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Re:Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are useless by acdha on Sunday September 02, 2018 @06:07PM (#17898942)
As a pure fiat currency Bitcoin has neither intrinsic value nor an invested community of users, which makes the value proposition very risky. If a cryptocurrency did start to become useful for mainstream use, everyone who isn’t heavily invested in Bitcoin would have a strong incentive to use something else where they could capture the profits which would otheraise go to the Bitcoin early adopters, and if that starts happening the floor for BTC is zero as everyone cuts their losses and moves on. Yeah, there’d be some HODLers trying to recruit users but that’d die off over time since nobody new would have that sunk cost.
Re:Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are useless by bb88 on Sunday September 02, 2018 @09:27PM (#17899643)
The advantage that the Dollar has over Bitcoin is that when dealing with the US Government, it requires dollars to be used. So the banks get FDIC insurance on US Currency deposits, and taxes to the government must be paid in dollars.

So in essence, there's a legal requirement to use dollars when dealing with the federal government. So while the dollar is technically currency by fiat, it's also currency by legislation.

Re:Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are useless by PacifyFish on Sunday September 02, 2018 @08:05PM (#17899353)
Yep, the current state of bitcoin is far from fiat. I hope it does make strides as a currency, but if it never evolves past a deflationary store of value it’s still an attractive asset.