[shredfvz]

Money is ultimately just a standardized indicator of wealth with no intrinsic value on its own, a definition shared by both USD and BTC. The downside of USD being that it can be counterfeited, illegally by unscrupulous individuals or legally by the Federal Reserve (see: QE Infinity).

Regrettably, it's still super common for people to turn up their noses in disgust, claiming "Bitcoin Boogey Man, oh noezzz"!

I'm sorry, does the USD somehow not come with a Boogey Man? Because last I checked HSBC was caught with their pants down directly funding terrorism through shady business practices, Bernie Madoff is still in prison for running a giant Ponzi, the illegal narcotics trade is done mostly in USD, plus you have money laundering, and just about every crime conceivable being carried out in USD.

But wait, the Bitcoin Boogeyman!!!

Everyone come to look!

The USD is dirtier than Bitcoin by several orders of magnitude. It's been taking a full out mudbath every day of its life for the past several decades. It's just that the USD is all people know, so they assume it's squeaky clean, because how could it not be squeaky clean??

[glesica]

I personally don't care what people use it for. My point is that it is primarily good for illicit and "grey market" transactions, and really nothing else. You entire argument demonstrates that you missed my point completely.

Why would I buy a cheeseburger with Bitcoins? Say the cheeseburger costs 0.1 Bitcoins (today). Tomorrow, who knows what those (fractional) Bitcoins will be worth!

Dollars (or whatever) on the other hand are generally pretty stable. Currency fluctuations, on a day-to-day basis, are very, very small. Sure, there's the occasional hyper-inflationary episode (several South American countries have experienced these somewhat regularly), but that's the exception.

The problem is that Bitcoin is, at least at this point, more of a commodity that people trade when they can't (or don't want to) use traditional money. It is not a "currency" in that sense.

[bayesianhorse]

For one thing, currency instability for BTC is bigger, and secondly the primary use of BTC right now is making illegal income look legal.

[shredfvz]

* citation needed

[lmm]

Even in the presence of QE, the value of the USD remains more-or-less stable. I can go to bed confident that it's not going to cost me $10 to get a loaf of bread tomorrow. Bitcoin isn't and won't be useful to me as a currency until its value is stable.

[pantaril]

Bitcoin is currently indeed very risky to use as store of value as the market grows quite rapidly and the exchange rate fluctuates greatly. I expect that it will improve in the future and ultimately bitcoin will be better store of value then official currencies, because the savings will not lose the value ove years due to inflation.

But fortunately bitcoin has great use even today in its current state. It is great for sending or accepting money internationaly, quickly and without ridiculous transaction fees. This is something you can't do with official curencies and is IMO big part of the success bitcoin is experiencing.