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"Most importantly it can't be created/destroyed at will by a central government." This is not cut and dry as to whether it is a benefit or not. Many people, my

"Most importantly it can't be created/destroyed at will by a central government." This is not cut and dry as to whether it is a benefit or not. Many people, myself included, don't consider it a benefit. Not having control over your currency makes it that much harder to respond in times of recession. Greece was hit quite hard by the Great Recession, and one of the reasons why is because they didn't have control over their currency, and so they couldn't lower the value of it. The Euro was still valued high due to the use by Germany and France. "Huge sums can be transferred globally at the speed of light with very low fees." Currently that's not true of Bitcoin, either. Transactions are slow, and fees are not low. "The electricity it takes to maintain it is nothing compared to the rest of the banking system." Is it? It takes a crazy amount of power, for what seems to be something that only a small amount of people are using, with a very anemic transaction throughput.

trixie_ 9y ago
You put your trust in governments to not mess with the currency. That's on you. When shit hits the fan people buy gold, it's no different with crypto. People don't trust the government to manage currency correctly in times of trouble. But even in good times, crypto has a lot going for it. Transactions are very fast and very low compared to traditional currency. Often it takes days to move money between banks, or will cost you much more than a bitcoin transaction fee to move faster. Again, bitcoin could have 100x the users and the power requirements would be negligible compared to banking. There is no 'scale up' power wise needed for bitcoin.
- s73v3r_ 9y ago
  "You put your trust in governments to not mess with the currency. That's on you. When shit hits the fan people buy gold, it's no different with crypto. People don't trust the government to manage currency correctly in times of trouble. But even in good times, crypto has a lot going for it." Some people, not all people. And that's why I said that it unsure whether that's an actual value or not. "Transactions are very fast and very low compared to traditional currency. Often it takes days to move money between banks, or will cost you much more than a bitcoin transaction fee to move faster." No, not really. Credit card transactions are far, far faster than a Bitcoin one. Bank transfers in Europe are quite fast, too. "Again, bitcoin could have 100x the users and the power requirements would be negligible compared to banking. There is no 'scale up' power wise needed for bitcoin." You're gonna have to provide a citation for this.

trixie_ 9y ago

You put your trust in governments to not mess with the currency. That's on you. When shit hits the fan people buy gold, it's no different with crypto. People don't trust the government to manage currency correctly in times of trouble. But even in good times, crypto has a lot going for it. Transactions are very fast and very low compared to traditional currency. Often it takes days to move money between banks, or will cost you much more than a bitcoin transaction fee to move faster. Again, bitcoin could have 100x the users and the power requirements would be negligible compared to banking. There is no 'scale up' power wise needed for bitcoin.

s73v3r_ 9y ago
"You put your trust in governments to not mess with the currency. That's on you. When shit hits the fan people buy gold, it's no different with crypto. People don't trust the government to manage currency correctly in times of trouble. But even in good times, crypto has a lot going for it." Some people, not all people. And that's why I said that it unsure whether that's an actual value or not. "Transactions are very fast and very low compared to traditional currency. Often it takes days to move money between banks, or will cost you much more than a bitcoin transaction fee to move faster." No, not really. Credit card transactions are far, far faster than a Bitcoin one. Bank transfers in Europe are quite fast, too. "Again, bitcoin could have 100x the users and the power requirements would be negligible compared to banking. There is no 'scale up' power wise needed for bitcoin." You're gonna have to provide a citation for this.