[thricegreat]

No, it's like pulling cash from banks and sticking it under the mattress. Sure the wider cryptocurrency market is a financial wild west, but bitcoin is relatively stable (I don't mean non-volatile) at this point. It's a reasonable alternative.

[dogma1138]

The problem is that it is not sticking cash under the mattress it’s the equivalent of buying trading cards and sticking them under the mattress..

You are exchanging cash for crypto which means the exchanges now have to deal with the cash deposits somehow and where can they put it? Well they’ll put it either in banks which solves nothing or invest it as they see fit which likely to be even more problematic.

[vidanay]

It's like sticking all your cash under SOMEONE ELSE'S mattress.

[timbit42]

If you leave it on the exchange, yes. It's your mattress if it's your crypto wallet.

[dogma1138]

You will still have to go through exchanges to turn it back into cash, and you are taking on the risk of managing the wallet securely.

[thricegreat]

You're implying it's impossible to purchase goods and services with cryptocurrency. What's stopping someone from say purchasing gold bullion with cryptocurrency and in turn exchanging that for cash? There are also OTC exchanges. My point is there are many methods to exchange it for some other thing of value that doesn't directly involve exchanges and in turn the traditional banking system.

[dogma1138]

I don’t think you understand how the gold trade works if you think you can buy any substantial amount of gold without going through an exchange.

Crypto adds nothing to this it isn’t any different in principal to any other securities banks use for storing wealth.