Re:BadEconomics: Putting $400M of Bitcoin on your company ba...
by benlivengood on Monday January 04, 2021 @05:12PM
(#25638982)
> But the fact of the matter is that there is no better alternative today, and the traditional governmental currencies don't count.
I can spend USD almost anywhere I want at maybe a 1.5% transaction fee depending on merchant, with 1%-2% cash back (I calculated a 1.67% rebate for 2019). Technically this is only nominally government currency since it's just bank credit denominated in USD.
Bitcoin's blockchain does around ~100K BTC in volume a day at ~100 BTC in fees and ~1000 BTC mined (since May) which both are effectively costs going to the miners' electricity. 1.1% vs 1.5% with cash back isn't a huge argument for bitcoin. If transaction fees stay around .1% until the block reward hits .05% then the efficiency argument eventually goes away because miners will be competing on transaction efficiency and not block rewards any more.
I like the technology; it's cool and the fact that it works at all is amazing. If overall costs were closer to .1% and speculators were not the primary users it would be revolutionary.
I can spend USD almost anywhere I want at maybe a 1.5% transaction fee depending on merchant, with 1%-2% cash back (I calculated a 1.67% rebate for 2019). Technically this is only nominally government currency since it's just bank credit denominated in USD.
Bitcoin's blockchain does around ~100K BTC in volume a day at ~100 BTC in fees and ~1000 BTC mined (since May) which both are effectively costs going to the miners' electricity. 1.1% vs 1.5% with cash back isn't a huge argument for bitcoin. If transaction fees stay around .1% until the block reward hits .05% then the efficiency argument eventually goes away because miners will be competing on transaction efficiency and not block rewards any more.
I like the technology; it's cool and the fact that it works at all is amazing. If overall costs were closer to .1% and speculators were not the primary users it would be revolutionary.