Theoretically companies like Mindgeek who have been kicked off of the VISA/Mastercard duopoly, would be able to use Bitcoin as a censorship-resistant way to accept online payment. There's additional benefits as mentioned earlier like not needing to comply with KYC laws.

Of course, as Bitcoin currently stands, it's difficult for this to come to fruition because most holders are speculators rather than people interested in using it as currency.

> There's additional benefits as mentioned earlier like not needing to comply with KYC laws.

Why would Bitcoin transactions be exempt from KYC?

Because the fact that it's (in theory) anonymous means that most people think that it also cannot be regulated by laws. People just don't outright say that though because it might sound like enabling fraud, tax evasion, and other unsavory activities was the point.

>like not needing to comply with KYC laws

You can also not comply with KYC laws in the traditional banking system; you're just going to get roflstomp'd by the financial authorities, c.f. $200mm fine for Deutsche Bank for insufficient AML/KYC controls in 2012-2015 time period.

Why would you imagine the result will be any different for crypto-banking? FinCEN is already promoting KYC for exchange-hosted wallets.

> There's additional benefits as mentioned earlier like not needing to comply with KYC laws.

In many situations lack of KYC is a bug, not a feature.

>In many situations lack of KYC is a bug, not a feature.

Some people seem to be actually believe that.

You just happen to be one of them.

How do you track money laundering? Not everyone doing it is a virtuous rebel Fighing The Powah. A lot of them are just plain old crooks or other kinds of criminals.

> How do you track money laundering?

You don't.

Just like free speech, tracking what people do with their money is a violation of basic human rights.

Giving governments that kind of power is downright crazy.

If you want to catch criminals, resort to traditional ways.

Exactly. And barring an unlikely collapse, cash/dollar isn't going to fluctuate much at all in value. So... a feature.

At this point, bitcoin is a competitor to gold as an asset store. Maybe it will be more like a currency at some point. But there's a long way to go and a lot of forces against it for that to occur.

Just pointing out; there exist also those who consider the possibility of a collapse of cash/dollar more likely than your estimate.

There exist those who predict the collapse of everything. That's not a valid answer.

Who are they? How many are they? What insight do they have that we don't have? Is this chance higher than the possibility of collapse for Bitcoin?

Seriously. Will it do the equivalent of being ~20k then go to 3k. Then come back to 29k? Highly unlikely. As much as people want to predict a collapse, you can't store a ton of money safely outside of Treasuries.

With cash you can hand it to another person in payment. With conventional digital payments you request a trusted intermediary (your bank) to transfer that value to them. What if you don't trust banks but still want to be able to pay people?

Bitcoin was born in the Global Financial Crisis when the world was discovering the massive scam which the financial services industry had perpetrated, causing the whole problem. People wanted a way to do transactions without having to trust institutions which demonstrably couldn't be trusted. Hence Bitcoin which acts like digital cash with no trusted intermediary.

Well, take the upsides of cash (e.g. don't need to open a bank, prove residence, etc.) and now add the ability to exchange it digitally without the pointless gatekeeping of large corporations like Paypal.

Who will be the largest Bitcoin vendor because they are trusted.

But they won’t be the only vendor. There is no license required that gives them a monopoly on bitcoin. If they serve a market segment, great! Others will use something else. Bitcoin is entirely open - it’s a protocol.

So is EDI used by banks with other currencies. I am old enough to have used it :)

That's fine. Bitcoin adoption by these institutions makes it easier for people to receive it who don't actually want to hold it.

Still, note that you don't need Paypal to move Bitcoin.