[delegate]

$236 is small change compared to how much bitcoin I've personally lost in the various hacks - MtGox and others.

Even so, I still think bitcoin is a brilliant tech and valuable experiment.

It is wrong to think of bitcoin as a direct competitor to fiat.

Just like mp3 / bittorent did not destroy the music / movie industry, bitcoin isn't going to replace fiat currency. Not now and not in it's current form.

But it's going to be around as an alternative to the centralised banking system and as a very interesting social experiment and self-governance technology.

In time, both techs are going to merge - meaning that banks will implement all kinds of 'blockchain technologies', while virtual currencies will implement all kinds of services which the banks currently provide.

[Jtsummers]

Serious question. MtGox, as I recall, was the first major Bitcoin-losing hack. So I'll (kinda) excuse people for participating in that one. But why would you, especially after that, keep large amounts of BTC in these sorts of exchanges?

[Mickydtron]

In order for it to be a legitimate alternative, as opposed to only being of interest to ideologues and academics, shouldn't it actually be competitive with existing technologies in areas like fees, user experience, or speed? If it was better at some and worse at others, it would provide a legitimate alternative with a different set of trade-offs, but for it to lose in every category doesn't really make it seem like it can be an alternative to the centralized banking system in a real and useful way.

[andirk]

As Satoshi's whitepaper harps on, and, in my opinion, the biggest difference between fiat and BTC is that BTC doesn't answer to a government. That may have a premium or a discount attached to it. But if that's not an attractive reason for someone to use BTC, then yeah, we need to look at fees like you are talking about.

[aianus]

It doesn't lose in every category, OP just chose a specific situation in which it was very expensive and then wrote a blog post showcasing his poor planning.

As a counter-anecdote I saved hundreds of dollars transferring USD10,000 in the US to THB cash in Thailand via Bitcoin.

[coryfklein]

It is competitive in fees. Sending $1M of bitcoin can be done for less than a dollar. Try doing that with USD.

Of course, fees for converting USD -> BTC -> USD are not that cheap, but neither are the fees for converting USD -> YEN -> USD.