Re:Bitcoin is Eating Itself
by aeternus on Tuesday December 26, 2017 @08:08PM
(#16012100)
Depends on the use-case. Definitely not useful for small transactions but $6-20 is still relatively cheap compared to other options for sending funds in cases where both parties do not have USD (or similar) bank accounts.
As far as store-of-wealth it has a different risk profile than both fiat currencies & physical stores like gold: more independent of government monetary policy, possibly harder to take by force, possibly more plausible-deniability, more liquid and lower txn-cost than gold, more volatile than both. That risk-profile is not perfect but is clearly useful to some.
Finally there's the value that it can provide as the trusted base for other off-chain solutions (like lightning-network).
As far as store-of-wealth it has a different risk profile than both fiat currencies & physical stores like gold: more independent of government monetary policy, possibly harder to take by force, possibly more plausible-deniability, more liquid and lower txn-cost than gold, more volatile than both. That risk-profile is not perfect but is clearly useful to some.
Finally there's the value that it can provide as the trusted base for other off-chain solutions (like lightning-network).