[and0]

I didn't name the obvious problems because they've been talked over to death at this point, typically in that most-upvoted first post you mentioned initially.

I think the largest issue with Bitcoin is precisely what you probably admire it for, judging by your description of its detractors: I don't think the average consumer wants an unregulated currency. People like having a central authority that enforces laws around their currency. People enjoy the benefits of a dollar that doesn't fluctuate wildly in value. People enjoy the conveniences of modern banking systems.

There's a tendency for libertarians to ignore very obvious examples of contradictions in their world view, because any of these examples can be dismissed using random ideological purity tests. Namely, the idea that the market is entirely separate from the government, or that a government formed by (often very imperfect) representative democracy or even brute force is any less pure of a "force" than market forces.

Modern financial systems developed largely because people wanted them. Consumer protections laws were implemented because people voted for them and would be very upset if they were taken away. People who step into voting booths are still "rational actors". People who disagree with your world view (just about literally everyone) are still rational actors.

At the end of the day advocates of cryptocurrency have tried everything to get people to start using or accepting Bitcoin and no one has, despite no real government intervention. Hell, the whole point of your original post was to lament that the most popular opinion is that cryptocurrency is dumb. The market has said no, why have you not started listening?

(Also: Mining is massively wasteful. Transactions are expensive. It's overtly complicated and unpleasant to handle. A lot of people lose all their money because sites get hacked. Also, all the issues brought up by this whole forking incident.)

[wyldfire]

> I don't think the average consumer wants an unregulated currency.

Ok, so it will continue to apply to just the niche that's okay w/unregulated currency.

> People like having a central authority that enforces laws around their currency.

I will concede that this is a risk. Every time a theft occurs, there's temptation to try to "solve" the problem of thefts. Once a powerful state endorses a black/grey list of coins tainted by theft (even if it's offered as a "hey this is opt-in, we won't legislate this list"), it will start us on a slippery slope towards centralization and perhaps prohibition/censorship.

> People enjoy the benefits of a dollar that doesn't fluctuate wildly in value.

Yes, bitcoin may continue to be stuck in a niche like equities or something other than currency.

> People enjoy the conveniences of modern banking systems.

Yes, and bridging the gap between human/trust/legally secured systems with mathematical ones like bitcoin is a challenge. And yet, businesses have arisen to handle this challenge.

Ultimately, the "but it's not really suited for what that guy Fred said it could do" arguments are orthogonal. It doesn't matter that what Fred said was an exaggeration or completely false. Bitcoin will keep churning out new blocks regardless. And yes, people may eventually say to themselves "oh hey if it will never do that then I should sell!" And the value will drop. But what if it were back to USD parity? Would that be bad? Or just the new norm? I contend it's the latter.

[and0]

I would agree the existence of cryptocurrencies is a net positive, aside from the environmental waste of mining them, though that's an impossibly tiny blip compared to anything else humanity does.

I enjoy watching developments related to cryptocurrency, my big post there was mostly in response to flawed (and often outright ironic) claims by it's defenders along certain ideological lines.

[MarkPNeyer]

> People like having a central authority that enforces laws around their currency.

I think most people don't give a damn about this or think about it one way or the other. It's too abstract for them to think about. Most people use dollars without thinking about what they are or where they come from.

> People enjoy the benefits of a dollar that doesn't fluctuate wildly in value

Yes, this much is true. Of course, if you hold bitcoin constant, you could claim it's the dollar that fluctuates wildly. If reality itself is unstable, than a stable currency starts to look more like a clever trick than something that is real and maintainable.

If you told people "the dollar is stable, but at the small cost of rapid centralization of wealth under the control of extremely powerful actors who aren't accountable to the law", they might see things differently.

What if all our political stability has, at its root, become a result of volatility moving out of the financial sector and into basically every other facet of human existence?

> . People enjoy the conveniences of modern banking systems.

I think you underestimate how much people hate modern banking, which does not give a shit about consumers. They're sick of paying fees to access their own money.

> At the end of the day advocates of concurrency have tried everything to get people to start using or accepting Bitcoin and no one has, despite no real government intervention.

I don't think you really understand the goals of this group. Many of these people don't give a damn if others use bitcoin for transactions, and they have no real interest in using it themselves. Yes, some people want it to replace the dollar in day to day transactions. Others are content for a store of value that has a tendency to appreciate over the long term.

> The market has said no,

Transaction volume has grown tremendously in the past few years. How is this the market saying "no?"

https://blockchain.info/charts/n-transactions?timespan=all

Do you think "there's just a bunch of greater and greater fools, all passing around a potato that surely will blow up any day now?"

It's honestly hard to understand your perspective here. If it's still around in a few years, will you still think it's all fools speculating? What kind of evidence would change your mind on this?

[t0mbstone]

> They're sick of paying fees to access their own money.

The average fee per transaction with bitcoin recently spiked as high as $5.5 USD. That is utterly absurd for a currency that is supposed to solve the fee problem that all of these people are so sick of.

See: https://bitinfocharts.com/comparison/bitcoin-transactionfees...

The worst part is that the fees are only going to keep going up, the more popular bitcoin becomes!

[and0]

Most people don't think about the value of the dollar or the conveniences of modern banking because it's become such a transparent part of our daily lives. That would very obviously change if it went away.

I also lament the "rapid centralization of wealth" but fail to see how Bitcoin or your worldview in general (as the opposite of a "Statist", I'm assuming) would do anything except accelerate this process.

Most people don't hate modern banking. Most people also don't pay fees to access their own money, except ATM fees (which are often reimbursed). This is a problem with banks anyway, aka the free market, not fiat. If banks are "too abstract for [most people] to think about" I don't see how they could figure out managing bitcoin, and would likely defer to private banking institutions for Bitcoin as well. Hell, they people already do store Bitcoin wallets in centralized systems, with often hilariously poor results.

Pro tip: when your arguments are to literally start questioning reality, you've lost. However it is refreshing to see a libertarian actually admit the sort of mental gymnastics their worldview requires.

Also, judging by the wild fluctuations in transactions day-to-day, I'm assuming this is all trading volume. I remember when a few legitimate businesses started accepting Bitcoin (Newegg, and uh.. that one taco place?) and I'm not seeing any real correlation where it should matter.

[MarkPNeyer]

> Pro tip: when your arguments are to literally start questioning reality

Saying "reality isn't stable" is a description of the dynamics of reality, not a claim that realty doesn't exist.

> However it is refreshing to see a libertarian actually admit the sort of mental gymnastics their worldview requires.

I've yet to see any evidence you think would change your view.

The evidence that would change my view on this is simple: bitcoin fails completely, with a price going to zero.

Is there evidence that would change your view?

[and0]

If someone found a valid use-case or actual market for Bitcoin outside of speculation that provided real value to everyday people. Or if the myriad of issues I've brought up had a solution and wouldn't just get worse with at scale. Until then, it's Beanie Babies with some cool math.

But I can also think in terms of hypotheticals and don't require Bitcoin fail entirely (or the USD to behave perfectly) to judge it, or tell that it's current value is tied to ideological and/or speculative wishfulness.