> Bitcoin has utility; it separates money from the State. This is, and always has been, wishful thinking. To the extent that it could be true, it is near-guar

> Bitcoin has utility; it separates money from the State. This is, and always has been, wishful thinking. To the extent that it could be true, it is near-guaranteed that, given enough time, the State will ban the use of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies—whether "to maintain their monopoly" or "to protect people from scams", depending on your point of view. But there was never even a realistic possibility of Bitcoin becoming currency in a real sense. Its two biggest downfalls (that I can recall off the top of my head) are: - It cannot act as a reliable store of value. Because it is used extensively by speculators, its value is extremely volatile. Because its legal status is still unclear or in flux in many jurisdictions (including major ones), its value could fall to zero or near-zero with very little warning. - It has high transaction costs. This makes it prohibitive to use for everyday transactions without some kind of central authority to batch the transactions—and then you've just invented a new State, but with extra steps. There are other problems with it, but these two are more than enough to make it utterly unsuitable as currency. It's been great at making money for those who got in early, though. What do we call those kinds of schemes again...? Edit to add: All of this also presupposes that "separating money from the State" is actually a good thing. Most of us are not hardcore libertarians or anarchocapitalists, so we don't actually believe that it is.