Volatility IS a bug, not a feature :)

[JaanusRaim]

https://coinmarketcap.com/historical/20131126/

one snapshot from the distant past.... THIS is volatility
       
                  %1h        %24h       %7d
Bitcoin     1.88%       15.73%      59.68%
Litecoin   8.68%        67.69%    156.67%
XRP        0.63%        59.54%    313.49%
Namecoin -1.73%     92.86%    620.76%

[Wind_FURY]

The mathematically controlled Bitcoin supply prevents that Bitcoin will have an extremely low volatility. So fiat-like values are probably impossible.

But it should not be much higher than gold's volatility in "normal times" (not taking into account the 1980s or the 2025/26 bubble).

But who are you to say what "should" or "should not" be? No plebs like us could simply order the market to have lower volatility than Gold in "normal times", no? Proposing that in itself is laughable.

That can be achieved by behavioral changes in the community: using DCA instead of hoard-and-sell, adopting it as a currency, not believing anymore in "get rich quick" but in "a stable asset which is likely to grow slowly to moderately".

 

OK, if you believe those behavioral changes in the community are possible. But the psychological nature of the market, ANY market including Bitcoin, has shown that what you propose is impossible. Those DCA buyers are also susceptible to Panic-Selling and FOMO.

[d5000]

Given that there are now $trillions going through stablecoins everyday, saying they "solve no problem" doesn't exactly agree with the marketplace.

These "trillions" are mainly used to move coins from exchange to exchange, for DeFi stuff and other "financial" types of usage. See this study.

A note: The study differentiates "payments" (0.7%) and "transfers" (29.3%). "Transfers" at the first glance looks good but:

transfers consist mainly of high-value movements into and out of DeFi protocols and for internal treasury applications (Ved 2026; Ingham 2026).

So a large part of the transfers can be added to the financial categories ("Exchanges", "Finance" and "Infrastructure") which together make up around 50%.  Thus we'd have about 65-70% of financial usage. The most relevant non-financial usage is "cross-border transfers among corporate branches across countries" (also part of "Transfers") which could make up around 10-15%, unfortunately the study isn't giving a clear number here. And then there is the "idle" category, which also groups together coins held in saving wallets, but also includes "lost" stablecoins.
 

some stablecoins have ZERO fees.

That can only apply to completely centralized stablecoins (on private blockchains or non-blockchain networks), as in all other cases you pay gas fees or other transaction fees. They're often small, but they add friction which you don't have at PayPal (from the consumer's perspective) nor with cash or credit cards etc..

You don't get to tout the benefits of Bitcoin and then add the L2, which negates the benefits you tout, and then talk about them together as if the combination magically solves a problem when it doesn't.

The L2's I'm talking about here are those that provide a so-called "unilateral exit". See the definition at https://www.bitcoinlayers.org/glossary#unilateral-exit.

This means that you actually do have the final word in custody, and so you can't be censored. Both Lightning and Ark provide this feature.

I'm not talking about Liquid, RSK and similar stuff. I do see some potential for a special type of sidechain where unilateral exit is not possible but instead the exit mechanism works based on incentives (Threshold tBTC, Nomic, the future plans for Stacks ...) but here indeed you have more counterparty risk.

And if you want to say, "but the L2 doesn't add any risk", then why have Bitcoin in the first place?

Because if you consider the problems Satoshi wanted to solve relevant, then you need a strong base asset on decentralized foundations. These decentralized foundation cannot be provided by 1) non-blockchain payment ledgers nor by 2) semi-centralized fast blockchains. And thus we need the "slow" L1.

And Bitcoiners love volatility because... that's the whole point.

Some do, some not.

people buying their coffee in the morning with Bitcoin...

Is a completely irrelevant category of payments.

[legiteum]

Given that there are now $trillions going through stablecoins everyday, saying they "solve no problem" doesn't exactly agree with the marketplace.

These "trillions" are mainly used to move coins from exchange to exchange, for DeFi stuff and other "financial" types of usage.

Just because you personally don't find the usage interesting, doesn't mean it isn't useful.

Stablecoins are doing $trillions in transactions. They are not "useless" as you implied. From a utility standpoint, they are doing thousands of times the volume as Bitcoin does. They are not a fad, they are not going away, etc.

some stablecoins have ZERO fees.

That can only apply to completely centralized stablecoins (on private blockchains or non-blockchain networks), as in all other cases you pay gas fees or other transaction fees. They're often small, but they add friction which you don't have at PayPal (from the consumer's perspective) nor with cash or credit cards etc..

I wasn't going to get into the technical details (not that any of their users care either), but suffice it to say that there are stablecoins with zero fees and millisecond-level clearing time. This is a useful product and hundreds of times faster than any credit card or app like PayPal that uses the traditional banking system to perform its transactions.

The only products that offer true "decentralization" is Bitcoin and a few other PoW (not PoS like Ether etc.) and you have to use that product natively, not with an L2, and you need to use it purely with self-custody, not through an app, an ETF, or a broker, or anything like that.

In other words, there are very, very few users out there these days using a decentralized system. And guess what: nobody cares. The products solve the problems they want to solve.

The L2's I'm talking about here are those that provide a so-called "unilateral exit". See the definition at https://www.bitcoinlayers.org/glossary#unilateral-exit.

This means that you actually do have the final word in custody, and so you can't be censored. Both Lightning and Ark provide this feature.

Ark and Lightning are... their own system. They are not Bitcoin. If you list all of the things you think makes Bitcoin amazing and unique, you will find these systems don't have that. In fact, they are systems you would probably deride as "centralized".

The reason L2s are fast and efficient is because they are more centralized, don't use PoW, etc. But without that, then it isn't Bitcoin. You might as well use Robinhood, which uses an Oracle database to keep track of your BTC holding amount. It's no different. Robinhood buys or sells your Bitcoin a few minutes after you click the button, and L2s might do it a few seconds after (presumably), but the principle is the same. You are no longer using a decentralized system.

All you have to do is think of the problem in fundamentals: the system is either truly "decentralized" the way Bitcoin is, and with that it is very slow, very expensive and impossible to scale, or it's fast/cheap/scalable and it's not as decentralized. There is no magic software that can bend the laws of physics.

[YellowSwap]

These are the main reasons for crypto adoption:

Merchants cite several advantages to accepting crypto, led by:
    Faster transaction speed (45%)
    Access to and attraction of new customers (45%)
    Enhanced security features (41%)
    Greater privacy for customers (40%)

I did wonder about transaction speed too, I know 0 confirmation would have explained that, but the finality does make sense, never thought about it that way -- but also not sure if merchants really would mention that as a reason for transaction speed, given that there could be refunds in lieu of chargebacks anyway.

Last year I saw pie shops in Liverpool explicitly sayng why they dont' accept credit cards and still prefer cash to debit cards: it's because they pay what they feel is high fees.

Surprised this is not more reason for merchants accepting crypto. My guess is most merchants using crypto use a settlement service that charges them fees anyway (hello BTCPay!).

Keep in mind that this study asked respondents theoretical questions, e.g. "IF you were to take crypto as payment, why would you want to do that?". In other words, this was not a study of merchants who were already accepting crypto for payments.

I suspect almost all of those respondents were not aware of how long Bitcoin transactions actually take to execute (viz. 10-100x longer than credit cards), and how much they cost. Most probably assume that since crypto is newer, it must be a lot faster and cheaper.

Also note the study asked about crypto generally, not Bitcoin specifically. Insofar as respondents knew the difference, all of the assumptions around practicality would be totally different for the generic concept of "cryptocurrency" versus Bitcoin specifically.

Everyone has their reasons as to why they would prefer to use Bitcoin as payment solution, for example if Bitcoin transaction is costly than using my credit card I won't care simply because I am all into Bitcoin, funny part is I don't even use credit and debits card.

I don't have one, I don't also go Infront of ATM machines to withdraw money, online banking is all I can do and still I prefer using Bitcoin to buy things that are so far away from my location, like cross border payments.

As for the speed I don't even care about it either, because I am not in a hurry to get the goods that I am paying for, it will take weeks to ship it down to my country and the longest wait I've waited while paying with Bitcoin is not even up to 20minutes.

So I believe that Bitcoin working for cross border payment is enough reason for some people to use Bitcoin as payment over speed and fee, like I said, we all have our reasons and this is mine.

[Ambatman]

Stablecoins give users all the benefits of Bitcoin etc. in terms of anonymity and instant settlement but with higher speed, lower transaction fees, and is based on a more stable financial instrument e.g. USD.

You stated something about trade off when speaking about L2 speed and decentralization
And you believe it doesn't apply to stablecoins?
They can't have all the benefits of Bitcoin since they enjoy some strength in its weaknesses, scalability.
But censorship and centralization still prevalent
And these are the reasons Bitcoin succeeded.

Bitcoin is only viable an investment instrument, not a payment mechanism.

Because it's slow? Speed isn't everything
What matters is it works and gets to its destination not everybody are fixated on speed.

The reason L2s are fast and efficient is because they are more centralized, don't use PoW, etc. But without that, then it isn't Bitcoin. You might as well use Robinhood, which uses an Oracle database to keep track of your BTC holding amount. It's no different. Robinhood buys or sells your Bitcoin a few minutes after you click the button, and L2s might do it a few seconds after (presumably), but the principle is the same.

Lightning is part of Bitcoin itself and your coins are stored in multisig channels
directly on the Bitcoin blockchain and  secured by the same PoW and consensus rules.
And comparing with Robinhood is like comparing Bitcoin with ETFs
RobinHood use a form of IOU while in lightning( running your lightning node) you can force close the channel unilaterally
and settle back to the Bitcoin base layer.

[legiteum]

Keep in mind that this study asked respondents theoretical questions, e.g. "IF you were to take crypto as payment, why would you want to do that?". In other words, this was not a study of merchants who were already accepting crypto for payments.

I suspect almost all of those respondents were not aware of how long Bitcoin transactions actually take to execute (viz. 10-100x longer than credit cards), and how much they cost. Most probably assume that since crypto is newer, it must be a lot faster and cheaper.

Also note the study asked about crypto generally, not Bitcoin specifically. Insofar as respondents knew the difference, all of the assumptions around practicality would be totally different for the generic concept of "cryptocurrency" versus Bitcoin specifically.

Everyone has their reasons as to why they would prefer to use Bitcoin as payment solution, for example if Bitcoin transaction is costly than using my credit card I won't care simply because I am all into Bitcoin, funny part is I don't even use credit and debits card.

Totally fair, but our discussion here is about the market generally. Your situation is obviously going to be very rare. If Bitcoin was only useful for people like yourself, it would not be relevant to most of the world.

Stablecoins give users all the benefits of Bitcoin etc. in terms of anonymity and instant settlement but with higher speed, lower transaction fees, and is based on a more stable financial instrument e.g. USD.

You stated something about trade off when speaking about L2 speed and decentralization
And you believe it doesn't apply to stablecoins?
They can't have all the benefits of Bitcoin since they enjoy some strength in its weaknesses, scalability.
But censorship and centralization still prevalent
And these are the reasons Bitcoin succeeded.

I said exactly what you are saying. Some stablecoins have traded the factor of "decentralization" (vaguely defined here) for speed, cost and scalability. It's a straightforward architectural trade-off.

Bitcoin is only viable an investment instrument, not a payment mechanism.

Because it's slow? Speed isn't everything
What matters is it works and gets to its destination not everybody are fixated on speed.

There are some uses that don't care about speed, but mainstream everyday payments simply cannot wait any longer than today's credit cards make them wait or users would not accept it.

And we're talking about billions of payments per day. There's no chance Bitcoin could get even within 100x of that: today it does perhaps 500k per day--using $30 billion in hardware to do it.

Lightning is part of Bitcoin itself and your coins are stored in multisig channels
directly on the Bitcoin blockchain and  secured by the same PoW and consensus rules.

Your coins are eventually stored, you mean. The reason it's fast is because it doesn't use the Bitcoin blockchain directly in real time. During the time your transaction is not on the Bitcoin blockchain, then it's on a system that is... not Bitcoin. Because of that you can't just pretend that the transaction is "Bitcoin" and pretend you get all of the advantages of decentralization and security that the Bitcoin network gives you.

I mean, this is straightforward logic: if you could gain all of the benefits of Bitcoin with a fast, low-latency architecture, then you would just change Bitcoin to that architecture natively.

By the way, just to do a quick reality check here, I'd ask anybody if they could even remotely imagine one billion new Bitcoin transactions going on the Bitcoin blockchain every single day for now on. It's inconceivable. And Bitcoin was never designed for anything remotely like it.