Maybe take others advice and stop commenting on this topic because everything you said is wrong. I’ll contradict all your points using specific personal examples of my usage.
I’ve bought Bitcoin many times without any KYC. In old days localbitcoins and these days ATMs in many countries.
There aren’t any “exchange in the coins path”. I’ve exchanged paper fiat currency at Starbucks, in a hotel lobby.
The wallets I use are open source 100%. In fact I’ve personally written a python script to manually generate a transaction to broadcast. There is no third party. only your operating system, the internet connection and the source code. In that particular case I was using NixOS linux and so my operating system was also open source. I also broadcast my transaction over the ToR network so my internet provider and the Bitcoin network has no visibility.
Now onto usefulness. By holding Bitcoin I’ve preserved and grown my wealth. But how has it been used practically. Lets see.
- yesterday I bought my lunch for my wife and I, $21 using by Bitpay debit card. I loaded the card 2 mins before with those dollars by sending Litecoin which was auto exchanged by Bitpay at exactly the current exchange rate and with no fee. I exchange Bitcoin for small amounts Litecoin periodically as Litecoin is fast and cheap to send for small payments. Savings vs Checking.
- Years ago I met an artist from Argentina on an internet forum. She was painting what I thought were nice paintings. She was selling professional prints of those. I sent her Bitcoin and she sent me the prints. I’ve framed them and they hang in my home. I get many compliments on them.
- I’ve hired a developer in Crimea to work on a security software and he was paid for his work in Bitcoin
- When my sister in law had a baby shower I bought all the gifts at Buy Buy Baby using a digital gift card purchased 30 mins earlier using Bitcoin.
I could actually go on and on and on. But clearly you don’t have experience or understanding of what you are discussing as you proposed sending cash in the mail, which I don’t know anyone who would do that.
Bitcoin is revolutionary and has a decent shot at bringing fiat government currencies to their knees so they are forced to act responsibly and not brr brr money print.
> Maybe take others advice and stop commenting on this topic because everything you said is wrong.
Oh lord.
> I’ve bought Bitcoin many times without any KYC. In old days localbitcoins and these days ATMs in many countries ... There aren’t any “exchange in the coins path”. I’ve exchanged paper fiat currency at Starbucks, in a hotel lobby.
Sure, ok. Now take just one tiny step forward. Think about what happens next. Those coins have extremely high odds of passing through a KYC system in the near future. That can, will, and frequently has been used to trace users who are dumb enough to think "I paid for bitcoin for cash, I'm now anonymous".
> The wallets I use are open source 100%.
And nothing nefarious has ever slipped into open source software, right? Do you have no idea what a supply chain attack is?
You use NPM, you really ought to.
> There is no third party. only your operating system, the internet connection and the source code.
And, of course, your OS and the internet can be trusted. This is a great example of the level of critical thinking cryptobros achieve.
> I also broadcast my transaction over the ToR network so my internet provider and the Bitcoin network has no visibility.
Ok, so you mitigate the announce IP, which is one of the least useful ways to do analysis. Cool.
> yesterday I bought my lunch for my wife and I, $21 using by Bitpay debit card. I loaded the card 2 mins before with those dollars by sending Litecoin ...
So it has objectively worse utility, UX, and more dependencies than fiat?
This is not a good example.
> Years ago I met an artist from Argentina on an internet forum. She was painting what I thought were nice paintings. She was selling professional prints of those. I sent her Bitcoin and she sent me the prints.
Ok. This is still not useful. Western Union, Paypal, SWIFT, all cheaper and in some cases faster.
> I’ve hired a developer in Crimea to work on a security software and he was paid for his work in Bitcoin
Protip: if someone is willing to be paid in bitcoin, they are not worth the bitcoin you're sending.
> When my sister in law had a baby shower I bought all the gifts at Buy Buy Baby using a digital gift card purchased 30 mins earlier using Bitcoin.
As above: "So it has objectively worse utility, UX, and more dependencies than fiat?"
> Bitcoin is revolutionary and has a decent shot at bringing fiat government currencies to their knees so they are forced to act responsibly and not brr brr money print.
You have absolutely no idea what a central bank does, do you? Well, I mean, you obviously think you do. But you really don't. A basic class on economics would do you a world of good.
Despite being nominally on your side in this discussion, the way you reply makes me actively wish I agreed with you less, because you are so hostile and abrasive.
A civilized discussion would certainly be much more productive. I can easy address the claims made and they are false.
If this poster actually knew how much experience I have with all the topics they profess such knowledge about I’d hope in that case they could be more mature.
Probably one of the must outrageous statements was to try and lecture me on the function of central banks. I’m intimately familiar with the US financial system and the function of central banks. I’ve extensively discussed Bitcoin with a very senior researcher of the Fed and was also directly involved in preparing private presentation to the ECB in Frankfurt. The central banks themselves are very concerned about how competitive Bitcoin is with fiat currency.
Bitcoin has more utility nowadays than dollar funds. It can be converted to almost any currency anywhere almost instantly and can be used by consumers with no friction via instant funded prepaid debit cards worldwide.
This poster brings up legacy payment systems that can’t even remotely compete with Bitcoin on the technical merits.
I keep thinking I should respond as you are so unbelievably wrong it really needs refuting these categorically false claims of yours.
However it’s seems doubtful you will even be willing to acknowledge your flawed understanding and perhaps even unlikely you will see my response give how HN works.
