[wpietri]

Exactly. It has been 10+ years since the Bitcoin paper. No cryptocurrency has significant consumer adoption. [1], [2] Except for light financial crime (ransomware, money laundering, gambling, theft, etc), it has no demonstrated advantage over alternative technologies. I don't think it will go away, any more than Ponzi and Make Money Fast schemes have gone away. But like you, I expect it will fade into the background as "that weird old thing" as governmental KYC and AML efforts make it ever harder to convert it into real money.

I also expect that the fashion for it in VC investment, already waning, will totally fade by the end of the 2020s. And that regulators like the SEC will have ended the various its-not-equity equity investments, cutting off the other major source of funds.

[1] E.g.: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/16/nyregion/new-york-today-l...

[2] For "significant" contrast it with M-PESA, which is also digital money and launched around the same time: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-Pesa

[induetimesir]

"no demonstrated advantage" - said by someone who doesn't remember what it's like to wait for a large check to clear.

or hasn't tried to fund their IRA via an ACH transfer but their bank won't allow it bcs rules..

or hasn't wanted to wire money (or receive a wire) for a fraction of the price (and hassle) of a wire transfer.

I have sent hundreds of bitcoin transactions. And I admit that it's not perfect. There's lots of room for improvement. But even given bitcoin's flaws, there are times where bitcoin is massively, gobsmackingly better than the traditional US banking system.

And the US financial system has been around 10x+ as long...

So much expectation born of such ignorance. It's a common problem for bitcoin. But not new. And it hasn't stopped bitcoin yet. and I doubt it will.

I believe we're on the cusp of a state change in the world of digital bearer assets. It's not that bitcoin will simply survive, it's more that programmable digital assets and digital bearer assets will steadily win over most other forms of value.

Unfortunately this isn't the kind of conversation that's likely to change minds - forum chats just don't tend to move the needle for most people who are entrenched in their positions. If we were to have a face to face conversation, I suspect we'd be able to find more common ground.

Oh well, I've watched the tide steadily turn over the last 7yrs. And I'll gladly watch opinion continue to shift over the next decade.

[vinniejames]

A good number of these negative arguments appear to have a similar line of thinking. "I don't know much about Bitcoin, or finance in general, but I can adamantly tell you Bitcoin has no benefit, something something money laundering"

[wpietri]

Oh? If you're so confident Bitcoin has demonstrated utility for other categories, It should be pretty easy for you to demonstrate it. The original goal was peer-to-peer electronic cash: https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf

Real cash usage is gradually declining, but approximately zero of that difference has been taken up by Bitcoin: https://www.frbsf.org/cash/publications/fed-notes/2018/novem...

Merchant adoption is not just stagnating, it's in reverse: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-07-12/bitcoin-a...

If you contrast this with the speedy rise of M-Pesa, it's obviously a failure as digital cash. It's also a failure as compared with things like Venmo, which are all popular with people doing cash-like things: https://money.com/venmo-cash-app-zelle-better/

So if it's not good for the stated purpose, what's it now good for? No speculation about the future please. Just name a specific, significant group of users, state their problem, explain how Bitcoin solves it better than alternatives (better on their terms, not yours), and link to statistics showing sustained, rising adoption.

[hnews_account_1]

As a finance professional, I can tell you without shame that much of my industry doesn't understand finance either. The mask of online anonymity simply emboldens people with no knowledge to come forth and spout. I keep moving platforms trying to get away from that shit. Reddit is horrible in this regard, so I only use it for memes. HN has full credibility professionals in programming, but its finance base is really not upto snuff.

[vinniejames]

Does a hacker newsish platform exist for the finance world?

[hnews_account_1]

I'm yet to find it. For a meme-ish sub /r/wallstreetbets is pretty good. Go there and have a laugh. But places like /r/economics and /r/finance are utter shit.

The best resource is financial twitter (fintwit). The news breaks there, the discussion happens there, and loads of meme-ing also takes place (which is always a nice to-have in a serious place). The only drawback is that most of them lean exactly the way I do. So I can bear the place, but I miss out on a bunch of opposing opinions and it's always a challenge finding someone on the opposite side of the fence.

[NotASithLord]

Have a short list of worthy follows to start breaking into it?

[imcoconut]

the forum section of wallstreetoasis is actually pretty good as sort of hn for finance. not as much good content/discussion as here but still enough.

[wpietri]

You haven't yet listed a specific occasion when Bitcoin is better than the alternatives. Let alone doing it for a significant group of people facing a specific problem. So I'm sticking with "no demonstrated advantage".

Do existing approaches have problems, especially the legacy ones? Sure. Nobody denies that. But Bitcoin needs to be better in practice, not just in theory.

I'm sure you do believe that Bitcoin is on the cusp of change. But Bitcoin has been on the cusp of change for 10 years. It's the same routine some Christians have been running for 2000 years: Jesus is coming back any day now. When they predict a specific date, they always turn out to be wrong, but that does not change things: https://twitter.com/williampietri/status/1071833726294749184

I was very interested when Bitcoin appeared a decade ago. It's an interesting idea backed by interesting technology. Of course, so was 3D TV. In both cases, however much the respective fan groups are sure it's superior, in practice the great majority of humanity turns out not to care because the other options turn out to be as good or better for their actual needs.

[paulpauper]

how long do you think it takes to turn fiat into bitcoin and bitcoin back into fiat for the recipient? Hint: its longer than clearing a check

[hanniabu]

That's not bitcoin's fault, it's the traditional financial system's fault. The transaction can only happen at the rate of the slowest party.

[Symbiote]

How long does it take in European countries, where the traditional system is (depending on the country) approximately instantaneous?

[sincerely]

>Except for light financial crime (ransomware, money laundering, gambling, theft, etc), it has no demonstrated advantage over alternative technologies.

I know this is a crime, but it's not a financial crime: cryptocurrency has HUGE advantages over alternative tech for buying drugs online.

[wpietri]

Fair point. It becomes financial crime for the drug seller, but you're right that Bitcoin is also good for other kinds of crime. In a world where marijuana legalization wasn't happening, I think Bitcoin would have more of a chance.

[thenewnewguy]

> Except for light financial crime (ransomware, money laundering, gambling, theft, etc), it has no demonstrated advantage over alternative technologies.

Slight nitpick: Cryptocurrencies have demonstrable advantages over existing solutions (pseudo-anonymity, decentralization, inflation-proof, etc) but consumers don't care about these advantages enough to make the switch.

[wpietri]

If an advantage falls in the forest and nobody hears it, does it truly make a sound?

I'll grant those can be characteristics of cryptocurrencies, but they're only advantages to people who need those things. And they're only advantages on net if what goes with those characteristics ends up being net beneficial to somebody. E.g., the "inflation-proof" bit is a nice line, but most of the world had good reason for getting rid of fixed currencies after the collapse of Bretton Woods. And being "inflation-proof" implies a degree of value stability that Bitcoin most certainly does not have in practice.

I'll also grant that pseudo-anonymity and decentralization are useful to a very small set of people, but I think that's pretty well covered under the first part of my sentence. There are also some people who like those things for theoretical, quasi-religious reasons, but I don't think satisfying that counts as any sort of practical advantage.

[asdfasgasdgasdg]

> but consumers don't care about these advantages enough to make the switch.

And, more importantly, governments see those attributes as a downside, and would no doubt clamp down hard on crypto on-ramps in the event that they ever started getting significant uptake.

[etrabroline]

Your view of government is highly authoritarian. If Bitcoin becomes legitimately popular, no government that needs the support of the people to rule can ban it.

Uber broke every taxi law on the books until popular support made those monopolistic laws unenforceable. The political actors working against Bitcoin own quite similar and quite unpopular state-backed monopolies of their own.

[wpietri]

Bitcoin at this point will never become "legitimately popular". It's had about as long as Uber, and it has only grown less relevant to people's lives for the last few years. M-Pesa, which only operates in a few countries, has something like 100x the transaction volume.

Further, the downsides to the rise of ridesharing were very modest for governments. Increased congestion, regulatory uncertainty, and the eventual need for new laws and regulations. But governments have a very strong interest in preventing money laundering because a) tax evasion means less money for the government, and b) serious, sustained crime requires money laundering to survive.

So even if Bitcoin were to become more popular, governments would still crack down on it, and people would happily go back to using things like Visa, Paypal, Venmo, etc.