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> (e.g. Monero, Ethereum) have replaced most of its usecases I use Bitcoin from time to time to order food and buy other stuff online (sometimes through gift c

> (e.g. Monero, Ethereum) have replaced most of its usecases I use Bitcoin from time to time to order food and buy other stuff online (sometimes through gift cards bought with Bitcoin). It's tough enough to find sites that accept Bitcoin, but I don't think I've ever seen one that accepted Monero or Ethereum. Maybe Litecoin a few years back. I admit that I haven't searched, but I would have expected a correlation with Bitcoin-accepting sites. So if it's not buying stuff, what use cases do you have in mind?

Casseres 9y ago
Ideally Monero would replace Bitcoin when buying things. Monero is more like cash than Bitcoin is. Unlike Bitcoin, paying with Monero doesn't immediately give away your balance and transaction history. Monero would also be better suited because it has lower fees that will get even lower as the dynamic block size increases. And because of the dynamic blocksize, you won't have to wait forever to confirm that you sent payment for a cup of coffee or whatever. If you're interested in adopting Monero, but still need to be able to pay in Bitcoin occasionally, you can use a service like www.XMR.to
- nadam 9y ago
  Monero has potential, but I have found DASH to be the currency that has the biggest potential to replace Bitcoin when buying things. It has high throughput, privateSend, instaSend, decentralized governance, treasury system, they are focusing on UX, and I find some of the 'leaders' very talented (like Ryan Taylor).
  - nosuchthing 9y ago
    DASH, aka Darkcoin, should be avoided - in the first two days the developer printed "1.9 million coins" or 10% of the supply.
- Geee 9y ago
  Monero's scalability is even harder to solve than Bitcoin's I think. Perfect coin should be private and scalable. There isn't one yet, expect maybe Byteball's blackbytes.
feedjoelpie 9y ago
I think you're confusing the present state of cryptocurrency as being its conclusion. Yes, Bitcoin was the first mover, and Bitcoin has the most buy-in. But cryptocurrency in general does not have global buy-in as a way to buy and sell stuff. A) Barriers to initially acquiring crypto coins remain a bit high. B) Expense of transactions remains way too high, C) Transactions are way too slow, and D) For Bitcoin in particular, the hoarders make it politically difficult for Bitcoin to move to an algorithm that can produce faster transactions and therefore serve as a better means of payment. All the major blockchains in the cryptocurrency ecosystem, right now, are too slow and expensive to be of much use as a currency to the global economy. It stands to reason that if one of them, unburdened with Bitcoin-holder demands for ever-increasing scarcity, solves that problem (Proof of Stake?), then Bitcoin will be supplanted by a cryptocurrency that improves the currency experience. Several are in the process of fixing that, while Bitcoin is not. No cryptocurrency's competition is Bitcoin. The competition is old school means of payment. If your currency becomes closer than Bitcoin to being as useful as traditional money, your currency will have an advantage over Bitcoin. Imagine you sell a phone on Craigslist, for crypto. You and the buyer can either deal with a $10 fee and 30 minutes to an hour of sitting in a Starbucks to complete your transaction, or you can give up, swap cash for goods, and walk away. Which one do you choose? Time is expensive, too.
- mrfusion 9y ago
  Wouldn’t there only be a tiny chance the guy buying your phone is sophisticated enough to double spend? That’s what I never understood about small bitcoin purchases.
  - LyndsySimon 9y ago
    Yes. I've transacted quite a bit in person for Bitcoin, and I'm fine with an unconfirmed transaction as long as the value is less than $500 or so and I can see it in the transaction pool. The way I see it, an unconfirmed Bitcoin transaction is still more trustworthy than a confirmed debit card transaction. At least with Bitcoin, I'm 100% sure the person has the money in the first place, and that once the transaction clears (in ~10 minutes), they can't reverse it later and stick me with the loss.
eyezick 9y ago
I wouldn't say Ether is trying to replace Bitcoin's use case (at least not yet). The real, better cryptocurrency will probably be a stable token running on Ethereum.
zanny 9y ago
None of the cryptos that exist today can even function as an effective "buying stuff" currency because they are all deflationary, not just in exchange rates and short term speculation but in how they all mine at fixed / declining rates to finite limits. If its going to be worth more tomorrow, you probably don't want to trade it for something today. The use case for bitcoin is the same use case that makes up 95% of the price of gold - its predictably scarce. Thats its value.
- VMG 9y ago
  > If its going to be worth more tomorrow, you probably don't want to trade it for something today. Unless you need it.
- LyndsySimon 9y ago
  First of all, not all existing cryptos are deflationary. Off the top of my head, Dogecoin is the best-known example of an inflationary crypto. There are about 110,000,000,000 Doge in circulation at the moment, and that number will increase at a rate of a little over 5,000,000,000 per year ad infinitum. Secondly, the inherent deflationary nature of Bitcoin has not yet come to pass. Coins are currently being mined at a rate of 4% per year, halving about every 18 months. Once the inflation rate for Bitcoin goes negative, only then will we be dealing with a truly deflationary currency. It only seems deflationary now because the demand for Bitcoin is drastically outpacing the rate at which it's being inflated. Finally, the inability of the state to inflate Bitcoin at will is the point. If you want to keep your capital in a state-controlled inflationary currency no one is going to stop you. What I and others in the Bitcoin community believe will happen is that "bad money will drive out good". People will spend their dollars and hoard their Bitcoin, as they will understand that dollars will be worth less and Bitcoin more in the future. The only way to stop that from happening will be a drastic reduction in the number of dollars in circulation... which again, is kind of the whole point for many of us. > The use case for bitcoin is the same use case that makes up 95% of the price of gold - its predictably scarce. Thats its value. That's one use case, yes. It's not the only use case.
  - Xixi 9y ago
LyndsySimon 9y ago
I mostly use Bitcoin to buy things that I either don't want on my credit card bill or from merchants that I don't feel comfortable trusting with my credit card information. For me, that's generally things like gift cards, VPN and VPS rentals, etc. It also seems to be gaining significant traction on porn sites, both for memberships and for per-artifact transactions. I expect that it will continue to be useful in the case of memberships in particular because you can't set up a recurring payment in Bitcoin, which protects the purchaser from being unexpectedly charged later. > I don't think I've ever seen one that accepted Monero or Ethereum. Maybe Litecoin a few years back. I agree here. Although I've seen a few, they're all very much amateur sites run by other crypto nerds, so they don't really count. That said, I don't think that matters so much anymore. Sites like shapeshift.io have made it nearly effortless to move between cryptos, so if you want to hold and transact with friends using Monero and buy things using Bitcoin, there's much less friction than there was a year ago. > So if it's not buying stuff, what use cases do you have in mind? In my view, here are the main use cases for Bitcoin: 1) As a currency/"digital cash". There are definitely use cases (see above) where Bitcoin is a superior currency. There are also instances where people cannot transact using the "normal" financial system, and Bitcoin gives them the ability to purchase things online. Examples include minors and citizens of states without great access to the world financial network. 2) To evade state control. I've personally got a friend in Venezuela that I occasionally send some Bitcoin to help with family matters. Their currency is literally worth less than WoW gold at this point, and the state controls the dollar:bolivare exchange rate. I'm able to send him $50 in Bitcoin and he's able to exchange it for food and medicine, or for bolivares at a rate many times better than the "official" rate. Likewise, it seems that the Chinese are using Bitcoin (and other cryptos) to evade capital controls and get their assets out of China. 3) As an investment. The long-term deflationary nature of Bitcoin means that it's an excellent place to keep "disposable savings" - so long as you believe in the future of the currency. 4) Complex but bulletproof financial planning. My cold wallet is set up using m-of-n. There are several private keys out there to it: I have one at home in my safe, one in my head, one on a Yubikey on my keychain, my wife has one, my attorney has one, my parents have one. Three of those six keys are required to sign a transaction for it to be valid. That means that no one individual, other than me, with access to those funds can spend them on their own. If I die unexpectedly, my wife can spend them. If we both die unexpectedly, my parents can spend them. If somehow I, my wife, and my parents all die unexpectedly in very short order, the funds can still be recovered by the executor of my estate. This sort of arrangement cannot be made in the traditional financial system without exposure to litigation risk. Another place it would make sense is in a corporation with strong spending controls. A wallet where the CEO, CFO, and CSO all must sign off on a transaction is totally possible. That wallet is then 100% guaranteed not to ever be spendable by anyone outside of official channels. There is also a public record of who signed each transaction and when for audit purposes 5) Asset verification. Do you know, for sure, how much gold is in Fort Knox? Of course not, we must simply trust that the US government isn't lying when they state the size of their reserves. With Bitcoin, if an organization has 20,000 BTC sitting in a wallet, they can sign a message to that effect with the private key that corresponds to it. That signature can then be verified by anyone, and we can be confident that they do in fact control the coins at that address.

Casseres 9y ago

Ideally Monero would replace Bitcoin when buying things. Monero is more like cash than Bitcoin is. Unlike Bitcoin, paying with Monero doesn't immediately give away your balance and transaction history. Monero would also be better suited because it has lower fees that will get even lower as the dynamic block size increases. And because of the dynamic blocksize, you won't have to wait forever to confirm that you sent payment for a cup of coffee or whatever. If you're interested in adopting Monero, but still need to be able to pay in Bitcoin occasionally, you can use a service like www.XMR.to

nadam 9y ago
Monero has potential, but I have found DASH to be the currency that has the biggest potential to replace Bitcoin when buying things. It has high throughput, privateSend, instaSend, decentralized governance, treasury system, they are focusing on UX, and I find some of the 'leaders' very talented (like Ryan Taylor).
- nosuchthing 9y ago
  DASH, aka Darkcoin, should be avoided - in the first two days the developer printed "1.9 million coins" or 10% of the supply.
Geee 9y ago
Monero's scalability is even harder to solve than Bitcoin's I think. Perfect coin should be private and scalable. There isn't one yet, expect maybe Byteball's blackbytes.

feedjoelpie 9y ago

I think you're confusing the present state of cryptocurrency as being its conclusion. Yes, Bitcoin was the first mover, and Bitcoin has the most buy-in. But cryptocurrency in general does not have global buy-in as a way to buy and sell stuff. A) Barriers to initially acquiring crypto coins remain a bit high. B) Expense of transactions remains way too high, C) Transactions are way too slow, and D) For Bitcoin in particular, the hoarders make it politically difficult for Bitcoin to move to an algorithm that can produce faster transactions and therefore serve as a better means of payment. All the major blockchains in the cryptocurrency ecosystem, right now, are too slow and expensive to be of much use as a currency to the global economy. It stands to reason that if one of them, unburdened with Bitcoin-holder demands for ever-increasing scarcity, solves that problem (Proof of Stake?), then Bitcoin will be supplanted by a cryptocurrency that improves the currency experience. Several are in the process of fixing that, while Bitcoin is not. No cryptocurrency's competition is Bitcoin. The competition is old school means of payment. If your currency becomes closer than Bitcoin to being as useful as traditional money, your currency will have an advantage over Bitcoin. Imagine you sell a phone on Craigslist, for crypto. You and the buyer can either deal with a $10 fee and 30 minutes to an hour of sitting in a Starbucks to complete your transaction, or you can give up, swap cash for goods, and walk away. Which one do you choose? Time is expensive, too.

mrfusion 9y ago
Wouldn’t there only be a tiny chance the guy buying your phone is sophisticated enough to double spend? That’s what I never understood about small bitcoin purchases.
- LyndsySimon 9y ago
  Yes. I've transacted quite a bit in person for Bitcoin, and I'm fine with an unconfirmed transaction as long as the value is less than $500 or so and I can see it in the transaction pool. The way I see it, an unconfirmed Bitcoin transaction is still more trustworthy than a confirmed debit card transaction. At least with Bitcoin, I'm 100% sure the person has the money in the first place, and that once the transaction clears (in ~10 minutes), they can't reverse it later and stick me with the loss.

eyezick 9y ago

I wouldn't say Ether is trying to replace Bitcoin's use case (at least not yet). The real, better cryptocurrency will probably be a stable token running on Ethereum.

zanny 9y ago

None of the cryptos that exist today can even function as an effective "buying stuff" currency because they are all deflationary, not just in exchange rates and short term speculation but in how they all mine at fixed / declining rates to finite limits. If its going to be worth more tomorrow, you probably don't want to trade it for something today. The use case for bitcoin is the same use case that makes up 95% of the price of gold - its predictably scarce. Thats its value.

VMG 9y ago
> If its going to be worth more tomorrow, you probably don't want to trade it for something today. Unless you need it.
LyndsySimon 9y ago
First of all, not all existing cryptos are deflationary. Off the top of my head, Dogecoin is the best-known example of an inflationary crypto. There are about 110,000,000,000 Doge in circulation at the moment, and that number will increase at a rate of a little over 5,000,000,000 per year ad infinitum. Secondly, the inherent deflationary nature of Bitcoin has not yet come to pass. Coins are currently being mined at a rate of 4% per year, halving about every 18 months. Once the inflation rate for Bitcoin goes negative, only then will we be dealing with a truly deflationary currency. It only seems deflationary now because the demand for Bitcoin is drastically outpacing the rate at which it's being inflated. Finally, the inability of the state to inflate Bitcoin at will is the point. If you want to keep your capital in a state-controlled inflationary currency no one is going to stop you. What I and others in the Bitcoin community believe will happen is that "bad money will drive out good". People will spend their dollars and hoard their Bitcoin, as they will understand that dollars will be worth less and Bitcoin more in the future. The only way to stop that from happening will be a drastic reduction in the number of dollars in circulation... which again, is kind of the whole point for many of us. > The use case for bitcoin is the same use case that makes up 95% of the price of gold - its predictably scarce. Thats its value. That's one use case, yes. It's not the only use case.
- Xixi 9y ago

LyndsySimon 9y ago

I mostly use Bitcoin to buy things that I either don't want on my credit card bill or from merchants that I don't feel comfortable trusting with my credit card information. For me, that's generally things like gift cards, VPN and VPS rentals, etc. It also seems to be gaining significant traction on porn sites, both for memberships and for per-artifact transactions. I expect that it will continue to be useful in the case of memberships in particular because you can't set up a recurring payment in Bitcoin, which protects the purchaser from being unexpectedly charged later. > I don't think I've ever seen one that accepted Monero or Ethereum. Maybe Litecoin a few years back. I agree here. Although I've seen a few, they're all very much amateur sites run by other crypto nerds, so they don't really count. That said, I don't think that matters so much anymore. Sites like shapeshift.io have made it nearly effortless to move between cryptos, so if you want to hold and transact with friends using Monero and buy things using Bitcoin, there's much less friction than there was a year ago. > So if it's not buying stuff, what use cases do you have in mind? In my view, here are the main use cases for Bitcoin: 1) As a currency/"digital cash". There are definitely use cases (see above) where Bitcoin is a superior currency. There are also instances where people cannot transact using the "normal" financial system, and Bitcoin gives them the ability to purchase things online. Examples include minors and citizens of states without great access to the world financial network. 2) To evade state control. I've personally got a friend in Venezuela that I occasionally send some Bitcoin to help with family matters. Their currency is literally worth less than WoW gold at this point, and the state controls the dollar:bolivare exchange rate. I'm able to send him $50 in Bitcoin and he's able to exchange it for food and medicine, or for bolivares at a rate many times better than the "official" rate. Likewise, it seems that the Chinese are using Bitcoin (and other cryptos) to evade capital controls and get their assets out of China. 3) As an investment. The long-term deflationary nature of Bitcoin means that it's an excellent place to keep "disposable savings" - so long as you believe in the future of the currency. 4) Complex but bulletproof financial planning. My cold wallet is set up using m-of-n. There are several private keys out there to it: I have one at home in my safe, one in my head, one on a Yubikey on my keychain, my wife has one, my attorney has one, my parents have one. Three of those six keys are required to sign a transaction for it to be valid. That means that no one individual, other than me, with access to those funds can spend them on their own. If I die unexpectedly, my wife can spend them. If we both die unexpectedly, my parents can spend them. If somehow I, my wife, and my parents all die unexpectedly in very short order, the funds can still be recovered by the executor of my estate. This sort of arrangement cannot be made in the traditional financial system without exposure to litigation risk. Another place it would make sense is in a corporation with strong spending controls. A wallet where the CEO, CFO, and CSO all must sign off on a transaction is totally possible. That wallet is then 100% guaranteed not to ever be spendable by anyone outside of official channels. There is also a public record of who signed each transaction and when for audit purposes 5) Asset verification. Do you know, for sure, how much gold is in Fort Knox? Of course not, we must simply trust that the US government isn't lying when they state the size of their reserves. With Bitcoin, if an organization has 20,000 BTC sitting in a wallet, they can sign a message to that effect with the private key that corresponds to it. That signature can then be verified by anyone, and we can be confident that they do in fact control the coins at that address.