[jcoffland]

And global remittances, store of wealth, international monetary system resistant to government and bank controls, to name a few other uses. It's amazing how many people are willing, even eager to dismiss crypto-currencies. The concept is so radical and revolutionary that it scares the shit out of a lot of people. It will take time for humans to catch up but if you think it's just a fad then you are deluding yourself.

[moonbug]

> The concept is so radical and revolutionary that it scares the shit out of a lot of people

Oh please.

[Certhas]

Because the problem with the international finance system really is that the regulatory controls are to strict....

[jeffdavis]

Those are all theoretical use cases which need to be proven over time.

The illegitimate use cases are already proven.

[jlarocco]

"And global remittances, store of wealth, international monetary system resistant to government and bank controls, ..."

BitCoin might be taken more seriously if their advocates explained why any of those need to be solved, and how BitCoin does it better than the existing solutions.

Global remittance isn't something people need very often, and there are already solutions for it.

BitCoin is not a very great store of wealth. Keeping a box of cash under your bed is more likely to retain its value than BitCoin. Storing wealth isn't even a very good idea, though, and if a person has enough money laying around they'd be better off investing it anyway.

Finally, being "resistant to government and bank controls" isn't very convincing either, and I would hypothesize advertising it that way actually hurts take up by making it sound subversive. A drug kingpin would love a money system resistant to the government and the banking system, but what actual benefit does a normal person get from it? And is it even a true statement?

[repomies69]

Problems are always subjective. I personally think that Bitcoin will revolutionize certain types remittance and cross-border global transactions, but I think it will happen quite slowly.

What bitcoin isn't that useful for, is this kind of internet microtransactions that Microsoft was accepting. Which is quite funny in a way, because I myself use Bitcoin for this kind of transactions, steam games, humble bundle etc. But it isn't really that I want to use specifically bitcoin, it's just that I happen to have bitcoin lying around, and it is easier to spend btc on this kind of items than other payment methods. People aren't going to buy bitcoin to use them on steam games etc, but they might use them for steam games if they already have some bitcoin.

[Avshalom]

Considering that what two three mining pools make up the majority of Bitxoin and can thus decide it's fate vs the number of governments and banks and being their varying policy I really feel like bitcoin is if anything more controlled. At the very least a cash transaction doesn't need to be okayed by a third party.

[vamur]

Eliminating third parties is always a good thing.

[Avshalom]

Bitcoin requires third parties.