Please don't cross into personal attack in HN comments, or take HN threads further into flamewar. We're trying to avoid that here.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

I think this is a heavy-handed reply. His personal lack of an answer to the question, "what's the value," is presumably why he didn't buy in at the beginning.

Also, even if he had two or three Bitcoin it would be a nice windfall, but not an earth-shattering event that would cause eternal jealousy.

People are asking a pretty basic question on a supposedly technological forum. It would be like me asking what's the point of Linux, the OS problem was solved by (D)OS(X), or something similar. I'll admit the reply is heavy handed but there is a reason Bitcoin exists and people are using it so when do these questions stop?

Let's say you have a side hustle of selling shoplifted Tide Pods via Craigslist, and you want to use digital payments. In that case it's easy to understand the value of bitcoin. But for the millions of people who have no problem whatsoever making digital transactions via PayPal, Zelle, Venmo, CashApp, ACH, wire, or one of numerous other formats, why go to the trouble of making a whole new currency with corner-case issues (price volatility, potential cryptographic weakness, energy cost, early adopter advantage, and so forth) when the dollar is fairly stable? It's not a basic question, IMO it's a deep one.

The dollar works plenty good for digital transactions, and with the right bank I can withdraw money anywhere in the world at a reasonable exchange rate without paying additional fees. Credit cards work worldwide. If you pay your taxes and don't partake in illegal commerce, it seems like a fairly good system. I can get around the inflation risk to some degree by buying commodities, securities, or property, and convert to cash when I need it.

I don't think the questions ever stop. We're questioning the dollar and yet we've used it for centuries. We're questioning gold and yet we've used it for millennia. We don't know what the world's cryptocurrency of choice will be in the long term, we don't know who we're helping by bidding up bitcoin (Musk? Cartels? Nerds from MIT and CalTech?), and we don't know the impact that future energy and computing technologies will have on cryptocurrencies.

It also appears to me that anyone who buys and holds bitcoin would make money in a global system that uses bitcoin, because (A) money cannot be created beyond a set limit but can be destroyed/lost, (B) the marginal cost of use goes up as more participants get involved, and (C) inflows to an asset with limited supply always bid up the price because of basic economics. What makes a currency good is that its price stays stable relative to the commodities for which it is used to transact. When the time value of money far exceeds the time value of human activity, you get deflation and that's a poor characteristic for a currency because it punishes those economic participants who are active.

First, you have a bunch of ideas that you're trying compose into an argument, you were not successful.

Second, Bitcoin solves the problem of digital exchange between non-trusting parties, this is a very hard problem that didn't have a solution before Bitcoin came around, that's why it exists and it's useful.

Above, you do weave U$ Dollar throughout, let's use it to explain Bitcoin. Currently the trust-less exchange is solved by holding assets which others trust. This means that if you have $100 you can show it other people and they can see that you have it and test that it is really $100. The reason $100 is $100 is because USA makes sure that is true. Now, non-US people are not the happiest that the US dollar is effectively the world currency. This has roots in WW*, Bretton Woods, etc., beside the point for our needs. The biggest problem is that US controls the dollar supply, just in the last year the supply has increased by ~25%, making everyone else'$ cheaper. If instead the world currency was Bitcoin or some other cryptocurrency, one entity would not control the supply, the supply would be controlled by algorithms, which are easier to understand than some old white men. To me the last point, about algorithms, is enough to make bitcoin useful. No matter how much we fight it the world is going digital, and why would money be an exception?

> First, you have a bunch of ideas that you're trying compose into an argument, you were not successful.

This is where I stopped reading your reply.

Side hustle of shoplifting tide pods? What possible idea can that further?

That doesn't really answer the question "what is the point of it" unless the only point is to create wealth for the people who do have it.

"what is the point of it" From bitcoin wiki: Bitcoin is a decentralized digital currency, without a central bank or single administrator, that can be sent from user to user on the peer-to-peer bitcoin network without the need for intermediaries.

The trustless exchange part was worked on for a long time and Bitcoin came around and solved it. This is why questions like that are completely ignorant of anything technology and really makes me question the instigator's motives.

Edit: adding a link to an answer provided to the same question on this site https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25256738

I think you're seriously misrepresenting the questioner. People who question the point of it understand that the aim is to be currency. Calling people questioning the point idiots who don't understand technology doesn't answer the question either, it just makes you look like a dick. You're on a forum where the majority of posters have at least a higher-than average understanding of current technologies, so I'm skeptical that you have a much deeper understanding than most of them. And even if that is the case, what you're saying is just rude. There are negative stereotypes surrounding bitcoin enthusiasts that you are playing into very successfully here.

I didn't call anyone any names, as opposed to what you are doing, and I will not. In any case Bitcoin is here to stay and you will own it, either directly or indirectly, but it's not going away. So questioning it's idea of existence doesn't further the conversation, I'm sorry, but it really makes the questioner seem ignorant. It's the same question being asked since 2011, when does it stop?

Nobody's questioning it exists. This is a wilful misrepresentation of why people have issues with it -- the reason why I got pissed with the things you've written is that they match the stereotype bitcoin enthusiast speil almost to a tee. I can understand why it exists, and what the value proposition is, and what it promises, and still question what the point of it is because there are huge glaring issues with it.

> when does it stop

It doesn't, because of the very obvious problems with it as a currency vs. existing currencies. If those magically go away, then people will stop questioning it. As it is, there is very little sign of that ocurring.

There is no disconnect there, no hidden motives. People use currency. Do the benefits of bitcoin outweigh what seem like huge downsides? Quoting the technical underpinnings of it as if it's some slam dunk -- how do you seriously think this persuades people?

Edit: also this

> The problem that you and others like you have is you don't have any BTC and now are struggling to understand why anyone else would have any. I think it's mostly from the fact you didn't get any when you should have and now there is no reason as it's expensive and again you don't have any. Simple really.

This reads as the reason people people have problems with it is envy, that they didn't buy some before it skyrocketed in value, and they now can't buy any.

I'll respond only to the last part. My post was made in fun and I didn't mean to offend anyone, maybe accost them a bit. The initial poster I was replying too did say that they had access to bitcoin and could/should have kept some as do most of us hence the post. The subsequent replying was made to explain, poorly it seems, why it's useful.

you can just buy satochis, dont think about the price of bitcoin, think about how much money you want to invest.