Since Bitcoin was created, many believed it could become a universally accepted currency—borderless, fast, and independent from governments. But in reality, can Bitcoin ever be used for everyday purchases? Issues like slow transaction fees, network congestion, volatility, and merchant adoption remain challenges today. While solutions like Lightning Network continue to improve speed and cost, there’s still a long way to go. Do you think Bitcoin will ever function as a global currency, or will it stay more as an investment and store of value?
I think you mean Bitcoin being accepted as legal tender globally? Because Bitcoin, in its current form, is a global currency. It exists in the Internet. Therefore, anyone can use it anywhere in the world as long as there's Internet access. Bitcoin's decentralized nature allows people to use it as an alternative to Fiat regardless of restrictions/limitations imposed by the government.
There is nothing wrong with these propositions to suggest that if bitcoin is able to be transacted in various places around the world, then surely there is some currency aspect to it whether it is recognized and/or accepted by governments, institutions or whether there are ways to exchange bitcoin for goods, services or for other currencies. The more abilities for bitcoin to be transacted and the more governments and/or financial institutions that recognize it, then more arguments can be made about its global currency status, even though surely all of the players are not even needed as long as there are two people.. and maybe not even two people since if I am in one jurisdiction and then I want to send value to myself in another jurisdiction, there is some value with that, even though perhaps to have a medium of exchange there might be a need to have at least two parties, even if there can be some value in exchanging with yourself but not as much support that it is being used to transact value.
By design, Bitcoin's transaction capacity is limited. So it can't be used properly as "digital cash" as you would with other cryptocurrencies. Even the limited supply and deflationary model makes it more suitable as a store of value.
You are making little sense here. Even if there might be some shitcoins that might be better or easier to transact value in a way in which the value is secured without third parties (which I doubt), bitcoin does not need to be used to buy coffee from your favorite vendor in town x in order for it to still be counted as a currency that has crossed borders.
And the fact that bitcoin happens to be a store of value (or even supposedly better as a store of value) does not take anything away from it being able to be exchanged. Being a store of value (and even being able to hold value or appreciate in value) likely provides incentives for others to want to accept it since it is perceived as holding value that they might be able to exchange at a future date.
While the Lightning Network helps improve speed and reduce costs, it won't solve the "volatility" problem.
If we are worried about volatility within an exchange period and if someone is getting into bitcoin and then back into fiat, then the volatility problem would just be for the period of time that they might estimate that they have to hold the bitcoin.
Maybe a volatility problem exists for someone who might hold 1 - 3 years, and if they might not take any measures to attempt to offset their volatility?
I would imagine volatility in a 5-10 year or longer timeline would most likely be to the upside - even though there is no guarantee that bitcoin will be higher in price 5-10 years into the future, and of course, many times, hedging measures can be taken for longer term too.
People want something stable, fast, and easy to use. For cross-border money transfers, stablecoins are a much better choice. I believe Bitcoin will remain a store of value forever. Who knows what lies ahead in the future?
You think that you have it figured out? Do you think that there could be any problems with the fact that stable coins and money transfers are going through 3-rd parties? You don't see any use case that don't involve going through 3rd parties.
What if you happen to be a somewhat unknown person who had been quietly accumulating bitcoin for even as long as your forum registration date (in November 2014) and you had invested around $100 per week into bitcoin starting from around your forum registration date, so you had invested right around $60k and you had accumulated right around 35 BTC. Maybe you want to move all of your bitcoin wealth from one jurisdiction to another or engage in some kinds of transactions without using 3rd parties. Do you think that there is some value in that, or do you think that it would be better to use a stable coin or to use a money transfer?
Holy shit Abiky. You have been registered on the forum for more than 11 years, and you have not figured out that moving bitcoin is a currency like use case for bitcoin, yet instead you want to put your bitcoin in stable coins or money transfer since you think that it would be a better way to transfer (or transact) with your value - especially moving across borders?
It is a bit funny, and maybe ironic that you have not sufficiently figured out a value proposition for bitcoin (beyond some amorphous and meaningless ideas of store of value that forces you to transact through third parties) in the time that you have been participating in this forum.
By the way, you could transact 35 BTC anywhere in the world and to anyone with a bitcoin wallet for a fee of less than a few dollars (if all of the BTC holdings were in one address). Sure if you accumulated 35 BTC over 11-ish years, then you may well have your BTC holdings in several bitcoin wallet addresses, so it might cost you a dollar (or more than a dollar) - transaction fees have been pretty inexpensive recently in order to transact each address that you hold the BTC... so it would cost you more if you had 1,000s of addresses versus if you had hundreds of addresses, and if you had created a new address each week for 11 years, then that would be close to 600 addresses, yet I still doubt that transaction fees are as big of an obstacle as having to go through 3rd parties, as you seem to presume to be a preferable way of transacting the value that you could have accumulated over the past 11-ish years with a persistent and consistent investment of a mere $100 per week.
Do you think Bitcoin will ever function as a global currency, or will it stay more as an investment and store of value?
If what you mean as a global currency is accepted by all countries in the world, most likely it will not happen, since the countries of the world are not willing that the role of their currencies can be replaced by other currencies which can interfere with the use of their currencies in people.
But that doesn't mean that you can't use Bitcoin globally, you can use it to pay and receive payments anywhere regardless of what country it is. About fees it should not be a problem because now the fees are lower and network congestion is much more manageable than before.
It is important to stress again that bitcoin isn't going to be replaced because no government is going to allow that.
Bitcoin is not asking for permission to be used, and sure some governments (and financial institutions) may well put obstacles in the way, yet there are still ways to transact with bitcoin accross borders whether governments give permission or not.
If guys on this forum believe that bitcoin needs permission to transact, then they seem to NOT understand what bitcoin is and why so many governments are either worried about bitcoin and directly battling with it, and other governments are trying to co-opt it... and sure it is likely better if governments were to have hands off approaches to bitcoin, yet there are not many governments that are willing to do that, and if they do allow normies to use bitcoin however they like, then those governments are likely getting pressured from the various other governments that are not so permissive.
With fiat, governments make decisions concerning taxation, government debts and economic policies. Bitcoin can always come in in situations where fiat fails.
Well. At least you recognize that bitcoin might be able to be used in ways outside of fiat.
It doesn't make any sense that when we talk about bitcoin going global or being successful, the first thing some persons think about is how bitcoin will be made a legal tender and replace fiat. No, bitcoin doesn't need to replace fiat to go global or be successful.
Why didn't you lead with this?
The main point is that bitcoin is already global and bitcoin is already successful
Sure there are still various battles going on, yet bitcoin can already be used anywhere in the world where someone else is willing to accept it. Bitcoin does not have to go through a third party in order to have valid transactions.
The fact that one can carryout borderless transactions without any permission shows how global bitcoin can be. Bitcoin is already global, I don't know how global op wants it to be.
It seems that you wrote your post in a backwards way. You agree that bitcoin is global, yet you start out trying to argue about what governments might or might not allow... What governments (and financial institutions) allow or don't allow is not a non-issue, yet the issue about what is allowed seems to be a secondary observation as compared to what bitcoin allows.
Sure, I am not expecting governments and/or financial institutions to stop with their various attacks on bitcoin, yet the mere fact that they are attacking does mean that they are going to get their way.. .and surely what the public wants might not be clear either, since people who own bitcoin are also in the government and in financial institutions and yeah, it can be messy to figure out how matters will play out, including various desperations for control that governments and/or financial institutions tend to have. They have made a lot of money over the years and even robbed the people over the years though various fiat systems... and even if bitcoin does not completely fix the various corruptive aspects of fiat systems, it can still incentivize some of those problematic areas to be more responsible since the ability to print and to dilute the currency is harder to achieve in bitcoin, even though there are a quite a few bitcoin paper products that are not 1/1 backed by bitcoin that they supposedly represent.. so some of those players might get caught on the wrong side of not having the bitcoin that they claim to have.
It is important to stress again that bitcoin isn't going to be replaced because no government is going to allow that. With fiat, governments make decisions concerning taxation, government debts and economic policies. Bitcoin can always come in in situations where fiat fails.
It doesn't make any sense that when we talk about bitcoin going global or being successful, the first thing some persons think about is how bitcoin will be made a legal tender and replace fiat. No, bitcoin doesn't need to replace fiat to go global or be successful.
The fact that one can carryout borderless transactions without any permission shows how global bitcoin can be. Bitcoin is already global, I don't know how global op wants it to be.
It is true that Bitcoin has become global, as people can conduct transactions using it without needing any permission. However, global assets are different from global currencies. These two concepts are different, and what the OP want to know is whether Bitcoin is used as a global currency
Global currency need to meet criteria such as being a unit of account, a standard in international trade, and being widely accepted...not simply for transferring money across borders. Has Bitcoin met those criteria yet?
The harsh truth is that Bitcoin is not yet a global currency
Bitcoin does not need to meet all of those criteria that you proclaim that it needs to meet, unless you are trying to proclaim that its ability to transact anywhere int he world with anyone with a bitcoin wallet does not count unless everyone ready, willing and/or able to recognize the transaction as if it were a global reserve currency.
You are putting unrealistic requirements on bitcoin, and the mere fact that bitcoin can be sent anywhere in the world to anyone who is willing to accept it, should be enough to concede that bitcoin is global, even if not everyone in any particular community is willing to transact in bitcoin.
I will grant to you that it is true that in some location bitcoin is more known than other places, and in some places more people own bitcoin than other places, yet those seem to be arguments in regards to how wide spread bitcoin might be in any particular location, when the fact of the matter, there would ONLY be a need for 1 person in any particular jurisdiction to accept bitcoin in order for bitcoin to count, and sure maybe he cannot spend in his jurisdiction, so he can ONLY spend internationally since he does not know anyone to transact with... yet I doubt that those kinds of cases take away from bitcoin already being a global currency and having enough people around the world ready, willing and able to accept bitcoin.
You, Swordsoffreedom, seem to have some minimum requirement for each location? Do you need government or financial institution recognition? or 1 merchant in each location? I think that you are requiring too much... even if in some locations we might have to survey 1,000 people before we find one willing to take bitcoin, and maybe we might have to pay extra in some locations if people are reluctant to take bitcoin.
