunie.com/

[jaked]

Well it will remain as an alternative to fiat, since 25% of the adult population of world is Illiterate. They can't even read numbers, how would they handle virtual wallets.

Nice article there btw John.

People used money long before they invented writing.
It wasn't fiat money, not even gold, but rather other mediums of exchange, such as neck-lets and shells.

In Africa smartphones are now more abundant than electricity.
I wouldn't worry too much about Bitcoin adoption in regards to the 3rd world. If anything, they'll benefit from it the most, as a way to evade their ruthless dictatorships.

[jballs]

haha , wrong

see even if bitcoin can't some crypto will fill the gap, between store of wealth crypto and daily small buy crypto.


Eg see emunie EMU.

I went to their site and none of the pages will load.

Am I obsolete or are they still in start up or what?




edit- I have other issues with btc for sure but the OP article is just stupid... as mentioned things like "fiat will stay because everybody is used to it" are anachronisms for morons. Everything is changing and if you can't see that your opinion is not persuasive in my book. Aside, I've lived on almost entirely digital USD for ~5 years now, only ever use cash to tip for service. 99% of USD is already digital, only difference being a couple dozen jagoffs who own it can donate themselves 85 billion a month for nothing and call it capitalism with a straight face.

[linuxnewbie]

Fiat will die, but most of the legacy payment infrastructure will survive, at least for a few years. For most people, the transition to Bitcoin will be effortless, or nearly so, because banks will start offering all of their services in Bitcoin (for a fee), the most important services being storage and debit cards for use at points of sale.

[Relian]

I think it can never replace fiat. I only hope one day it will live in peace together with other payment methods. I see cryptocurrency like some NFC chip, or bankcard.

[jballs]

Fiat will die, but most of the legacy payment infrastructure will survive, at least for a few years. For most people, the transition to Bitcoin will be effortless, or nearly so, because banks will start offering all of their services in Bitcoin (for a fee), the most important services being storage and debit cards for use at points of sale.

Fiat will die, but most of the legacy payment infrastructure will survive, at least for a few years. For most people, the transition to Bitcoin will be effortless, or nearly so, because banks will start offering all of their services in Bitcoin (for a fee), the most important services being storage and debit cards for use at points of sale.

In the end, the only reason fiat works is that it is coercive. Government requires taxes paid in legal tender, and that is how banks control government and serf alike.

Government will have to accept BTC for the whole thing to cycle properly. Though they accepted slikroads quickly enough and if the banks take it up the gov will too I imagine.

[LiteCoinGuy]

Bitcoin does not need or want to replace fiat.

[ajax3592]

Well it will remain as an alternative to fiat, since 25% of the adult population of world is Illiterate. They can't even read numbers, how would they handle virtual wallets.

Nice article there btw John.

People used money long before they invented writing.
It wasn't fiat money, not even gold, but rather other mediums of exchange, such as neck-lets and shells.

In Africa smartphones are now more abundant than electricity.
I wouldn't worry too much about Bitcoin adoption in regards to the 3rd world. If anything, they'll benefit from it the most, as a way to evade their ruthless dictatorships.

Personally I want the Bitcoin to turn into a universal currency, but it's just it doesn't seem possible.

[ninjafocus100]

It will. But, It will take some time. Give it 100 years.

[deisik]

People used money long before they invented writing.
It wasn't fiat money, not even gold, but rather other mediums of exchange, such as neck-lets and shells.

Undoubtedly, they should have been able to count and thus had to write their calculations somewhere. So serious doubts arise as to whether they had been using money before they invented some primitive form of writing...

[deisik]

In the end, the only reason fiat works is that it is coercive. Government requires taxes paid in legal tender, and that is how banks control government and serf alike.

I wouldn't say so. Governments do require taxes to be paid in legal tender, but before that you have to earn this legal tender somehow to pay those taxes with. So, in the first place, we have the public sector of the economy where governments themselves pay in this legal tender, and what is important here, pay before they collect taxes. This proves that the reasons fiat works have rather economic roots...

[JohnsonX]

It will. But, It will take some time. Give it 100 years.

I say no more than 10.

[qwerty555]

Bitcoin cannot completely replace all fiat but crypto currency can .

1 ALL fiats eventually die this is well known to any who actually study fiat history

http://georgewashington2.blogspot.com/2011/08/average-life-expectancy-for-fiat.html

2 Even the long standing ones ( UK pound) lose 99% of their value

3 Bitcoin, the ground breaker, may have a similar lifespan or even shorter if new better cryptos are created or evolve.

4 There are a number of issues with bitcoin which have serious consequences in the future.
The major one that I can see is the LOSS of coins which can NEVER be replaced ( lost addresses due to death of owner (sudden or otherwise) which if compared to fiat runs at about 0.5-1% per annum. This suggests that once the 21M have all been mined there will already be a loss of 25%. going forward that amount will reduce by a further 25% every 50 years.

The standard answer to that is, ok those with coins get an increase in value due to the reduction in supply, and in any case we can just increase the decimal place. However this is patently unfair to new owners and may well have unwanted  inflationary effects. Ultimately that will not be tolerated by Governments and the masses.

A crypto with a mechanism to identify and replace the lost coins to maintain the equilibrium will probably be more acceptable and successful in world wide adoption.

But most probably bitcoin still has a long way to run before it is challenged by another crypto

[mu]

Badly written, short-sighted article.

"Fiat rules the world because it's what people are used to."
No, fiat rules the world because the modern capitalist world has agreed on a system of constant inflation for its money system.

"Bitcoin is technology based"
As is fiat in the 21st century. The foreign exchange market, credit card machines, ATMs, and personal banking all require an Internet connection to function.

"Bitcoin is complex"
Fiat is complex. Most people just don't think about the constantly fluctuating exchange rates, inflation, and the fact that governments routinely print money out of thin air. Because they don't need to think about it. If bitcoin becomes a valid form of currency, banks will hide all the technical details from end-users (while taking a cut, of course), just as they do with fiat dollars.

"Volatility and finances"
Every new form of currency is extremely volatile in its early years. The price will stabilize in the future.


There are several valid reasons why bitcoin may fail in replacing fiat currency (I think the massive global capitalist infrastructure profiting from and violently enforcing itself isn't going to go down fighting), but this article doesn't bring up any of them.

[qwerty555]

http://bitcoinrichlist.com/top500

Using the top 500 address list there are a number of wallets with no activity since 2010 and 2011. The probability that these are LOST addresses is high as is the value.

Anyone want to work out the % of coins involved?

[mu]

http://bitcoinrichlist.com/top500

Using the top 500 address list there are a number of wallets with no activity since 2010 and 2011. The probability that these are LOST addresses is high as is the value.

I hope so - it's greedy of me, but that means more value for the coins that are still in circulation.