[mrkramer]

>What started as a way to anonymously pay for illegal services on the dark net, morphed into a Ponzi scheme aimed at low IQ tech bros.

That was never the point of Bitcoin. Read the whitepaper. Satoshi wanted to decentralize trust in the ecommerce world with the help of transparent P2P decentralized and distributed database called blockchain and he wanted to enable micropayments. There is no mention of buying drugs or any other illicit activities in the whitepaper.

[hakfoo]

...and everyone is going to use their newfangled home computers to organize recipes and do biorythym charts.

Even in a charitable interpretation of history-- ignoring that Bitcoin wouldn't scale to micropayment levels-- any early interest in micropayments was quickly overwhelmed by speculation and illegal trade.

I think Dogecoin tips on Reddit circa 2014 are about as close as we ever got to viable crypto micropayments, and ISTR it was done off-chain by putting a balance in a bot.

[mrkramer]

Again read what Satoshi was saying; no home PCs or Raspberry Pi type devices instead server farms will process transactions. It can scale, no reason why it wouldn't. Look at the BitTorrent for example....still viable.

[muddi900]

I'd go one further; Bitcoin as a payment method only makes sense if it is illegal, safe from State and inter-state meddling.

[mrkramer]

Bitcoin is by design not tied to the "State" if you will or in another words it makes the central bank obsolete but it still must operate withing the state and within the legal framework of finance and state criminal laws.

After all this years you guys are still getting it wrong; using Bitcoin is not about running away from your real world identity where you would freely be able to buy illicit goods and services. It is about decentralizing trust; giving the people the control of their money and it is about micropayments.

In today world of central banks, commercial banks and credit card companies like Visa and Mastercard, you depend on them to process your transactions but in the Bitcoin type system, P2P network nodes process your transactions.

Banal example is when Visa and Mastercard mangle and eventually ban Porn related transactions. In the Bitcoin world, mining nodes collect the fees and don't care what you pay for. State decides what is legal and what is illegal not credit card companies who act upon their gut feeling of what transactions are "bad" and which ones are "good".

[mrkramer]

but it still must operate within*