> I don't think that's the main threat Bitcoin is designed to defend against, though; I think there's a whole spectrum of confiscation threats, ranging from thi

> I don't think that's the main threat Bitcoin is designed to defend against, though; I think there's a whole spectrum of confiscation threats, ranging from thieves tunneling into bank vaults (I know a woman here who lost her savings that way), to immigration authorities confiscating jewelry, to pirates, to trumped-up "money laundering" charges. And of course if we're mentioning Germany and World Wars, we must not forget the confiscation of Holocaust victims' entire possessions, including jewelry and fillings after the gas chambers. Bitcoin can't make genocide impossible but maybe at least it can make it unprofitable. You cannot mean this seriously. Every example you write is worse for bitcoins. If your coins are stolen, that's it, you can pretty much kiss them goodbye. If the government wants to confiscate someone's bitcoins, they will beat the private key out of the holder with a $5 wrench. If WW3 breaks out and the world order collapses, a wholly digital asset that relies on a large network of high upkeep, high-tech infrastructure is surely not a particularly safe bet. You can bet that datacenters will be among the first casualties in such an event, whether outright government confiscation or a denial of service attack by the enemy. If a bank gets robbed, for most cases it won't impact account holders at all. Even if the bank goes bankrupt, there are various government schemes that will cover account holders up to some limit (e.g. $250k currently for the US). There is none of this for bitcoins. There could be of course, but then the argument is: what do cryptocurrencies actually offer beyond what is already possible with normal currencies? To the best of my knowledge, the only practical benefit of cryptos is that they completely sidestep KYC/AML regulations and therefore one can easily move money between regions that draw regulatory scrutiny. Countries with at least semi-modern banking infrastructure already have instant transfers so let's not bring that argument up. In any case, that's not a feature uniquely enabled by cryptocurrencies. The fact that bitcoins are deflationary I consider a bug, not a feature. Perhaps history will prove me wrong, but in my opinion money is not supposed to be an investment asset. People should not hold cash expecting it will appreciate. It should be reinvested as much as possible.