2.0) Is inflated by algorithm, not at the whim of the central bank. 2.1) Cannot be used to pursue mercantilist trade policy. 2.2) Cannot be created from nothing as credit.

On the down side, it is not clear that the market for coins is liquid, and it is currently not widely accepted as tender, and may never be in the US/Japan (whose Central Banks/Governments have the most to lose with loss of control of money supply). But in spite of this, or maybe because of it, I think the future for Bitcoin is bright. When we see hedge funds becoming market makers in Bitcoins I think it's time has arrived.

That's the ideology of Bitcoin, the reality is that the majority of people are NOT using it for any of those things. It's still just a pyramid scheme after all these years because of the friction and time it takes to exchange USD for Bitcoins and back. The price changes so often you'd have to update your prices constantly, and with the constantly rising price of bitcoin, people earn money by keeping the currency and NOT using it.

Bitcoin encourages people to KEEP their bitcoins. Why use them to buy something when next month they're going to increase in value.

> Bitcoin encourages people to KEEP their bitcoins.

Particularly, so long as it is preceived to be likely to increase rapidly in value, it encourages them to use bitcoin as an investment vehicle rather than investing bitcoins in other things.

Obviously, if you want to consume things, you need to liquidate some assets to consume them, and if you've tied up your assets in bitcoin, you'll spend them for consumption.

It can be all - a method of transferring money, a method of payment for products and services, and a convenient way to invest while it's going up.

There's not that much friction to exchange it for currencies. I just transferred a five-figure USD amount to an exchange, sold it for BTC, sent them to another exchanged, sold BTC for Euro, withdrew it on the other side of the world. All of that through two exchanges based in countries I've never visited. I saved enormous amount of money compared to just wiring USD -> Euro through my bank.

For every bad story your read online there are hundreds of transactions that went perfectly fine, but people rarely bother to write about their positive experiences.