5 ms·

Bitcoin, at least, absolutely does not solve this problem. Let's leave aside its volatility for now and assume it magically stays at exactly the same price. You

Bitcoin, at least, absolutely does not solve this problem. Let's leave aside its volatility for now and assume it magically stays at exactly the same price. You are then left using a currency where each transaction costs several dollars and takes a half an hour, and that's the present state of affairs when no one is using it. So you would keep your cryptocurrency in a bank and transfer it through the normal channels, which opens it up to the same government controls you're concerned about. That's if you're allowed to hold cryptocurrency at all. Hyperinflation is a problem of massive corruption and incompetence in government. It doesn't happen by accident in an otherwise stable society. If you're concerned about hyperinflation, you should assume the bank (or "exchange") will be subverted and transactions will be censored. Bitcoin was built to solve those problems, but does not scale and so cannot. This is, by the way, the only situation where I'm at all sympathetic to cryptocurrencies. If someone can come up with a cryptocurrency that scales and that isn't controlled by cartels, I'll be glad that it can be used in unstable parts of the world.

shawnz 6y ago
> So you would keep your cryptocurrency in a bank and transfer it through the normal channels You do your daily spending through the normal channels, sure, but why would you need to keep your cryptocurrency savings in a bank in such a situation?
- xirbeosbwo1234 6y ago
  Bitcoin is fantastically slow. It can handle about 120 million transactions per year. That is absolutely 100% unusable for anything at scale. If 30 million people used Bitcoin, they could each do about one transaction every three months and the fees would be sky-high. That is not good enough, not even for savings. Other cryptocurrencies are faster by smallish constant factors. None of them, at this time, are scalable. None of them are fast enough to be usable by millions of people.
SailingSperm 6y ago
30 mins for FINAL international settlement of arbitrary $ amounts between $0.001 - $100B IS fast - and the uptime for the BTC network is 100% since inception ~2011. If you're really wanting to compare apples to apples - For traditional banks doing cross border transactions, it takes up to five days at most global banks, not counting weekends or bank holidays to actually settle with a lot more intermediaries involved.

shawnz 6y ago

> So you would keep your cryptocurrency in a bank and transfer it through the normal channels You do your daily spending through the normal channels, sure, but why would you need to keep your cryptocurrency savings in a bank in such a situation?

xirbeosbwo1234 6y ago
Bitcoin is fantastically slow. It can handle about 120 million transactions per year. That is absolutely 100% unusable for anything at scale. If 30 million people used Bitcoin, they could each do about one transaction every three months and the fees would be sky-high. That is not good enough, not even for savings. Other cryptocurrencies are faster by smallish constant factors. None of them, at this time, are scalable. None of them are fast enough to be usable by millions of people.

SailingSperm 6y ago

30 mins for FINAL international settlement of arbitrary $ amounts between $0.001 - $100B IS fast - and the uptime for the BTC network is 100% since inception ~2011. If you're really wanting to compare apples to apples - For traditional banks doing cross border transactions, it takes up to five days at most global banks, not counting weekends or bank holidays to actually settle with a lot more intermediaries involved.