Bitcoin is actually terrible for these use cases since the blockchain is public and more traceable than your credit card. If you're really trying to hide your financial transactions then a better option would be something more anonymous like cash, or one of the other cryptocoins that actually does provide anonymity.
Your inaccurate and misconceived perception of what bitcoin's use case is would be laughable if it weren't so popular and wrong. I fear you're completely misunderstanding the new world economy. You think that bitcoin is a sideshow for criminals, and seemingly failed to see that maybe a large parallel economy is being created digitally.
You see, Bitcoin was created after the 2008 crash where the banks, the organizations we've trusted with our money for a century, made some deliberate and knowingly poor decisions and they lost a lot of money for many of us.
Bitcoin was invented so that never has to happen again, so that we can have a secure storage for our money without someone else controlling that money. You might say that bitcoin was created to get away from the wall street criminals. I suggest you pick up some cryptocoin (of any kind) so you're not completely left in the dust as the centralized banks lose power and the decentralized economy reigns.
I hadn't heard about that. Which banks lost their customers' money in the 2008 crash?
Banking involves a lot more than simply money in checking accounts so I didn't think it needed to be established that a lot of people lost value in different ways in 2008. A number of banks packaged subprime mortgage lots that were misrepresented, sold and when they defaulted, they crashed the lending market which rippled through other parts of the economy causing job loss, real estate price crashes, stock value crashes and other types of lost equity for millions of people.
But I guess if you want to take it literally, then you're right... nobody had cash go missing from their checking account. I personally lost about $60,000 in equity, but my checking account was not affected if that makes you feel warm and fuzzy about saying no banks lost anybody's "money".
If I were to rob you, claiming that the overall robbery rate was lower that year, so you weren't robbed by others, so your expected losses were lower does not change the fact that I robbed you.
If it succeeded in displacing existing currencies as you attest, it would amount to an unprecedented and catastrophic redistribution and concentration of wealth.
80% of all bitcoins that can ever exist have been mined and are already owned; this is a monstrous design decision far more unjust than the inflation bitcoin sought to prevent.
Our current corrupt and stinking financial system is far preferable to the neo-feudal world of bitcoin where all spending power is concentrated in the hands of a tiny number of tech overlords who had the sheer good fortune to literally own all the money.
Not saying there aren't a lot of dodgy transactions going on, or that the legitimate use cases will take off, but ignoring the practical use cases is misleading.
The reason banks are regulated in the US is because the banking system pre 1930s wasn't too dissimilar from crypto now.
I think it's somewhat realistic to envision a future where there is substantial transaction value of legitimate, legal uses. Maybe that future isn't probable, but the idea that the price of bitcoin would ever reach its current price seemed rather unlikely at one point, too.
Bitcoin cannot crash because you cannot sell and cash out in timely manner.
I meant libor as in a futures price that was disconnected from anything meaningful not a direct comparison. The comparison was to how libor was easily rigged by those submitting quotes that weren't correct. Libor wasn't just a vote but a collection of informal (and incorrect) quotes.
When financially settled against a manipulated number the standard ways a future affects the spot (by taking delivery) doesn't apply.
Go read the proposed contacts for the future and real time BTC index. If the index is being manipulated the future doesn't stand a chance at correcting it.
This reminds me of potential VIX options manipulation. Not quite the same thing, and probably not as susceptible to manipulation, but a similar concept nonetheless: https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-05-24/vix-tradi...
My experience is equity options, btw.
As a store of value, you’re depending on its continued use as a tool for criminals for it to appreciate in value beyond pure beanie baby-style speculation, so you depend on you still depend sketchy exchanges to drive the price.
When the futures contracts come out, there is going to be a massive price correction as bitfinex isn’t going to be able to print enough tether to counteract all the shorts.
Once the price of bitcoin starts dropping, people are going to try and cash out of bitfinex en masse, causing a run on the bank and collapsing the whole house of cards. I wouldn’t be surprised to see sub-1000 bitcoins by January.