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Do people really use bitcoin like they use PayPal though? It seems to me that the vast majority of people own bitcoin because they speculate that its value will

• ojr 9y ago
  19 trillion dollars are in the US stock market, and the total amount of US GDP in 2016 was 18 trillion. We have to stop pretending that the almighty US dollar and the federal reserve is so much better system than bitcoin and the developer community behind it. I bought plane tickets, food and beer with a bitcoin visa debit card and the merchants didn't know the difference but of course the majority of the bitcoin I owned is saved. Saving more than you spend is a good thing.
• rothbardrand 9y ago
  There is a certain amount of speculation and bitcoins value has gone up a lot more due to reasons that are worth speculating on (increased adoption) than based on usage in its primary applications (Remittances and convenient value transfer). However, simply holding bitcoin as a hedge against inflation and central bank currency risk is a legitimate use. One of the big rallies in bitcoin coincided very precisely with the Cyprus collapse where the government simply confiscated a percentage of everyone's money in the banks.. and in places like Venezuela bitcoin is literally a life saver. So remittances may be the biggest market, but hedging against incompetent government is not an illegitimate use of it... and I would separate that from "speculation" as a use case. Speculation tends to get a bad rap, but remember, speculators sell when prices are high and buy when prices are low-- they tend to moderate prices.