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The instability and the high fees make it useless for generic payment. The lighting network was supposed to fix latter problem. As soon as the bitcoin price be
by sprash 7y ago
The instability and the high fees make it useless for generic payment. The lighting network was supposed to fix latter problem.
As soon as the bitcoin price becomes stable it will be useful. As soon as it is useful it will swiftly rise in value and become unstable again. We have already seen several iterations of this cycle. Who knows when this will end.
- gwbas1c 7y agoWhich brings up another important point: Typically, when someone wants someone to adopt their currency, they actively work to ensure that the currency has a stable value. Think of historical examples of governments buying and selling each others' gold and silver coins; or more recently governments actively buying and selling gold and silver in their currency; or even more recently governments holding reserves of other countries currency. The historical purpose is to ensure that a currency has a stable value, and is readily available for anyone who wants to use it. No one does this with Bitcoin. The incentives are to use the currency as a speculative bubble, instead of as a means of commerce. Drawing an analogy, in order for Bitcoin to work, there would need to be a "Bitcoin authority" that basically holds a huge reserve of Bitcoin or another commodity, and buys and sells to keep the value stable. Bitcoin goes up in value: Sell Bitcoin for some commodity, Bitcoin goes down in value, sell the commodity for Bitcoin. (Of course, a Bitcoin authority goes against the general anti-government promise of Bitcoin.)