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The core issue I've seen that goes unanswered is what problem does BTC solve? The answers I've seen so far are: 1. Avoiding Venezuelan hyper-inflation - it is

The core issue I've seen that goes unanswered is what problem does BTC solve? The answers I've seen so far are: 1. Avoiding Venezuelan hyper-inflation - it is a use-case, but doesn't really apply to the United States for example. 2. Store of value - volatility is way too high and there are much better alternatives (Treasury bonds) 3. Evading capital controls - it is a use-case, but not really applicable to most citizens in the US, and is unlikely to be applicable in the future. 4. Settlement layer for banks - banks already have a settlement layer that works for them. The downsides of a decentralized system vs. a centralized system are an increased cost (in energy, computation, time, money, etc.) of transaction. So what justifies the cost?

JulianRaphael 6y ago
This is not to refute your comment, but would you have been able to foresee what problems the internet will solve when ARPANET had 15 sites in 1971? I mean if someone would have told you back then that you'd be able to stream a movie in 4K from more or less anywhere in the world, you'd probably have laughed that person out of the room. So look at ARPANET back then and look at the internet today and how much innovation has happened on top of it. And I'm sure there will be a lot more innovation on the good ol' internet for many more years to come. In a similar way, BTC will evolve. It arguable already has. All the money flowing into cryptocurrencies and the crypto tech stack drives more and more competition (and yes - also corruption and bad behaviour) and some of it will be meaningful. Just like some tech startups were/are scams, some are kind of useless but harmless and a few changed the world. I personally don't know what problem(s) crypto will solve, but I can see that the technology summons a lot of creative energy. Creative energy that gets empowered through capital and channeled through competition will eventually produce breakthroughs somewhere. Let mankind's creativity run wild and let yourself surprise by the unexpected outcomes!
MrMan 6y ago
It solves so far the problem of how do I own an asset that only goes up? That is pretty much it
thehappypm 6y ago
The main issue with BTC being a store of value is that it's already hyper hoarded. Look it up -- it's far, far more concentrated in a few hands than any real-world currency or any real-world asset.
rawtxapp 6y ago
> The core issue I've seen that goes unanswered is what problem does BTC solve? To me, it's trustless money. I don't need to trust the US gov, I don't care about who they will elect or which wars they are gonna start or which banks they are gonna bailout. You can verify everything through code and math. If that's not valuable to you, maybe there's some other use case you're interested. If you've done your research and there's really no use case that excites you, then you can just ignore it.
- MrMan 6y ago
  Trustless is bad. Humans need trust without it we get genocide and other bad things. Trustless is another way of expressing a desire for a fantasy world where people are not interdependent and each hacker can live in their own bubble with no obligations to society. At some point the militias you pay to kill and protect you will kill you hoping to find your treasure hoard
- tw600040 6y ago
  It's NOT trustless money. Instead of trusting the US gov, you are trusting that this decentralized ledger will gain acceptance by the whole world. Which one is more of a leap of faith?
  - rawtxapp 6y ago
    > you are trusting that this decentralized ledger will gain acceptance by the whole world. Bitcoin itself is inherently trustless, that's the whole point of it. You can trust that there will never be more than 21M Bitcoins, you can trust that there will never be a double-spend, you can trust that it will run 24/7, etc. Whether it will gain worldwide acceptance is another matter (btw, adoption is increasing at very fast pace now), as long as there's a subset of the world that accepts it, that's good enough for me.
    - tablespoon 6y ago
      > Bitcoin itself is inherently trustless, that's the whole point of it. You can trust that there will never be more than 21M Bitcoins, you can trust that there will never be a double-spend, you can trust that it will run 24/7, etc. No it isn't. If the Bitcoin devs and miners agree on a change (for instance, to increase the cap), it'll happen, so you have to trust them.
EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 6y ago
The core issue that Bitcoin resolves is transferring power from MBAs to nerds.
- rawtxapp 6y ago
  I'd say it's more transfer of power from politicians to the the people, but we can always disagree.
  - EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 6y ago
    well, MBAs here is a catch all phrase that includes politicians (even though they are usually lawyers).
yahyaheee 6y ago
Yeah the cost of decentralization is so high that you really need to be gaining something from it. I’ve long said that if drugs were legal it would remove most of bitcoins usage. Money is ultimately a reflection of power, and decentralization is merely a tool for when those power structures limit the market.
qertoip 6y ago
You seem to have a very US centric view. There are other 7.5 billion people in the World.
afc 6y ago
I use it as a store of value. Because I expect that it will continue to significantly appreciate (it has gone up 10X or more in the last year!), I couldn't care less about its volatility. I expect that as its exponential rise slows down (like all exponential growth, it must come to an end, perhaps after a few more halving cycles), the volatility will decrease accordingly. You're right that there are other systems to store value, but it doesn't follow that Bitcoin doesn't have value as one. It does for me, today. I've used it (together with some other systems to store value) in a very real sense to store portions of my salary and, months later, consume it, acquiring tangible assets. I couldn't care less about having to convert it to Euros first, that doesn't make it any less useful to me.
- postalrat 6y ago
  Do you feel all crytocurrencies (or crtyptostoreofvalues) deserve the same status as bitcoin? If not what makes bitcoin special?
- benhurmarcel 6y ago
  > I use it as a store of value. Because I expect that it will continue to significantly appreciate Then you don't use it as a store of value; you use it as a speculative investment.
  - afc 6y ago
    Meh, not really. At the end of the day, same as gold, bonds, stocks, fiat and real estate, I use it just to park the outputs of my production today, with what I think is a reasonable expectation that I'll be able to get it back in the future (which I use together with other similar asset types). So far, it has greatly fulfilled my expectations and I have little doubts that it'll continue to do so. I consider it very useful. But sure, you're free call it whatever you want and continue to push your world view, and miss the point that, for me, today, it is very useful.

JulianRaphael 6y ago

This is not to refute your comment, but would you have been able to foresee what problems the internet will solve when ARPANET had 15 sites in 1971? I mean if someone would have told you back then that you'd be able to stream a movie in 4K from more or less anywhere in the world, you'd probably have laughed that person out of the room. So look at ARPANET back then and look at the internet today and how much innovation has happened on top of it. And I'm sure there will be a lot more innovation on the good ol' internet for many more years to come. In a similar way, BTC will evolve. It arguable already has. All the money flowing into cryptocurrencies and the crypto tech stack drives more and more competition (and yes - also corruption and bad behaviour) and some of it will be meaningful. Just like some tech startups were/are scams, some are kind of useless but harmless and a few changed the world. I personally don't know what problem(s) crypto will solve, but I can see that the technology summons a lot of creative energy. Creative energy that gets empowered through capital and channeled through competition will eventually produce breakthroughs somewhere. Let mankind's creativity run wild and let yourself surprise by the unexpected outcomes!

MrMan 6y ago

It solves so far the problem of how do I own an asset that only goes up? That is pretty much it

thehappypm 6y ago

The main issue with BTC being a store of value is that it's already hyper hoarded. Look it up -- it's far, far more concentrated in a few hands than any real-world currency or any real-world asset.

rawtxapp 6y ago

> The core issue I've seen that goes unanswered is what problem does BTC solve? To me, it's trustless money. I don't need to trust the US gov, I don't care about who they will elect or which wars they are gonna start or which banks they are gonna bailout. You can verify everything through code and math. If that's not valuable to you, maybe there's some other use case you're interested. If you've done your research and there's really no use case that excites you, then you can just ignore it.

MrMan 6y ago
Trustless is bad. Humans need trust without it we get genocide and other bad things. Trustless is another way of expressing a desire for a fantasy world where people are not interdependent and each hacker can live in their own bubble with no obligations to society. At some point the militias you pay to kill and protect you will kill you hoping to find your treasure hoard
tw600040 6y ago
It's NOT trustless money. Instead of trusting the US gov, you are trusting that this decentralized ledger will gain acceptance by the whole world. Which one is more of a leap of faith?
- rawtxapp 6y ago
  > you are trusting that this decentralized ledger will gain acceptance by the whole world. Bitcoin itself is inherently trustless, that's the whole point of it. You can trust that there will never be more than 21M Bitcoins, you can trust that there will never be a double-spend, you can trust that it will run 24/7, etc. Whether it will gain worldwide acceptance is another matter (btw, adoption is increasing at very fast pace now), as long as there's a subset of the world that accepts it, that's good enough for me.
  - tablespoon 6y ago
    > Bitcoin itself is inherently trustless, that's the whole point of it. You can trust that there will never be more than 21M Bitcoins, you can trust that there will never be a double-spend, you can trust that it will run 24/7, etc. No it isn't. If the Bitcoin devs and miners agree on a change (for instance, to increase the cap), it'll happen, so you have to trust them.

EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 6y ago

The core issue that Bitcoin resolves is transferring power from MBAs to nerds.

rawtxapp 6y ago
I'd say it's more transfer of power from politicians to the the people, but we can always disagree.
- EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 6y ago
  well, MBAs here is a catch all phrase that includes politicians (even though they are usually lawyers).

yahyaheee 6y ago

Yeah the cost of decentralization is so high that you really need to be gaining something from it. I’ve long said that if drugs were legal it would remove most of bitcoins usage. Money is ultimately a reflection of power, and decentralization is merely a tool for when those power structures limit the market.

qertoip 6y ago

You seem to have a very US centric view. There are other 7.5 billion people in the World.

afc 6y ago

I use it as a store of value. Because I expect that it will continue to significantly appreciate (it has gone up 10X or more in the last year!), I couldn't care less about its volatility. I expect that as its exponential rise slows down (like all exponential growth, it must come to an end, perhaps after a few more halving cycles), the volatility will decrease accordingly. You're right that there are other systems to store value, but it doesn't follow that Bitcoin doesn't have value as one. It does for me, today. I've used it (together with some other systems to store value) in a very real sense to store portions of my salary and, months later, consume it, acquiring tangible assets. I couldn't care less about having to convert it to Euros first, that doesn't make it any less useful to me.

postalrat 6y ago
Do you feel all crytocurrencies (or crtyptostoreofvalues) deserve the same status as bitcoin? If not what makes bitcoin special?
benhurmarcel 6y ago
> I use it as a store of value. Because I expect that it will continue to significantly appreciate Then you don't use it as a store of value; you use it as a speculative investment.
- afc 6y ago
  Meh, not really. At the end of the day, same as gold, bonds, stocks, fiat and real estate, I use it just to park the outputs of my production today, with what I think is a reasonable expectation that I'll be able to get it back in the future (which I use together with other similar asset types). So far, it has greatly fulfilled my expectations and I have little doubts that it'll continue to do so. I consider it very useful. But sure, you're free call it whatever you want and continue to push your world view, and miss the point that, for me, today, it is very useful.