Do you have counter examples?

Anything using the currencies as stores of wealth or mediums of exchange seem to be better suited by traditional finance which are less volatile and capable of higher volume. Anything using the ledger as a distributed datastore seems like it would be better suited by a datastore that wasn't wrapped up in a currency ledger and uses a consensus algorithm less costly than proof-of-work.

Examples of what cryptocurrencies does better:

* Donations to wikileaks. Paypal froze their account and there are tons of examples where they have done this without good cause.

* Legal businesses like marijuana sellers, porn, escort services and gambling platforms have had trouble using and keeping payment services. Some have been forced to only accept cash payments as they couldn't accept credit cards.

* A way to accept irreversible payments digitally. Credit card charge back fraud is a big problem.

* Credit card companies and other payment processors take an often expensive fee. Cryptocurrencies are much cheaper (see Bitcoin Cash as Bitcoin is not a good example).

* Easier to move money. For example sending money to or taking money with you when you cross borders. Western Union is slow, expensive and cannot be used to send everywhere. The same can be said about banks in isolated countries or countries in disarray. With cryptocurrencies all you need is internet (sometimes a VPN as well).

Edit: As usual when I try to point this out I'm down voted. I encourage you to counter my examples.

Places crypto has been used isn't evidence that it was the only thing possible to have been used, which is the question -- what does PoW-consensus blockchain ledger make possible that isn't possible without it?

It's not a matter of what they've been better than status-quo broken finance systems. The question is "if we replace these broken systems with something, why does it have to be a blockchain using PoW for consensus?"

In many of the cases people use crypto because otherwise they'd have had to been a bank or a money transmitter or file with SEC and uphold their legal obligations as such, and in those cases using blockchain didn't make those obligations disappear.

In other cases, the hype around "blockchain" created solutions that could have been served by any form of digital currency or any form of distributed database -- not just this specific form.

> what does PoW-consensus blockchain ledger make possible that isn't possible without it?

Preventing double spends in a decentralized manner without a trusted third party. No other form of digital currency can do that.

There is a possibility that PoW can be replaced with some form of PoS (proof of stake) but it's not certain if it works well enough. Note that I consider both PoW and PoS backed ledgers cryptocurrencies.

> It's not a matter of what they've been better than status-quo broken finance systems.

They're better than everything at the examples I listed.

We'be in a crypto winter since January, basically a huge bear market. This is likely to attract a lot of negativity. I wouldn't worry too much about it, these are solid points.

If you think taking money for products via credit cards is difficult or expensive, you've got some surprises should you try to sell via cryptocurrencies.

Security is a huge deal. Want to get hacked? Tell people you accept bitcoin payments. Put an interface on your website. Remember to bolt your server down to the floor with big long bolts. And the backup server. And the other backup. And all the little thumbdrives. Cash is far easier to secure.

Think credit cards are difficult, try negotiating with a customer wanting a refund in bitcoins. Exactly how much bitcoin do they get today in exchange for a purchase made last week?

Nobody outside onionland handles commercially-significant crypto transactions. There are reasons.

There are drawbacks to be sure. Yet you don't refute my examples.

> Nobody outside onionland handles commercially-significant crypto transactions.

I've bought computers, books, clothes, games, online services and made significant donations using cryptocurrencies. I have also received several refunds (they were priced in euros and so I received a matching amount in cryptocurrencies).

That's just an ignorant and wrong statement.

>> I've bought computers,

Ya. BOUGHT. I guarantee the people selling them to you have different stories. The retailers that do take bitcoins knowingly do so for other reasons. The are trying to be cool and, perhaps, have a jump on the competition if things change. I'd bet they operate the bitcoin division at a loss.

We receive up to six figures in cryptocurrency payments every week for multiple perfectly legal products.

If that’s not a “legal use case”, I don’t know what is.

Are we going to argue next that credit cards have no use case because other forms of payment exist?

Another example: I just bought a watch off of a guy on a forum using bitcoin, bank transfers or WU would have been a far bigger pain in the ass.

While it has speculative value [0], you can use it to buy stuff, but while doing so you will spend on exchange fees to convert in and out of crypto, you will use as much electricity for your transaction as 33 US households use in a day, you will subject yourself to liquidity risk and volatility risk [1] and you will have to wait for anywhere from ten minutes to a couple hours [2].

Calling this complicated, risky and expensive process a "use case" is like calling a Rube Goldberg machine that opens a door "useful for opening doors". It's like no, not really. It can do it, sure, but there are significantly better ways of achieving the same thing.

[0] When there are no more greater fools entering the market, the price will tank and you will not be able use it to transfer value.

[1] It's possible that right after your purchase, the price of the token shoots up or down 50%, making rational purchasing decisions difficult.

[2] transactions on Visa, Apple Pay, or PayPal all get complete within seconds.

Or you use Ethereum, get confirmation in seconds, using far less electricity.

The only complaint valid in that case is the changing price, but it has been stable for months, and it has grown a lot more during the last year than the same investment in a savings account.

So what you say is essentially correct about Bitcoin, but if you add cost of opportunity to the equation, you have lost a lot more than people using criptocurrencies.

And the criptocurrency of the future can be different to Bitcoin. All bets are off.

You may not like it but dismissing an actual use case is just ignorant after the parent comment specifically asked for one.

> but there are significantly better ways of achieving the same thing.

There are no ways of accepting payments digitally without a third party. There is no "better way".

> transactions on Visa, Apple Pay, or PayPal all get complete within seconds.

0-conf can be accepted within seconds. Also credit card transactions are reversible after many weeks. Credit card chargeback fraud is a big problem for businesses.

> There are no ways of accepting payments digitally without a third party.

1- I agree. Bitcoin is no exception here: I must buy Bitcoin through GDAX. Then my transaction must be confirmed by Bitmain. And they're all running software by Blockstream. That's 3 third parties that were trusted for my purchase.

2- 0-conf transactions are very risky for recipients, hence why exchanges require confirmations.

3- Credit card chargebacks is how the real world solved the fraud problem in the featured article. Can you please provide an equivalent article showing how businesses are suffering due to chargebacks?

> I must buy Bitcoin through GDAX.

Or many other outlets including decentralized exchanges or localbitcoins.

> Then my transaction must be confirmed by Bitmain.

Or by the other miners.

> And they're all running software by Blockstream.

Or you could use Bitcoin Cash which have several development teams or use another cryptocurrency if Blockstream is your worry.

Also Bitcoin Core was mostly written before Blockstream came to be. It's also open source and you can bet that faults will be abused if they exist.

> That's 3 third parties that were trusted for my purchase.

No 3rd party is trusted when you send coins to someone else. That's the point.

> 0-conf transactions are very risky for recipients, hence why exchanges require confirmations.

They are actually quite safe if done on sane networks like Bitcoin Cash, not Bitcoin.

That's why several merchants accept 0-conf for small to medium purchases. See xmr.to as an example.

> Can you please provide an equivalent article showing how businesses are suffering due to chargebacks?

Just google "credit card chargeback fraud" or "friendly fraud" for tons of examples.

We don’t have the stats on the number of households the payment processing industry and banking industry could power. Not saying that it’s more or less, just something I considered.

It’s like you’ve never dealt with chargebacks.

Chargebacks protect users from fraudsters, which is exactly what the featured article is saying is a major problem in the cryptocurrency space. Millions of people getting scammed with no legal recourse is a problem. Retailers dealing with chargebacks less so... I've never heard of the "Merchants are thinking of no longer selling anything due to chargebacks" problem.

Either I ask customers to send me loads of PII, or I ask them to make their first payments in bitcoin.

I’ll always choose the latter.

It's like you've never been ripped off by someone selling you a watch on an internet forum.

Infinitely easier to vet sellers than buyers.

False. Random sellers on internet forums are not easy to vet at all. The whole point of chargebacks is you don't have to vet the seller.

Sure, that’s the point of chargebacks. Everybody knows this.

What is the point you are trying to make? That you’re too dumb to not buy from “random sellers”?

So you think people who get defrauded on the Internet are "dumb". I can see why you like cryptocurrency.

I’ve been scammed on the internet, but %-wise it’s comparable to credit card fees.

Because you "vet" sellers. Somehow. Infinitely easily. For the rest of us mere mortals, the consumer protections offered by cards are an essential foundation of Internet commerce.

Again, is there a point you’re trying to make here?

Can you read? Good! Then you can read reviews.

Care to say what kind of product you are selling, and to which kinds of customer?

Most of our revenue comes from proxies, customers range from SV startups to individual “SEO” people.

We do accept other payment methods from established clients.

As in : HTTP Proxy services?

That’s right.

And this is for totally above board purposes?

Yes? Ad verification, pricing intelligence, recruiting, QA and so on.

What is bitcoin giving your customer that a credit card would not?

Trust.

Trust for what? I'm happy to use my credit card pretty much anywhere because US credit card companies will easily reverse any fraudulent transactions.

Shopping on the web with credit cards is a solved problem. There is some hidden subtext at play with bitcoin that I'm missing. Is it that you don't trust your customers?

Yes, unfortunately we can’t trust our customers.

Before, people were using stolen cards to buy accounts on our service and then selling those on hacking forums.

After forcing new users to pay in cryptocurrency (or have a call with us), there’s been essentially no fraud.

For our niche this seems to work well.

Uhh, Verge is currently being used for payments for online services, subscriptions, and ad-buys. They have a debit card coming out backed by a major bank. That's legal.

Contribution to Wikileaks: the US pressures financial intermediaries not to process donations to WL, even though it's legal.

He does have a point. Adoption of crypto is falling while more and more coins are sprouting...

I think adoption is falling in the right places. I think it's wildly premature for a crypto-currency to be used in everyday transactions. So if, say, Amazon decided to accept bitcoin but is now moving away from it, I think that's a good thing.

Cryptocurrencies need to solve several issues such as energy consumption, price stability, and scaling before we see anything useful.