[Retric]

For Bitcoin specifically. You can use a different token backed up by Bitcoin, but the actual implementation has these issues.

Transaction rates - Artificially kept low to profit miners.

Privacy - Every Bitcoin transactions is on a public blockchain.

Transaction fees - Using Bitcoin for even one transaction a day gets expensive.

Online only - Unlike cash only works with network access.

Conformation Time - Failing to wait for conformation in effect allows double spend attacks. Think 10 people buying computer equipment from different stores at the same time.

Assuming the implementation was changed to support wider adoption, a fixed currency has significant economic issues. For example, making or taking a loan in a currency that’s gaining value quickly becomes untenable.

PS: Of course all of this could be changed, but acknowledging issues is the first step in selecting a new set of tradeoffs.

[cyphertruck]

First off, thank you for making fair criticisms. Unfortunately some of your information is old.

You don’t need a bitcoin backed token, lightning does it.

Transaction rates are not artificially kept low. In fact most the vast majority of the time bitcoin has excess capacity.

Privacy- this is a legitimate concern but it is improving, slowly. Taoroot and Lightning are both privacy improvements.

So your daily transactions aren't meant for bitcoin. A distributed ledger that replicates all data globally for eternity is not an appropriate method for recording coffee purchases. Though I have done it. Bitcoin makes sense for settlement, and lightning is appropriate for coffee.

That said, I regularly clear bitcoin transactions for $1 or less in fees, and it is cheaper then every other form of payment in the world. You may think a SWIFT transaction is “free”, but its merely the cost is hidden. And don’t forget the inflation tax, that is a global wealth tax on any money held in an inflating currency. So compared to that, $1 to send $100 is cheap.

Online Only- I don’t think there is a solution to this criticism, but not sure what the issue is.

Lightning allows speed without double spend problems. Personally when moving large (for me) amounts of money I font mind waiting an hour for the confirmations. I certainly won’t trust a payment without them.

But bitcoin is voluntary, it doesn't have to be perfect in every regard.

[betterunix2]

"Online Only- I don’t think there is a solution to this criticism, but not sure what the issue is."

The fact that I need to connect to some peer-to-peer network or third party service for every transaction is a limiting factor. It reduces the efficiency of the system and increases latency, and it adds additional points of failure.

In fact it can be solved for electronic transactions and there is a mountain of published research on the topic that dates back to the late 80s. Here is a recent research paper:

https://eprint.iacr.org/2017/1220.pdf

The idea is to ensure that users who attempt to double spend can be identified and penalized later (e.g. by being added to a blacklist; some systems actually ensure that all transactions in which the cheating user participated can be identified, so merchants who try to evade the blacklist can also be penalized). The money has to be issued by a bank under the security definition. If anonymity is not a requirement -- and presumably a Bitcoin enthusiast does not care about anonymity since Bitcoin is not anonymous -- this can be easily achieved by using ordinary digital signatures.

[cyphertruck]

I think you are not understanding how bitcoin works, and this exact problem of double spending was better solved by bitcoin. You dont need to trust a third oarty or “online service”, you can dimply run a bitcoin node. If it is that important a raspberry pi and SSD is cheaper than your average credit card terminal.

The credit card network, by the way, is much worse in this regard.

[betterunix2]

...so you need to be online, connected to the rest of the Bitcoin peer-to-peer network, to engage in a transaction. I am talking about offline transactions, where I only need to communicate with the other party in the transaction. Again, you can just read the paper I gave a link to, which describes this scenario, or any of the other hundreds of papers published on the topic.

[jungturk]

Unlike many great ideas, those in the paper you cite just haven't yet gathered enough acceptance.

The value of the US dollar as a reserve currency is a faith-based article, and yet it works well. The confidence in the Fed to not unduly dilute the value has reinforced the resolve of the participants to continue to accept it as currency.

Bitcoin's paid many years of dues in this regard as well, and its garnered the confidence of its market participants despite its deficiencies.

[Retric]

> Transaction rates are not artificially kept low.

You can look it up, larger blocks where allowed in the past, 1MB is a completely arbitrary size that was overkill at the time but hasn’t increased. Even 1$ transactions are quite expensive though they are often much higher.

The lighting network has it’s own separate set of issues. It’s Bitcoin backed but loses some of Bitcoins advantages: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2006.08513.pdf

> Online Only- I don’t think there is a solution to this criticism, but not sure what the issue is.

It’s simply a dependency. Shops may have issues accepting CC payments after a hurricane for example, but they can always take cash.

[cyphertruck]

The block size is not a limiting factor in transactions. And it was quadrupled in 2017.

The biggest problem with bitcoin is that scammers spread FUD to justify their scam coins and too many people believe the FUD.

You are repeating FUD here and basing it in your non-understanding of how bitcoin works.

[vntok]

Generalized mesh networks should solve this problem quite nicely in the next decade.

[arrosenberg]

Generalized mesh networks will solve power outages?

[anticensor]

The same can be said for central bank money.

Transaction clearance - Artificially kept centralised to keep states control supply.

Privacy - Every bank transaction requires real names.

Artificial scarcity - If everyone tried to withdraw the money from their banking accounts at or around the same time, all the banknotes in circulation would be unable to cover all the demand.

[Retric]

Transaction clearance between customers at the same bank don’t involve any central authority. In fact banks are reporting their net transactions between each other aka if A has 100,000 transactions for 100$ each with B that sum to zero net transfer they don’t need to report anything.

This is needed as otherwise banks could claim to have unlimited funds.

Bank notes provide privacy and are created on demand. Having 1:1 bank notes to M1 money supply would simply be wasteful.