> for me at least it is an opportunity to keep my own wealth.

As long as you don't mind the value of that wealth fluctuating by very large amounts. Today that wealth might be worth $10k, but in a month it very well could be $100...

Or being unable to access it.

Totally this. Brexit has me not trusting the government I reside under as far as I could throw it. I believe in crypto as an ideological position and hope to see it continue to grow. It might not be Bitcoin that wins in the end but decentralized, truly global, non-governmental mechanisms of money control are needed. There is far too much power in their hands as they push for "cash" to become digital (i.e. traditional bank accounts with access via debit/credit cards).

Because it is not wealth. Bitcoin is a sea shell currency. Or tulip bulb currency.

Wells Fargo clerk issue is totally separate from this.

"for me at least it is an opportunity to keep my own wealth. "

This is a really poor reason to use BTC.

A) BTC is supposed to be a currency - generally, a currency is not where you should be storing wealth. Currencies are not designed to be 'stores of value' - they are there to facilitate economic activity and transactions.

If you want to 'store wealth' - put it in real estate, bonds or equities. Commodities. Other currencies. A broad mix/basket of many of them.

B) There's no reason at all to think that BTC will necessarily be worth more/less than another currency. Why do you think BTC will 'always go up'? Much of the BTC hype may have already been had.

C) By simply keeping your currency in a trivial savings account, will roughly protect it from inflation.

In addition - most bank accounts are Federally insured - in case something goes wrong, you get up to $200K back etc..

D) Risk. BTC could go to zero tomorrow. Probably not - but possibly. It's extremely volatile = bad store of value.

People have this really odd view that 'currency = value' ... it's not ... currency is just a 'medium of exchange' - so you only need to hold it when you want to transact with someone else in a common/liquid way.

Over any reasonable length of time, currency is generally not a good place to hold value, and it's not designed for that.

If you have lot's of currency, trade it for something else, spread it out.

There will never, ever be a currency or any other magical currency store of value that will provide what you are kind of implying. Never. This is because the ratio of 'things people need' and the 'amount of currency they need to transact for' is constantly in flux, ergo, a 'fixed' currency constantly in flux relative to that.

You totally misread the parent comment. Nowhere did they state they only wanted a store of value.

They were talking about the blockchain and its public recordkeeping. There's nothing like Wells Fargo doing shady things and charging you money, or BofA randomly charging you money or changing their account rules, or freezing your account...

Coins have their downsides, but a public ledger for absolute truthkeeping is not one of them.

That's not correct. Wealth is a measure of stored value, be it in producing assets or currency.

Sure - you can technically store wealth in currency. Just saying it's generally not ideal over the long haul, and that that is 'ok'.

Absolutely true. This is the fundamental value of bitcoin. It is a store of value. I say no to trusting 3rd party. Especially wells fargo...