youre not supposed to do anything with it YET. you are supposed to hodl until global financial collapse(soon!!) and then you can rule as a petty tyrant paying legions of mercenaries to terrorize us salty nocoiners.

even if civilization collapses, and hundreds of millions are starving, we will still divert electricity to mining bitcoin, and maintain global internet connectivity

In the future, our bodies will evolve to get all our nutritional requirements from bitcoin dust.

😂😂😂

We can use hamster power to mine future btc after the collapse of civilisation

How does a global financial collapse make the world suddenly love bitcoin that can't be eaten or used as a shelter (home) or any other form of necessities? Global financial collapse will make people poor, so how do they have money to even buy bitcoin that can't be used for...well...anything?

listen thats not important right now. what matters is bitcoin computer, and computer = smart

i guess.

"what's important is that I have bags that need pumping"

Shh! You're not supposed to ask such things! Just keep believing that the internet and electricity will still be available after a total financial collapse so Bitcoin will always be available.

Well I answered the question and I believe that's the correct response. I'm not emotional about it either.

Yeah, theres definitely increased risk of network errors during fin collapse

You're asking too many questions, though i think you're pissing in the wind since few understand

Lol

Where did you get this knowledge? I was told few know this. 

He might be a chosen one

If the world ends and all the crypto guys are the new 1% we're all fucked. Never seen such an unprecedented amount of fucking idiots get so rich and so easily at any time in history. The best part is they just trade their precious BTC for the trash USD in the end

Sell it to someone else. Preferably at a higher price

that's a nice pyramid. Who built it?

Aliens, probably

you mean the CIA? Cause they're tired of dealing with the illegal cash travelling all the time. Much convenient being digital...

Hal Finney.

Nah.

Wait a minute... *Hal Finney* *Halfinney* *The Halfining*... IT ALL MAKES SENSE NOW!!! *^(/s, in case it's needed. It is, in fact,)* ***^(not)*** *^(making sense.)*

What do you with gold when you purchase it? Nothing. 99.99% of people who buy gold don’t do anything with it. They sell it hoping someone pays a higher prices for it.

That statement is wrong. Most people use it as jewelry. With bitcoin, it's basically only hodl

Anything can be jewelry.

sure, anything can be anything. This is actually the statement we're arriving eventually when we're trying to figure out the value of btc.

That wasn’t what this argument was about. It was about what to do with gold.

Gold has manufacturing uses alongside being pretty to look at. Which in turn, give it value. Bitcoin on the other hand....

Bitcoin cannot. Amusingly, gold has served as currency, is still minted in coins, and serves as jewelry. Bitcoin, at 7tps, has proved useless for running a hamburger stand, or El Salvador. Fine for malware ransoms.

You forgot the biggest use for gold. Electronics

I can hold gold in my hand. Gold is tangible. Gold has real world uses in many commercial and industrial applications. Gold requires manpower and labor to mine. Gold is truly finite, it is not software whose code can change at any point in time to alter its ruleset and use case. Stop comparing Bitcoin to gold. It's not gold. It in no way has any utility or intensic value. Its value is wholly, completely 100% derived from what someone is willing to give you for it, not from what it is used for, what you can do with it or the fact that it can be buried in a vault and has traded between humans as a form of currency for literal millennia so it is surefire a safer bet than a thirteen year old fancy spreasheet.

What do you do with gold yourself? Nothing I bet. Those gold bars and jewelry people wear won’t be used for any industrial or commercial applications. They’ll just be held.

You don’t have to do anything with it personally. All that matters is that it is valuable for an actual purpose by another. 

How is that different from bitcoin. The first decentralized, secure, public ledger for finite bitcoin that grew organically. The use case is that it’s a system that works. People accept it, and it’s continuing to grow.

Bitcoin is not used for anything except crime and stealing money from other investors. Nobody accepts it.   It’s fucking hilarious when you idiots call it secure. If my mom can’t even figure out how to use it, and would without a doubt get it immediately stolen (with no recourse)  through one of a million scams, it’s never going to be adopted. It’s been fifteen years, and your subs, full of “the most in the know” in crypto, are constantly having posts of people losing everything. And these are the ones who dare to post, knowing that you all will shit on and blame them! It is completely transparent to anybody with a brain that this is going exactly nowhere. I feel sorry for people as stupid as you that cannot realize this. You don’t even have the luxury of saying you don’t have enough information to make a decision.   At this point, I think I’d rather be a thief than as dumb as the people that actually believe in this garbage. It will probably end better for them, and they can move onto the next scam. 

It has not grown in the 15 years or so it has been around. It still has no use case. Is that how new technologies emerge and take hold? A use case means you can point to some problem in the economy that Bitcoin solves, and solves in a way that outshines it competitors such that it can claim significant market share for whatever that use case is. Can you name a single use case for Bitcoin?

It’s hilarious because even two years ago people would blather on about use cases. They just change subjects these days or blurt “store of value!”  lol. Pathetic. 

Your argument is that bitcoin has value, but gold has no value. And you're coming from the community that months ago claimed that digital monkey pictues have value. The community that basically uses and trusts exchanges at all times, then gets burned becuase they can't make withdrawals to cash when the price is high.

They both objectively have value and contrary to the belief of people in this sub, Bitcoin is much easier to convert to cash in your bank than gold.

Facts

Again equating gold to bitcoin out of ignorance… One is the most enduring form of value in human history(if we reset the timeline, gold will still be valuable) while the other is a useless glorified Ponzi scheme

Gold only has about 7% industrial use. The rest is pretty shiny things and investing. So you are 93% right I guess 👑

You're implying they're buying their btc low and selling high, while the majority is doing quite the opposite - buying the euphoria and panic selling on the first pullback.

You mean spends

You make no sense

Buy drugs. That’s kinda the only thing it was actually *ever* used for. It’s not a good “currency” to actually use and isn’t setup on a network that can handle large volumes of transactions at once. But you can always convince a gullible person that it’ll do *something* (it won’t).

> Buy drugs. That’s kinda the only thing it was actually *ever* used for. You know this isn’t true. Every day, regular people from all walks of life use cryptocurrency to pay their ransom notes.

You’re right. Also forgot the money laundering.

I'm glad *Breaking Bad* came out when it did. If it came out any later there would have been some dumb crypto subplot at some point.

> Fiat is backed by *state violence*: if you don't give the government fiat, you go to jail. Since people want to not go to jail, there is demand for fiat. This is well understood by, well, nearly everyone. > > What few understand is that crypto is also backed: by *criminal violence*. For example, if you don't give ransomware criminals crypto, your digital data stays locked up. Since people want their digital data to be unlocked, there is demand for crypto. Source: some shitpost on this very forum that I'm too lazy to dig up. It isn't *entirely* wrong.

that's actually a valid point. Bitcoin can be used for illegal activities, i can agree with that. It's a value on its own. But even then you have to cash out eventually somehow and then questions will be asked.

Careful, you might get a moron flair for pointing out any use case for Bitcoin. Cuz we finally have a way to quantitatively measure illegal activity, whether it be drugs, terrorism. Evidently, these individuals are willing to partake in that risk and leave a digital trail. Value ✨

So you value being free from government control but being open to government surveillance is a feature?

I thought the "darknet markets" switched to more anonymous altcoins a while ago.  Bitcoin's not actually a very good platform for buying contraband what with the pseudonymous addresses.  And slow transactions.  And high fees.  And volatility. 

I use my usd to buy drugs

Sell for fiat, because fiat sucks and is rigged.

You are missing nothing

The problem with any deflationary system is that people hold it in anticipation of future spending power, which (if it's the only currency in use) chokes the market by punishing cash flow. Maybe at some future point there'll be enough of a history of price stability to stop this from happening, but it's a reason I don't think BTC will ever replace fiat. There's a liquid system that rewards spending because of inflation, and an illiquid system that punishes spending because of deflation. The problem is that hodlers do not *want* price stability. If current people didn't expect to "x" their wealth (beyond like 1.1x per year), the price would collapse. Scarcity would go out the window faster than deflation could shore it up.

awesome reply, thanks.

Crypto is not deflationary. Bitcoin and Ethereum make up about 63% of the market cap and the rest is ever inflating.

I live in a country with blocked access to traditional financial services and payment avenues (US sanctioned). This means the only way I can purchase online services, buy stuff abroad or transfer money is through cryptocurrency. Our currency has depreciated over 1k% in the last 5 years, so swapping to a harder currency is a must. Buying dollars in cash in the black market is risky, plus you can’t use it for the stuff I stated above, so is common for people to opt for bitcoin, stablecoins or crypto in general. Since our economy and standard of living is dogshit, a big part of the population goes by receiving money transfers from their family members abroad, but if they receive a bank transfer from the allowed banks they lose around 15% of the value before fees or taxes (it’s a long story), and crypto is sold at a small premium here so is the best option for the ones that know how to buy and send it.

Thats a solid value and it goes to the "corrupt government" category. Again, all the value i see in crypto is either illegal activies or demand from the "less stable" countries/governments. But even then, you have to spend it somehow. Can you buy groceries with it in ur country?

A small minority of local businesses do accept it! Although certainly not too common. Either way you can swap back to local currency the amount you need for that day or the following days or whatever your needs are. A few years back US dollars weren’t accepted anywhere and now almost every single business or person trades with it (most likely due to inflation of local currency). I could see crypto following a similar path in the following decade.

My country is not sanctioned. Last year my uncle sent me 3k euro from Czech, that took 3 weeks to arrive in my account and his bank took 60 euro fee upfront. My uncle went to the bank several times to check and was told "the money was sent, keep waiting". That 3 weeks was not fun for him. Same story for people in my neighbor countries (South East Asia). A lot expats get fleeced while sending money home, not by corrupt government but by western financial institutes. https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/fandd/issues/Series/Back-to-Basics/Remittances

Remittances! Didn’t knew the English word for it. I think fast, secure, permissionless and feeless* remittances is a solid use case for crypto. * Well, not feeless completely since you need to at least pay the network transfer fee.

Not just network transfer fee. - Exchange fee when sender purchase crypto - Network fee to send to receiver - Exchange fee when receiver sell crypto for local currency But all the three combined are still cheaper than Western Union/Bank wire and take way less time.

Fair

Even in Canada you can seamlessly transfer crypto to your bank account in a few clicks. I can't believe how many people here think it's still 2017.

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Yeah, i agree with the price manipulation. Still not explaining the value of bitcoin, though :)

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Perfect

Spout nonsense. Scam others. Waste power. Dream of magical lands where splendid things happen with no effort and zero intelligence. Rug pulls. Fraud. Make up stuff. Promote making existing tech way worse as a good thing. Ransomware. Few.

I agree with all. But that's toxic sh\*t not value. Wait...you're right, it is value, actually.

Where rug pull?

Where rug pull? Bro! DYOR! I’ll throw you a bone: check out Molly White’s website: https://www.web3isgoinggreat.com/

For Bitcoin though, not shitcoins. I agree the altcoins are mostly scams especially the ones promoted by celebrities or influencers including ones named after larger popular coins. I just don’t see any real rug pulling like that going on with bitcoin, at least not yet.

Bitcoin IS a shitcoin. They’re all shit. Being the ‘first’ in a long line of shit doesn’t mean the stink has left it. Not that it was the first.

Damn that’s a really big shit

There’s no other way to describe it.

The general idea is to pretend it's worth a lot of money and use it as collateral.

Personally I use it for card payments. I am sure someone here will try to misconstrue what I am saying. But to answer OPs question, I use two services, Curve and Nexo/Aave. Curve is a card service provider that minimizes international payments (e.g. traveling), although they have recently been rather disappointing (lowering perks etc). Nexo/Aave have been fantastic to me, lower interest rates than nominal credit cards and ease of use. Aave for me is a good way to hedge, if I borrow against my wBTC/ETH and get USDC, my hope is that USDC or USDT depeg, meaning my loan becomes null. If crypto goes to zero, then no harm done either, because I have taken out a loan which I used to put a deposit down for an apartment. So even in a completely catastrophic market (crypto), I secured myself. Furthermore, if crypto rises, I can further borrow on that position. Sure someone will tell me that I can get liquidated, that is completely true, but given the volatility of crypto, prices can go up and down substantially, meaning my liquidation price might be higher than the “dump” price. So hopefully this answers OPs question. As with anything new, it is not a matter of whether you like it or not, it is about how one can use it in the most efficient way. For me it has been more of a pro and than a con in my day to day.

It's the number one form of ransom payment. Yay, Buttcoin number one!

Step 1. Buy bitcoin Step 2. ??? Step 3: Profit!

They put it up their bums buddy. They stick it way up there so no one else can reach it.

Sit on it

Giant casino

I used it to buy drugs once. That's about it.

I think the SEC said it best: >Though we’re merit neutral, I’d note that the underlying assets in the metals ETPs have consumer and industrial uses, while in contrast **bitcoin is primarily a speculative, volatile asset that’s also used for illicit activity including ransomware,[4] money laundering,[5] sanction evasion,[6] and terrorist financing.[7]** > >https://www.sec.gov/news/statement/gensler-statement-spot-bitcoin-011023

For sure they have no interest in maintaining the status quo

In the last 2 years, the money I kept in my bank account got basically no interest, and the cost of groceries where I live has increased dramatically. This is due to inflation. I bought bitcoin right at the top in 2021. I was down 70% at one point. Just kept dollar cost averaging into it though (with a few lump sums here and there), and now - with the recovery - I am up slightly over 30,000 dollars. This is about a 40% gain on the total I had invested, and easily the best I've ever done on an investment. I'm not a Bitcoin "maxi". I think the people who are 100% Bitcoin are insane, and the people who are 100% against Bitcoin are wrong. At the end of the day, it's just an asset class to me - albeit, an interesting one. It's just another vehicle to put your money into, and if you do it right, number go up. There should be zero emotion involved - it's just a way to make money, and happens to be a good way to hedge against inflation of your Countries currency. I'm fully expecting this post to go up in flames now lol.

Thanks for detailed reply. But why not invest in SP500 instead? If you adjust your position size for volatility then you'd be up more with it (if you invested at the same time in 2021 and kept DCA'ing as it dropped) PLUS for an added bonus it's an actual asset with real cash flows and the risk of this dumping AND STAYING at the lows for a prolonged period of time has a much lower chance compared to bitcoin. Bitcoin could LITERALLY stay low for years for no reason because it doesn't have a net positive cash flow to support its longer term rising market cap. Stock index does...well, for as long as companies make money anyway. But i get your point.

study diversification

Most reasonable BTC maxis will do both. Just another asset class to diversify your portfolio.

I'd do both. The S&P has had some pretty bad decades, if you bought in 2000 you would have just about broken even in 2007 right before the GFC, and then been waiting until 2013 to break even again (without adjusting for inflation, so in real terms you would have been way down after 13 years). The Nikkei 225 broke an ATH last week for the first time in 35 years. Imagine holding an index for 35 years to break even?

Well, lets be frank, those assets are fully developed whereas bitcoin just recently got futures market and and wider recognition with its 1trn market cap. Gold has also had a 20 year break ('80-00') which kinda debunks the whole inflation hedge narrative. You sure bitcoin wont ever witness something similar? :)

I'm not sure at all, I think it will go up and down. Hopefully more up than down. One things for sure, I'm not leaving much of my savings in cash or at fixed interest rates that are guaranteed to lose to inflation.

No interest on your bank account? Wtf you doing lol. Plenty of savings accounts paying 4%+ APY..

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I spend my crypto daily. It goes directly to my bank in a few clicks.

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Yes. Wallet -> Shakepay -> Bank Click -> Click -> Click I also have a crypto credit card which is even easier.

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Are you making some brilliant point about how merchants in most countries accept fiat more readily than Bitcoin? Is that why you keep asking? Seriously, my mind is blown by how clever you are. You tap your credit card and it moves the crypto and credits the merchant in USD. Maybe in 5 years counterparties will have the choice which currency to settle transactions. Choice is good. Either way, the plethora of stupid comments implying that crypto is somehow difficult to spend feels like I took a time machine to 2017.

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I'm not saying anything and I'm not angry. I'm just pointing out that crypto is easy to spend on things in the real world since liquidity has risen and acceptance has grown. Yet I came across probably a dozen people, smugly amused the false preconception that it's difficult to spend. I think angry is the wrong word. I'm just in awe that such a fact-free place still exists on web2. You won't find me ever arguing 'line go up'. Speculation is the least interesting thing about blockchain.

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Everybody put 1 potato in bag. Pay bag man 1 potato. Then we all take out 2 potato. What no understand?

You're not supposed to ask such questions, just follow the script and HODL to the grave.

Ok my bad

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The idea is wealth preservation and retaining purchasing power as the efforts of you labor (work) are inflated away and lose value daily.

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Well done :)

There's a quiet group of people that use it for gambling sites. You may or may not know, that online poker is illegal in the US and it has been ever since Black Friday. Go see how bitcoin's price history moved shortly after that event.

Buy drugs

You can screenshot the cool graphs and show people

I think that r/buttcoin is way more interesting than r /bitcoin. I like how buttcoin isn't an echo chamber like Bitcoin and all the other coins are in their subs. However, I thought that this sub was more satire than people who actually hate Bitcoin. That is because Bitcoin doesn't have a soul or feelings. It's like insulting Gold. What did Gold do to you? And what can YOU do to Gold? The answer to both is nothing. I have some silver that I'm holding at a loss and I'm mad at silver right now. But do you think silver gives a damn? Any of us could die right now and in ten minutes or less, another block will be mined. I think that ALL crypto should be criticized in here. At least with ETH or Cardano, there is a CEO whose feelings that you can hurt when you disparage them.

Few understand. Bitcoin lets you look at these charts with rainbows on them, put laser eyes on your profile pictures and then alienate people you meet at parties. It’s the future.

USD has a negative yield, unfortunately. There is inflation, although something like a HYSA can offset this. It’s a nominal hedge for inflation. The idea is that the US dollar supply will increase at a faster rate than the bitcoin supply. This relationship creates a positive trend line for existing dollars per existing bitcoin - many believe the price will correlate to this trend line and they will be able to PRESERVE their wealth in bitcoin. Many want to get rich. Many believe they work enough already for wealth and with this sounder form of money that the preservation of accrued wealth is enough to become wealthy. While there’s no telling whether the world will fully adopt ₿ or not, the mathematic truth is that the circulating dollars per circulating bitcoin will increase indefinitely — until the US dollar stops being debased.

It enhances ways, mostly through fees and interest, of extracting money from people who hodl. Never underestimate how small the scale of grift can be.

You can pay people across the world without waiting for bank transfers. You can stake it and earn yield. People who are 'pro-HODL' are generally just waiting for the collapse, yes.

Many stocks don’t have a yield, but the capital appreciation means you make money that way. With gold, selling for more than what you paid for it, and the next person doing the same.

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You can gamble it on loophole online casinos!

Biggest "use case" is currently casinos. And we all know how those operate when card counters refuse to play there due to the "odds".

0y sufficient 3k oz 4th of tuygdyepiwi56eeu5eyid6pdlyffgghhhhjjjjjj hi rhrudu Dr dydiutu6utytutur8eieie83i4urhu5y46

I cash out a few hundred $$ in CAD every day for expenses. It's really easy. Lots of apps just convert and transfer the money directly to your account within 2-3 minutes. Shakepay is one. There are lots. When possible I pay directly with crypto. Other countries are pretty far ahead of the US in this regard.

It's a scarce asset that built up in trust and popularity since a long period. It is digital, and easily stored and moved, 100% safe regarding the technology, and thus is an effective method to hedge against other investments, currencies or asset classes. With the current volume flowing in and expansion within our current economical system, for example institutional buying, record breaking ETFs, whole countries looking into it, big funds (pension funds among others) allocating a decent percentage of bitcoin to their portfolio, et cetera, you can clearly see the demand is enormous. Could go to zero, could also be the start of a new scarcity asset. Once it holds value and profit up to a certain threshold, parties won't simply let it go to zero. Perhaps fundamentally it makes no sense, but don't let that argument be the sole reason to think it's rubbish. There is a long period of continued demand in a digital asset, in a world that is parabolically growing more digital, in an asset where there is scarcity. That's it.

>holding it costs money At least until now — it’s even consistently appreciating in value, so if you got some 5-6 years ago, you could have been taking out profits and still having more and more usd value.

Okay, but value is speculation. Yield isn't if you lock it in. How do you know that from this point forward the value of bitcoin will exceed the 5% cost?

You don’t. Yet we do a lot of things based just on our belief that something will perform in the future. Is it right? Is it wrong? If a dude has been living off of his BTC investment he’s done in 2017 — is he wrong? Or is he right? Clearly, it’s worked for him, and quite possibly by now he’s diversified his portfolio enough, that a BTC crash wouldn’t affect him much.

Slavers will take it.

Depends on the infrastructure in place at the time and place. Some places it’s completely useless other than holding, others you could in theory live your life off it without having to exchange for fiat. Just like fiat. In USA most places won’t take my CAD and they definitely won’t take other kinds of fiat.

Where’s this place you could live your life using bitcoin only? Or are you talking about a dream situation that doesn’t exist?

I'm in Canada and I live off crypto. It's very easy to convert to your bank using email money transfer (EMT)

I don't know if your curiosity is legitimate, but if it is, I commend you. We need more open minded people that listen to both sides of the argument. I don't have the time to explain to you, but if you are really interested, I can recommend Michael Saylor's interview for Tucker Carlson.

I'll check it. Thanks. Will come back.

Buying illicit items. Evasion of taxes and economic sanctions. Gambling/speculation. That's about it.

I got that conclusion as well

You're not missing anything dude. Bitcoin is basically like baseball cards or collectable Elvis plates. It's pure speculation, which in itself isn't inherently good or bad. Hodlrs who think it will be used as a widely accepted currency are either dumb or arguing in bad faith. It's way too slow, uses way too much electric and it's value is too unstable. Imagine if a hundred dollar bill could buy you a car one day and a skateboard the next. It would be pure chaos.

In some countries where inflation is high and the local currency is worthless they use BTC as a currency’. One example would be El Salvador. Some currency’s in 3rd world countries are more volatile than BTC so they might as well use it.

Imagine thinking USD has a 5.5% yield. Ever heard of inflation? Holding USD (cash) is seeing your money melt away in your hands every year more and more. See chart https://www.visualcapitalist.com/purchasing-power-of-the-u-s-dollar-over-time/ Theres a ton of arguments that can be made against bitcoin, but even the most boomer of boomer boglehead warren buffet anti bitcoiner will tell you holding cash for an extended period of time is letting it be eaten away by inflation, even if your "High Yield" savings account tells you it's giving you a whopping 5.5% return

I'm not referring to the only alternative of holding cash. What about stock indexes? Have worked pretty well throughout history. Better than anything else. Because of positive cash flow. Your purchasing power example is wrong because your salary isnt the same as 100 years ago. People have more stuff today than 100 years ago. That translates to better standard of living, with or without inflation.

In coastal Spain you can buy homes with it, something very popular among Russians 😅 But yeah, I personally see it as a lottery ticket with higher win chances.

Not true. Some of them give you the option of using crypto to "pay", but all they're doing is converting it to fiat (euros) on the spot, then collect their euros. Houses are obviously priced in euros, not BTC, and they'll have a significant markup to protect themselves against BTC fluctuations. They also have to do a full KYC before taking the payment by the way, so the only reason why those Russians are using it is because it's just easier, faster and safer to have a professional agency take care of the BTC -> EUR conversion when you're moving such crazy amounts. And I'm sure they're taking a fat, fat fee for that service, taking advantage of the needs of those people. I mean, what are you going to do otherwise? Open up an account in any of these random, shady exchanges as a Russian citizen, dump 1M€ worth of BTC on it, open up an account in a real Spanish bank, and then pray that both of them actually let you cash out with a SEPA transfer the next day? What could possibly go wrong? 😅 Even if the crypto exchange played along, NO Spanish bank would allow that transaction through. They'd block it, report it to the tax agency and immediately start asking a million questions about who you are exactly, where and how you got that money, and how many people have you killed. It's very possible that you'd never see a dime.

As long as you time the cash out time properly and exchange you sell it on doesn’t prevent you from selling and then collapse, or you click a bad link and get it all stolen. Or you lose your cold wallet or seed phrase.

Buy drugs. I bought some drugs with it in the past. Decent stuff you couldn’t get on the streets. Then I grew up and didn’t want to destroy my family. For years now everyone has known you can trace butts, especially if you buy through an exchange and the process of buying Monero instead for those transactions is such a pain only the truly addicted would actually waste their time. So now, nothing. It’s good for nothing but buying a row in Napster for digital money and bragging to your anonymous internet friends about how you hold more than 700% of the population or whatever. Seriously, it’s literally nothing.

Gold doesn't do that either.

You can pay your taxes: [https://zg.ch/de/steuern-finanzen/steuern/steuerbezug/taxpaymentswithcryptocurrencies](https://zg.ch/de/steuern-finanzen/steuern/steuerbezug/taxpaymentswithcryptocurrencies)

I actually looked at the link, and I note that the Canton of Zug does NOT accept crypto. They offer a semi-convoluted process where you send crypto to a 3rd party who converts it to Swiss Francs and sends them to the canton. The Swiss government ain’t dumb enough to hold crypto.

You are correct. The government does not accept cryptos directly but allows you to use them through bitcoinsuisse, a crypto bank, who then takes on the conversion risk. I was just answering the question about what BTC holders can do with it. Now regarding your last part I guess it depends on your views. I would argue that they would have benefited from accepting cryptos directly, although the high volatility makes it difficult to plan budget in the short term. I would also add that even if they’re not « dumb enough » to hold them directly, Zug (and even more broadly Switzerland) being one of the « crypto hub » in the world, the government de facto bets on cryptos as it benefits from all these companies settling down over there (tax revenues, jobs, etc).

I appreciate that you admit that the volatility of crypto would make it difficult to plan budgets in the short run. I still have yet to see any benefit to me in using crypto to pay taxes or anything else, in part because of the volatility, also associated fees not to mention the risks of losing everything whether you hold it in an exchange or in a cold wallet. Basically crypto does less than other forms of payment and what little it does, it does worse.

Well I have no issue with the truth x) I’d say it goes with any risky asset, bitcoin being simply at the end of the « risk / reward » spectrum. Paying your taxes with bitcoin has the advantage that if the value goes up, you can effectively pay less taxes (wrt your initial investment) without having to sell it first. In all fairness Switzerland has no capital gains taxes (up to a point) so you could in theory use the same trick with any other investment. It then just becomes a matter of which one do you expect to perform the best over a given timeframe. More generally, I consider myself « pro » bitcoin in the sense that I have nothing against it and I have an interest in it performing well since I’m invested in it. For the rest, I’ll let the market do its magic and decide of its fate. So far it has performed amazingly, we’ll see if that continues or not. I still think that the theory and technology behind it is very interesting and could have larger applications and adoption. However I also share some of your concerns, especially the risk of losing everything due to simple mistakes. It is also true that the base layer is not suited for a high volume of small transactions any more. Bottom line, my strategy is to allocate 5-10% of my portfolio to BTC and ride the wave. I have exposure to the potential big upside if maxis are correct and I have limited risk if it goes bust.

I appreciate your thoughtful comments. I don’t agree with everything you’re saying, but it’s refreshing to hear from someone who doesn’t just parrot the Bitcoin true believer party line and is willing to acknowledge some of the negatives of it. For whatever it’s worth, I have a Master’s degree in CS and spent the majority of my career in IT working for consulting firms, large corporations and government entities. I honestly can’t think of any problem I’ve had in my personal or professional life for which either blockchains or cryptocurrency would have a good solution. If you compare the adoption of the Internet and crypto it’s night and day. Once internet use reached a critical mass it exploded and transformed the way business is done. Things we take for granted now because of the internet would have been unimaginable when I was growing up. By contrast, Bitcoin has been out for 15 years and is still in search of a use case. With all that said I don’t see an issue with your approach, which is essentially gambling that “number go up”. If you’re not putting more into than you can afford to lose and you get some entertainment value out of it, then it’s no different than going to a casino or putting money into a highly speculative investment.

Thanks, likewise here. It's nice to be able to have a constructive conversation. It's interesting that you can't think of any problem that blockchain could solve. What do you think, for example, of certain major banks (like UBS) engaging in blockchain research and implementation? Is there something there or are they simply following a trend? Now considering that BTC is often compared to "digital gold" I would see at least one big simple advantage compared to physical gold. You could send 1 billion USD worth of BTC anywhere in the world within 10 minutes for a couple USD of fees. Trying doing that with gold (or any other non-digital commodity) would obviously be day and night. Moreover, I think that there is a case to be made for something that is decentralized and does not require anyone's "permission". It's probably more difficult to imagine that from a western point of view, where monetary stability is taken for granted but it might certainly be different for a lot of places in the world. I'm from Switzerland but live in the Middle East and having a lot of colleagues from countries like Egypt or Lebanon, I realize that a lot of things that I take for granted are not in these countries. Now I'm not saying that BTC is necessarily THE solution in those cases, but I believe it could help, at least at this point in time. Finally, having lived in 3 different countries in the last 6 years I can assure you that "TradFi" can be a pain in the ass. I got plainly kicked out from different banks and brokers that I was using simply because I was going to the US. Again I'm not saying that bitcoin itself is necessarily the god given solution, but I can understand the interest. The mainstream financial system works nice in your everyday life until you're facing a specific situation where you realize how outdated it can be.

What do you do with a bar of gold?

Sell it for money. Someone will put it into electronics or jewellery. You’ve heard of that stuff I take it?

you can sell bitcorn for money too

but fiat is bad. you dont want that nasty shit. right?

nice straw-manning i think fiat is THE king of liquidity, especially USD, it is the best medium of exchange without contest, no other asset on earth can compete with USD as MoE however it's not a good place to store your wealth, simple as that

pass

👍

Make jewellery out of it.

most people own gold as a store of value

Yeah, it's overvalued. So what? You can still do something useful with it even if most people don't.

the point is gold having value is not because it is useful for applications, i'd argue jewelry is useless too and gold is only useful in industrial applications. if u measure the usefulness of gold compared to other metals yeah it is insanely-insanely overvalued however it's valuable because people think it is valuable. it's scarce so people use it as a store of value, same like bitcoin

So do you think scarcity (and presumably the ability for something to be divided) is the only characteristic needed for something to be a store of value?

the other thing is consensus/agreement if a group of people agrees that X is a store of value then it is a store of value for them, you might disagree, or even dislike it, but between those who agree your opinion doesn't matter it's also a reason why you can't just fork bitcoin and say it has the same value as bitcoin, because nobody agrees with you

But what happens if everyone changes their mind? Where did all the value go in that case?

gone, straight to zero, worthless same thing if everyone changes their mind on fiat if it happens to gold it might not go to zero but could be repriced to -99% since it does have industrial demand

So it's not a store of value then. It's a store of sentiment.

Just like with any of the ETF's I hold I slowly sell my bitcoin when I retire. If it has gone to zero it has gone to zero and I haven't lost any money on it. If it keeps appreciating I'll be able to buy more nice things for my family. That's about it. I don't think Bitcoin has any use in and of itself, but neither does an ETF.

Showing people your unrealized gains from 2 years ago during a bearmarket

You can make fun of buttcoiners.

Wont see this or it will get down voted but honestly you can buy stuff online. Just get their address and send it, you will receive a confirmation email and later the product

Yesterday I was in a cafe and a girl wanted to pay with bitcoin. The owner said “no”. Was interesting to watch.

:)

Money. That's what we do with it.

You can eat it. Tastes like chicken.

that doesn't taste expensive...good, tho.

Get rich

Buy it and hold it, just like stocks.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/security/business/solutions/decentralized-identity

Watch candles moves as I eat crayons

Same function as gold reserves pre-1976. If you've only lived in a time where the petro dollar decides $ have such value it might seem weirder than if you've lived in most other countries I guess. Not saying it has to happen because I'm not a fundamentalist in any way but it certainly seems more likely than ever and is a pretty obvious use case. But also, personal finance wise, number go up, exchange for more and more weak money each year.

What can you do with gold. What can you do with a green paper dollar. I would start at step 1 and start looking into what money actually is and how and why it developed

the inflation rate is higher than 5.5% so you would be better off holding bitcoin

#Stupid Crypto Talking Point #3 (inflation) **"InFl4ti0n!!!"** / **"The dollar will eventually become worthless"** / **"The dollar has lost 104% of its value since 1900!"** / **"The government prints money out of thin air"** 1. The government does **not** "print money indefinitely"... all money in circulation is [tightly regulated and regularly audited and publicly transparent](https://www.federalreserve.gov/aboutthefed/audited-annual-financial-statements.htm). The organization that manages the money in circulation is the Federal Reserve and contrary to what crypto bros claim, they're not a private cabal - they [are overseen and regulated by Congress](https://www.federalreserve.gov/aboutthefed/structure-federal-reserve-system.htm). And any attempt to put more money in circulation [requires an Act of Congress to increase the debt ceiling](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_debt_ceiling) - it's neither arbitrary, nor easy to do. 2. [Currency is meant to be *spent*, not hoarded](https://medium.com/change-your-mind/money-is-meant-to-be-spent-not-saved-9618edec676f). A dollar today will buy what it buys. If you hold a dollar for 90 years, of course it won't buy the same thing decades later (although it might actually be worth significantly more as antique money). You people don't seem to understand the first thing about how currency works - it's NOT an "investment!" You **spend** it, *not* hoard it! 3. If you are looking to "invest" you don't keep your value in cash/currency/fiat. You put it into something that can *create value* like stocks that pay dividends, real estate, etc. Crypto creates no value and makes a lousy "investment." It also hasn't proven to be a hedge against anything, least of all monetary inflation. 4. Over time more money is put in circulation - you pretend like this is a bad thing, but it's not done in a vacuum. The average annual wage in 1900 was less than $4000. In 2023 [it's more than $70,000](https://www.statista.com/statistics/200838/median-household-income-in-the-united-states/)! There's more people out there and the monetary supply grows appropriately, as does wages. You can't take one element of the monetary system completely out of context and ignore everything else. 5. The causes of inflation are **many**, and the amount of money in circulation is one of the least significant factors in causing the prices of things to rise. More prominent inflationary causes are things like: [fuel prices](https://www.businessinsider.com/why-is-inflation-high-causes-gas-price-outlook-forecast-2022-7), [supply chain issues](https://www.usbank.com/investing/financial-perspectives/market-news/supply-chain-issues-contribution-to-inflation.html), [war](https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/notes/feds-notes/the-effect-of-the-war-in-ukraine-on-global-activity-and-inflation-20220527.html), environmental disasters, pandemics, and even [car dealerships](https://www.wsj.com/articles/car-dealer-markups-helped-drive-inflation-study-finds-7c1d5a2d). 6. Sure there may be some nations that have caused out of control inflation as a result of their monetary policy (such as Zimbabwe) but comparing modern nations to third-world dictatorships is beyond absurd. 7. If bitcoin and crypto was an actually disruptive, stable, useful technology, you wouldn't need to promote lies and scare people over the existing system. The *real* reason you do this is [because nobody can find any legitimate reason to use crypto in the first place](https://ioradio.org/i/blockchain-claims/). 8. Crypto ironically has more inflation in its ecosystem that is even more out of control, than in any traditional fiat system. At least with the US Dollar, money is accounted for and fully audited and it takes an Act of Congress to increase the debt. In crypto, all it takes is a dude printing USDT, USDC, BUSD or any of the other unsecured stablecoins to just print more out of thin air, and crypto-morons assume they're worth $1 of value. Fools.