>Most problems with the critiques of Bitcoin like those in the linked Quora post is that they are debunking a straw man - the idea that Bitcoin is intended as a

>Most problems with the critiques of Bitcoin like those in the linked Quora post is that they are debunking a straw man - the idea that Bitcoin is intended as a universal replacement for all other currency systems. By those standards of course it will fail. Bitcoin is supposed to be a currency. That means that it's supposed to be effectively the same thing as USD or the Euro. It's not supposed to replace any other currency, it just needs to be able to do everything that any other currency can(except pay taxes). The problem is that it doesn't do that right now, and I don't see any way of making it actually work. To actually be a useful currency, people need to be able use it on everything, otherwise it's just a proxy for a "real" currency with an added gambling element. Right now, it's basically the same thing as paypal or Google Checkout-something that people use to buy things online. By that standard, it's not even decentralized anymore, because everyone gets their BTC from MtGox, and they have to keep logs of all their transactions.