Next to nobody is actually using it as a means of exchange because it is poorly suited for that purpose in practice. The only type of commerce for which it’s viable in practice are typically crime or crime-adjacent. There is of course a small market of users for “legitimate” and ethically reasonable purposes, but they are by far in the minority.

The overwhelming majority of users are holding it as an asset. Which it’s also poorly suited for in the long run: it generates nothing in and of itself and requires constant feeding of money and energy to keep it going. The only way to see a return is to trade it to a greater fool.

> Next to nobody is actually using it as a means of exchange because it is poorly suited for that purpose in practice. The only type of commerce for which it’s viable in practice are typically crime or crime-adjacent.

Yes. The size of the money-laundering, exchange control evasion, and tax evasion industry was way underestimated.

What surprised me is that after China banned cryptocurrencies in 2021 [1], the price didn't drop.

Outside of Bitcoin and Ethereum, almost everything in crypto eventually tanks. The entire NFT market has tanked. Even the big names, such as BAYC, are down. BAYC is down 80% since launch. In memecoin land, "eventually" can be measured in days. Check out TRUMP.

Even Ethereum peaked back in 2021. Bitcoin has had 75% drops. If you bought and held anything other than BTC, you're probably under water now.

Then there are the constant collapses and "rug pulls".[2] US$76 billion total so far.

[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-58678907

[2] https://www.web3isgoinggreat.com/

You and everybody else in the replies talk about BTC specificly while I and OP are about cryptocurrency in general. BTC does indeed suck as a currency.

For Vanguard's customer base, this is quite true though. They have access to easy avenues for exchange in the form of USD and other assets.

There is some value for those without access to stable currencies in their home country, but that use case is absolutely dwarfed by the other use cases out there at the moment. Perhaps this will change if the US goes through an economic collapse due to bad tariffs or something.

Hacker News ceased to be a news site for hackers and founders years ago and is now a generic discussion forum with all sorts of people with all skill levels and from all political spectrums. Hating cryptocurrency is especially popular here.

Insofar as cryptocurrency is valuable for this at all, it’s really more stablecoins than bitcoin. And even then the concept predates crypto; notably, there’s the Eurodollar (not to be confused with euros or dollars) which is a stablecoin-like thing which has many of the same applications (though a more limited scope).

And yet that's not what we have. Bitcoin, the most popular cryptcoin in the world, is far from quick and cheap to exchange...especially during times of volatility. That dream of "internet money" is just a fantasy to lure potential bag holders.

> Bitcoin, the most popular cryptcoin in the world, is far from quick and cheap to exchange

Compared to what?

Let’s say your goal is to get some wealth out of Tibet into India.

Is it “quick and easy” to do that with dollars? Or Yuan? How about gold bricks? Maybe goats?

I’m not sure what the Chinese authorities at the border would have to say about those things.

With Bitcoin you can memorize a phrase like “witch collapse practice feed shame open despair creek road again ice least” and with that information in your brain you can move any amount of money anywhere your brain can go.

That is one _utility_ of Bitcoin. Just like one _utility_ of a dollar bill is I can put it in a Coke machine.

"Committing crimes is easier with bitcoin," is an interesting argument.

A crime can be just about anything that the current government doesn't like, for any reason.

The first thing that many governments will do when a protest of any kind starts becoming too effective is to make it a crime to participate or support the protest. I think we should all keep this scenario in mind when discussing what the future of our financial system should look like.

It's foolish to gloss over the word "crime" like it only describes human trafficking and international drug trade, especially with everything going on in the US. What was "going to the doctor" yesterday could be "committing a crime" tomorrow.

And in your hypothetical scenario, how did you get that value into Bitcoin to begin with?