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> High BTC Fees are hitting lots of legit businesses Why do people always think that BTC—only because it has started as a p2p cash system—needs to stay there?

> High BTC Fees are hitting lots of legit businesses Why do people always think that BTC—only because it has started as a p2p cash system—needs to stay there? From my point of view BTC evolved to the best value storage system available: - Limited supply - Easily available in any country without a bank as an intermediary (try to purchase or sell gold without a bank, good luck and real, physical gold as an value storage is just cumbersome) - Probably a good value storage when the stock markets crashes (because again no banks are involved which might also go bankrupt, in particular in countries with a weak economy/currency/infrastructure) - The strongest brand and most popular with mainstream and retail investors, just go to Google Trends and you see that the search volume of Bitcoin is insanely high (~50% of 'iphone' just to stress how much mainstream bitcoin went); just imagine: which crypto people will choose to put a large part of their money first when a crash comes? To the biggest brand I guess - Biggest ecosystem around (wallets, etc.) + high reliability even if slow (just look at some other coins with a huge market cap where people even struggle to send and receive coins) - Highest liquidity This is a very strong use case for me to buy and hold BTC. If there is any other coin better as an value storage please let me know.

skydv 9y ago
my urine is also of limited supply, but no one buys and holds it
- XR0CSWV3h3kZWg 9y ago
  You missed a golden liquidity joke.
zeth__ 9y ago
>If there is any other coin better as an value storage please let me know. Literally any first world currency. Lower transaction fees, store value for decades with swings of less than 3% a year.
pjc50 9y ago
> best value storage system available Except that nobody has any idea how much value it will have next week, let alone next year. The variance is just too high.
- waytogo 9y ago
  As long as it's growing on a yearly base (which Bitcoin does for years and significantly) a high volatility shouldn't hurt any value store.
  - tscs37 9y ago
    As long as it's growing, correct. But if you want to get that value, then bitcoin is unreliable in the amount you get. And that is only if it has grown over the period you stored your value for.
    - waytogo 9y ago
      Disagree. Every currently available value store is volatile, even gold (which is highly volatile): http://finance.google.com/finance?q=NYSEARCA%3AGLD&sq=gold&sp=1&ei=g3dGWsm4D8iKswHlhYTgDQ http://finance.google.com/finance?q=NYSEARCA%3AGLD&sq=gold&s... I still don't see any other value store better than BTC considering my prior bullets.
      - tscs37 9y ago
        Well, for one, if someone tells you Gold is an excellent store of value, it's probably bad advice, there are better places to put your money (like a bank account or ETF) Plus, Gold might be highly volatile by some stock standards but it barely moved a percent over the last 24h while Bitcoin does percent movements on the hour mark. Stores of value require a predictable purchasing power to be useful, bitcoin does not have predictable purchasing power. Or the guarantee that in 20 years I'll still be able to use bitcoin at all. The major difference here is that gold has been used for about 2000 years plus now and has proven to be somewhat valuable in a functioning society. Bitcoin hasn't been around for a full percent of this time and nobody knows if it'll be around for another percent to begin with. Ring me up though if Bitcoin will survive the next 100 years for sure.
cosmie 9y ago
> Easily available in any country without a bank as an intermediary > because again no banks are involved which might also go bankrupt > Highest liquidity I'm not sure what you mean by this. Banks certainly are involved, and provide the liquidity you mention by facilitating transactions for exchanges between crypto and traditional currencies. A disruption to this process either with a beneficiary bank or as an intermediary bank[1][2][3] ripples through the ecosystem. While yes, it's possible to interact with Bitcoin without involving a bank if you mine it yourself, the moment you involve an exchange and want to liquidate your bitcoin for more commonly accepted currency (or the other way around), you indirectly involve traditional banks. And if exchanges can't provide liquidity, then the value of bitcoin can and will drop precipitously. [1] https://news.bitcoin.com/bitcoin-exchanges-victim-banking-problems/ https://news.bitcoin.com/bitcoin-exchanges-victim-banking-pr... [2] https://medium.com/@whalecalls/taiwan-aml-reforms-usd-crypto-drama-15417cbcdf7b https://medium.com/@whalecalls/taiwan-aml-reforms-usd-crypto... [3] The above articles mention the issue was related to new regulations. But insolvency of intermediary banks (or even beneficiary banks) could cause similar issues in the future as well.
- waytogo 9y ago
  > The moment you [...] want to liquidate your bitcoin [...] you indirectly involve traditional banks Not necessarily, you could liquidate f2f with another person providing you cash. Just think of the worse case, stock crash, bank crash, etc. Then, it's good to have BTC in your wallet. They are accepted and easily transferred, without any bank).
  - tolle 9y ago
    Well an actual worst case scenario also brings down your internet connection. Without banks various internet providers wouldn't be able to pay each other for connections. I mean they could theoretically let each other communicate for free. But we're talking ISPs and such.
    - waytogo 9y ago
      > Well an actual worst case scenario also brings down your internet connection. Not sure if we talk about the same: The last worst case scenario was 2008 (stock crash, banks went bankrupt) but the Internet was still fine.

skydv 9y ago

my urine is also of limited supply, but no one buys and holds it

XR0CSWV3h3kZWg 9y ago
You missed a golden liquidity joke.

zeth__ 9y ago

>If there is any other coin better as an value storage please let me know. Literally any first world currency. Lower transaction fees, store value for decades with swings of less than 3% a year.

pjc50 9y ago

> best value storage system available Except that nobody has any idea how much value it will have next week, let alone next year. The variance is just too high.

waytogo 9y ago
As long as it's growing on a yearly base (which Bitcoin does for years and significantly) a high volatility shouldn't hurt any value store.
- tscs37 9y ago
  As long as it's growing, correct. But if you want to get that value, then bitcoin is unreliable in the amount you get. And that is only if it has grown over the period you stored your value for.
  - waytogo 9y ago
    Disagree. Every currently available value store is volatile, even gold (which is highly volatile): http://finance.google.com/finance?q=NYSEARCA%3AGLD&sq=gold&sp=1&ei=g3dGWsm4D8iKswHlhYTgDQ http://finance.google.com/finance?q=NYSEARCA%3AGLD&sq=gold&s... I still don't see any other value store better than BTC considering my prior bullets.
    - tscs37 9y ago
      Well, for one, if someone tells you Gold is an excellent store of value, it's probably bad advice, there are better places to put your money (like a bank account or ETF) Plus, Gold might be highly volatile by some stock standards but it barely moved a percent over the last 24h while Bitcoin does percent movements on the hour mark. Stores of value require a predictable purchasing power to be useful, bitcoin does not have predictable purchasing power. Or the guarantee that in 20 years I'll still be able to use bitcoin at all. The major difference here is that gold has been used for about 2000 years plus now and has proven to be somewhat valuable in a functioning society. Bitcoin hasn't been around for a full percent of this time and nobody knows if it'll be around for another percent to begin with. Ring me up though if Bitcoin will survive the next 100 years for sure.

cosmie 9y ago

> Easily available in any country without a bank as an intermediary > because again no banks are involved which might also go bankrupt > Highest liquidity I'm not sure what you mean by this. Banks certainly are involved, and provide the liquidity you mention by facilitating transactions for exchanges between crypto and traditional currencies. A disruption to this process either with a beneficiary bank or as an intermediary bank[1][2][3] ripples through the ecosystem. While yes, it's possible to interact with Bitcoin without involving a bank if you mine it yourself, the moment you involve an exchange and want to liquidate your bitcoin for more commonly accepted currency (or the other way around), you indirectly involve traditional banks. And if exchanges can't provide liquidity, then the value of bitcoin can and will drop precipitously. [1] https://news.bitcoin.com/bitcoin-exchanges-victim-banking-problems/ https://news.bitcoin.com/bitcoin-exchanges-victim-banking-pr... [2] https://medium.com/@whalecalls/taiwan-aml-reforms-usd-crypto-drama-15417cbcdf7b https://medium.com/@whalecalls/taiwan-aml-reforms-usd-crypto... [3] The above articles mention the issue was related to new regulations. But insolvency of intermediary banks (or even beneficiary banks) could cause similar issues in the future as well.

waytogo 9y ago
> The moment you [...] want to liquidate your bitcoin [...] you indirectly involve traditional banks Not necessarily, you could liquidate f2f with another person providing you cash. Just think of the worse case, stock crash, bank crash, etc. Then, it's good to have BTC in your wallet. They are accepted and easily transferred, without any bank).
- tolle 9y ago
  Well an actual worst case scenario also brings down your internet connection. Without banks various internet providers wouldn't be able to pay each other for connections. I mean they could theoretically let each other communicate for free. But we're talking ISPs and such.
  - waytogo 9y ago
    > Well an actual worst case scenario also brings down your internet connection. Not sure if we talk about the same: The last worst case scenario was 2008 (stock crash, banks went bankrupt) but the Internet was still fine.