If all you're buying is sandwiches, you don't need crypto. Crypto is for when you buy things that are a lot more interesting than sandwiches :)

If I'm selling sandwiches, I could make a lot more if I accept an alternative payment with the same convenience as credit but lower tx fees. Privacy conscious buyers may prefer crypto than a bank that sells their purchases to advertisers.

Maybe rather than seeing it as _a_ currency we could see it a special purpose currency for money exchange? A transport medium?

If you are trying to keep your coin over a longer period of time you suffer the high volatility and are at the whims of gamblers. But if it is only used to perform a money transaction which otherwise would not be possible/too expensive/too dangerous, only to be exchanged against a fiat currency immediately after, that could be its role.

> Forex (for travelers) perhaps?

Again, we're talking real world. Have you ever travelled abroad and used BTC to buy something? Has anyone you know ever done that?

so the goalposts just moved from "having utility" to "myself-or-someone-I-personally-know got utility from it"?

> travelled abroad and used BTC to buy something

not the scenario I described. Forex is short for foreign exchange. as in, exchanging to local fiat.

What, no. The goalpost were always “real world utility”. Real world.

I did. Used to refill my eqyptian sim card at bitrefill.io. Much cheaper and easier than go search for refill card at merchants all looking to rob a touristo.