A few years ago, it was easy to say "well, all the issues are at the BTC <-> USD (or other fiat currency) boundaries". But today's bitcoin is nearly unusable e

A few years ago, it was easy to say "well, all the issues are at the BTC <-> USD (or other fiat currency) boundaries". But today's bitcoin is nearly unusable even just within the confines of the bitcoin network. For small amount of bitcoin (less then $15) it is incredible impractical to make a single transaction. Fees are around $5 and often much higher, with confirmation times sometimes reaching 6+ hours. Maybe there is hope with Bitcoin Cash (BCH), because it can piggyback on the existing bitcoin integration infrastructure. Or maybe Ethereum or Monero or some other altcoin will take the place of Bitcoin. But more and more, it's looking like the original cryptocurrency has failed to innovate and solve fundamental scaling issues and it's first-mover advantage won't last. If these altcoins can scale better than bitcoin, they only need to match bitcoin's integrations with the existing financial system to win.