[tveita]

> Not until they can really explain to the average Joe why cryptocurrencies are such a good thing.

"Look at all these people getting rich without any work, you can too! Just buy this convenient financial product I happen to be selling!"

I'd have hoped the mania would die out once the supply of people with technical skills was exhausted, but it looks like people are hard at work extending the bottom of the pyramid to cover the usual victims.

[ojr]

bitcoin is an open source C++ computer program that created a deflationary currency that somehow was able to be seen as intrinsic value to the market, its impressive the emotions it brings out of people like you. I believe from a software standpoint, it functions better than some other software projects I've seen, so it is fun to see where this is going to go in the future

[wickawic]

> people like you

People with common sense? Governments (the institutions that get to use guns and jails and make laws) will not let their control of currency slide out from under them. Blockchains are cool and fun and applicable, but I can't see crypto-currency-as-money becoming mainstream. Even if it does the governments of the world will not adopt Bitcoin, they would make their own.

Much more likely it will be outlawed or go the way of the beanie baby. Optimistically it could remain as a financial instrument on some sort, but IMO the only reason people value btc at all is because they think it will "go mainstream". When this doesn't happen either by legislation or force the value will disappear, and with that its utility will as well.

[xiphias]

Bitcoin is already outlawed in some countries, like Venezuela. How do you think law can stop something so important that the governments don't provide?

[wickawic]

We'll talk when access to Bitcoin is considered a basic human right

[tveita]

Cryptolocker is "just" a C++ computer program too, it is technically interesting and variants are getting increasingly sophisticated. That doesn't mean I can't see that economically it's a negative sum game wasting massive amounts of value in order to enrich a few.