Further, every currency has problems. Is USD perfect in your mind and without it’s own unique set of issues?
One year into its existence, a Pan-European Clearinghouse provided clearing services for participating countries.
Six years into its existence, in 2008, credit transfers and direct debit are operational across the SEPA area, meaning roughly that international payments are on par with domestic payments (i.e. no fees, 1-2 days wait time).
Eight years into its existence, SEPA transfers have become the dominant form of electronic payments in the Eurozone.
Since 2017 (fifteen years in), anyone with a SEPA bank account can send money to anyone else in the Area instantly³, and free of charge.
Throughout this time: * The Euro didn't suffer hyperdeflation. * There are ways to recover payments that were sent to mistyped IBANs and/or were sent fraudulently. * Users who forgot their e-banking password can get a new one from their bank and not lose all of their assets.
In 2019, SEPA processed about 22 billion credit transfers⁴. That's about 700 transactions per second, or about a hundred times more than the Bitcoin network is able to handle. SEPA also handled about the same number of direct debits, something that BTC doesn't offer. Best of all: SEPA did all that, without using approximately Chile's annual energy use.
Bitcoin is amazing Sci-Fi, brought to life. It's a testament to Satoshi's genius, to a cyberpunk-y spirit, and to applying game theory in a system that actually kinda works. But given its immense costs for miners, users, and society overall, it's something that falls squarely on the dystopian side of sci-fi.
¹: Mainly because the Euro is a multinational project and not a national currency. And also a little bit because the US banking system is a bit of a mess. But mainly for the "international" aspect.
²: Technically, it was created in 1992 and could be used, in electronic form, from 2001 onward. Still, banknotes and coins were introduced in 2002, so that feels like a good starting point.
³: "10 seconds, or up to 20 seconds in some circumstances"
⁴: https://www.europeanpaymentscouncil.eu/what-we-do/be-involve...
No one here can pay for their pizza delivery through SEPA. Intermediaries like PayPal are still needed. I'm baffled that banks can't get their shit together to offer an instant payment solution that works over the internet (ie. no card reader) for small purchases.
What's the problem?
There are several banks that support it. However, for instant transfers to work in practice, both the sending and receiving bank need to support it. I know of at least one person who opened a bank account with an Instant-Transfer-capable bank to get access to Instant Transfers.
The SEC only deals with securities. Bitcoin is not a security.
The problem is that it is a prisoner's dilemma situation, where capital holders do not want to be 'encouraged' to invest their money even if it might be a net benefit to society as a whole.
No one invests for a "net benefit to society as a whole." They invest for a return, and you can NPV your project in both inflationary and deflationary environments.
As a currency it's dreadful, suffering from tens of thousands of percent in deflation (= value increased relative to the cost of goods).
As a trade product it's terrible, suffering from a lack of oversight from e.g. the SEC, opening it up to price manipulation (see MtGox creating artificial demand, the Tether money printer, the smaller crypto's being fucked around with by traders who have enough money to throw around to influence the price, and the meme coins being influenced by Elon Musk making a tweet about it (although afaik he can't be accused of manipulation directly, this time).