News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:10 years of whatever this has been by umanwizard on Wednesday November 17, 2021 @11:54PM (#29262095)
> You can buy tons of stuff with Bitcoin

You can also buy tons of stuff with USD. The only innovation of Bitcoin is that it allows you to do illegal stuff.

A more expensive and cumbersome way to do what you could already do with other tools is not “success”.

> You can transfer it around the world basically for free (transaction fees amount to the equivalent of pennies no matter how much you send).

This is also true of, for example, TransferWise.

> It’s immutable

This actually makes it worse than the existing financial system, because being able to reverse fraudulent transactions is a feature, not a bug.

> It’s gained widespread adoption, a while economy, thousands of businesses.

Also true of USD. You still haven’t demonstrated any advantage of Bitcoin other than illegal transactions.

Re:10 years of whatever this has been by yownie on Thursday November 18, 2021 @12:05AM (#29262146)
>This is also true of, for example, TransferWise.

Not for small to large amounts for less than pennies

>A more expensive and cumbersome way to do what you could already do with other tools is not “success”.

You're vastly underestimating the amount of people trapped in regimes where they cannot spend their funds abroad or risk having them devalued at whim.

Re:10 years of whatever this has been by crummy on Thursday November 18, 2021 @12:42AM (#29262319)
> or risk having them devalued at whim.

doesn't that describe a lot of cryptocurrencies? or are you suggesting the people in these regimes use cryptocurrencies as an intermediary to transfer their local currency into more stable foreign currency?

Re:10 years of whatever this has been by wonnage on Thursday November 18, 2021 @12:36AM (#29262294)
Bitcoin is the definition of getting devalued at whim
Re:10 years of whatever this has been by errantmind on Thursday November 18, 2021 @01:15AM (#29262488)
This reasoning is really strange and reeks of bitterness. Do you have anything backing up your claim BTC is used for mostly illegal activities? Please provide some very clear citations for that claim.
Re:10 years of whatever this has been by umanwizard on Thursday November 18, 2021 @01:22AM (#29262537)
I never claimed that, and have no idea whether it’s true.
Re:10 years of whatever this has been by Osiris on Thursday November 18, 2021 @02:29AM (#29262989)
Much more illegal activity happens with USD than with Bitcoin.