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by sjtgraham 4577 days ago
I think this is spot on.

All sorts of people I rarely speak with have been coming out of the woodwork to ask about Bitcoin. These people are invariably regular folks that have heard about this thing that has been appreciating at an unbelievable clip. This is extremely alarming for me.
2 comments
fat0wl 4577 days ago
Same. I've tried to warn them about this whole mess (even if the value is appreciating I think it's at best a risky investment and at worst partaking in an immoral scheme).

This article reiterates 2 of my favorites points --

1. the lack of real-world transactions, coupled with

2. the fact that these transactions are usually done via 3rd party processor or immediate conversion back to USD. If vendors had faith in it as an actually currency, they wouldn't feel the need to do so. This is not true adoption, this is simply an attempt at expanding one's market by accepting a tradable item.

Glad to see some more sobering articles emerging as I've been wondering why no one has coherently written these things. Most of the negative BTC articles on HN are poorly written and used as a straw man.

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ahmadss 4576 days ago
Re: #2 - Vendors need to pay rent, suppliers, and employees - all of whom presumably don't accept BTC. So that's probably why you see Coinbase, BitPay, and others that default to converting BTC to fiat the moment of transaction.
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fat0wl 4576 days ago
i see what you're saying but if they have profit margins they could opt to keep some BTC. i think the issue at this point is that if one decides to hold onto BTC they are put more in the position of an "investor" rather than a bank-account owner.

business owners can't all be expected to drink the kool-aid, so they don't really seem to be assisting Bitcoin adoption outside of making it a choice in their payment processor

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muyuu 4576 days ago
It is. However it has nothing to do with the protocol, it's just a fact that a lot of people are extremely money driven.

This can happen to housing, precious metals, bitcoin or anything else. Doesn't mean that the concepts of housing, precious metals or bitcoin are flawed. It's just people that are flawed, but we carry on with that reality.

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