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> The only practical use cases for bitcoin as a currency are money laundering, selling drugs, evading capital controls and tax evasion Bitcoin is actually terr
by bonestamp2 9y ago
> The only practical use cases for bitcoin as a currency are money laundering, selling drugs, evading capital controls and tax evasion
Bitcoin is actually terrible for these use cases since the blockchain is public and more traceable than your credit card. If you're really trying to hide your financial transactions then a better option would be something more anonymous like cash, or one of the other cryptocoins that actually does provide anonymity.
Your inaccurate and misconceived perception of what bitcoin's use case is would be laughable if it weren't so popular and wrong. I fear you're completely misunderstanding the new world economy. You think that bitcoin is a sideshow for criminals, and seemingly failed to see that maybe a large parallel economy is being created digitally.
You see, Bitcoin was created after the 2008 crash where the banks, the organizations we've trusted with our money for a century, made some deliberate and knowingly poor decisions and they lost a lot of money for many of us.
Bitcoin was invented so that never has to happen again, so that we can have a secure storage for our money without someone else controlling that money. You might say that bitcoin was created to get away from the wall street criminals. I suggest you pick up some cryptocoin (of any kind) so you're not completely left in the dust as the centralized banks lose power and the decentralized economy reigns.
- amarkov 9y ago> You see, Bitcoin was created after the 2008 crash where the banks, the organizations we've trusted with our money for a century, made some deliberate and knowingly poor decisions and they lost a lot of money for many of us. I hadn't heard about that. Which banks lost their customers' money in the 2008 crash?
- rlpb 9y agoThe banking system deliberately removed value from all holders of EUR, GBP and USD: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantitative_easing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantitative_easing
- sanxiyn 9y agoThis is false. During QE, inflation rate was below target, so less value than normal was removed from EUR, GBP, USD, etc.
- rlpb 9y agoYou can't measure value like that during a recession. Whichever way you look at it, QE removed value from those currencies. If I were to rob you, claiming that the overall robbery rate was lower that year, so you weren't robbed by others, so your expected losses were lower does not change the fact that I robbed you.
- revmoo 9y agoThis is the most hilarious defense of the Fed's counterfeiting system I've ever heard.
- amarkov 9y agoIf the money in my bank losing value is robbery, isn't Bitcoin robbing me all the time? Bitcoin price changes may not be intentional, but I don't see why that should matter to me.
- tarsinge 9y agoA lot of them of them but customers didn’t see their balance move because it was repaid indirectly with their taxes money
- Grangar 9y agoexample: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icesave_dispute#Collapse_of_Landsbanki https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icesave_dispute#Collapse_of_La...
- posixplz 9y agohttps://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_bank_failures_in_the_United_States_(2008%E2%80%93present) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_bank_failures_in_the...
- arethuza 9y agoI certainly know of people who lost a lot of money as bank shareholders rather than as customers.
- bonestamp2 9y agoYou seem to be interpreting this very literally as money lost from bank accounts. Banking involves a lot more than simply money in checking accounts so I didn't think it needed to be established that a lot of people lost value in different ways in 2008. A number of banks packaged subprime mortgage lots that were misrepresented, sold and when they defaulted, they crashed the lending market which rippled through other parts of the economy causing job loss, real estate price crashes, stock value crashes and other types of lost equity for millions of people. But I guess if you want to take it literally, then you're right... nobody had cash go missing from their checking account. I personally lost about $60,000 in equity, but my checking account was not affected if that makes you feel warm and fuzzy about saying no banks lost anybody's "money".
- empath75 9y agoYou convinced me, I’m putting everything into dogecoin.
- Banderly 9y agoBitcoin replaces one tyranny with one that is far worse. If it succeeded in displacing existing currencies as you attest, it would amount to an unprecedented and catastrophic redistribution and concentration of wealth. 80% of all bitcoins that can ever exist have been mined and are already owned; this is a monstrous design decision far more unjust than the inflation bitcoin sought to prevent. Our current corrupt and stinking financial system is far preferable to the neo-feudal world of bitcoin where all spending power is concentrated in the hands of a tiny number of tech overlords who had the sheer good fortune to literally own all the money.
- bonestamp2 9y agoI think you're right in a lot of ways, but that doesn't change what is happening and the best option doesn't always win.