Because it's what the ecosystem requires. "Being your own bank" is supposed to be one of the perks of BTC, but it's hard to sell a currency/medium of exchange/store of value that requires an advanced degree in computer science to protect.

Cool story bro, tell that to all the people getting their coins taken with zero chance of recovery. There is something predictably awesome reading the daily "My coins got hacked" stories and seeing a small but vocal group of bitcoin fans mock them for not securing their coins better.

Meanwhile, I lost my credit card once and got it frozen without being liable for any of the fraudulent charges. What do we call that "Sorry For Your Mild Inconvenience"?

God you're thick.

Maybe it's an age thing. Over 40?

Or, possibly, it's harder to be objective about a thing when you're deeply wrapped up in it?

Bitcoin's permanence is by design, and it's the thing that keeps it from being practical. We've already solved a lot of the problems that Bitcoin purports to, and there's no need to go backwards.

Hell, I know Richard Heart is a polarizing figure on each side of the Bitcoin debate, but he lays it out pretty simply here. It's essentially the Analog Problem in protecting digital media:

No. You are confusing, again again and again, BTC with Paypal or Visa.

Say it with me, BTC is not Paypal 2.0.

Paypal 2.0 will be built on top of BTC.

BTC gives you the option to be your own bank.

BTC is money. Of course if you lose it it's permanent. It's the same as dropping a $100 note on the street.

The fraud protection you get with your credit card is a) not free and b) something that will soon be available with BTC for those that want it.

And Richard Heart is a pathetic loser who suddenly stopped loving BTC when he released his own scamcoin.

I secured all my coins on a Trezor in 10 minutes. Where do I pick up my advanced degree in computer science?

But it's a worse money than we have now. It's a worse store of value then we have now. I think you're wrong to say that fraud protection will soon be available for BTC. In order for that to happen, there has to be a centralized holding company ("bank") that can oversee the transactions and make you whole following losses. That's almost entirely counter to the idea of crypto. If I'm just going to have a bank store my money and give me fraud protection, why not stick with the money I use now and have no issues with?

Regardless of that though, the point we were talking about was whether or not BTC was more or less capable of being stolen than anything else. I argued that it wasn't, because even though the blockchain itself is almost impossible to alter, in order to use crypto, it has to be moved in such a way that it then becomes vulnerable. I can bury a gold bar in such a way that it's nearly impossible for anyone to get, but in order to utilize it, I'll have to dig it up and expose it to risk of theft. BTC is no different.

This is such a bizarre line. It doesn't matter what you do or don't consider easy. Tons and tons of people have had issues securing their crypto only to realize too late that they didn't do a very good job, SFYL. A huge number more won't even consider it because of the barriers to entry (perceived or otherwise).

Your group's tack of insulting them is a pretty bold strategy.

Edit: Just to be clear, I'm every bit the ******* you are. I enjoy seeing people get rekt via Crypto mistakes so I'm absolutely not claiming any sort of moral high ground. I just don't get how people that stand to benefit from the health of the crypto ecosystem think being a dick like me helps their case.

Ok, you're finally on the right track. You acknowledge all cases of fraud are the result of human error and/or bad judgement and not the Bitcoin protocol or available infrastructure. Now, are you saying more money has been lost in crypto as a result of human error and/or bad judgement than in all other industries?

We are back to bitcoin being a layer that banks and other institutions will build on which is not going to happen because they have no reason to use bitcoin for that. They can use a coinless blockchain as they already have a trust relationship.

BTC is the greatest form of money and store of value ever created.

Now, I know your response: "lol yeah right, it's down 60% this year, what a great store of value!".

I would argue that when someone is looking for a store of value they are looking for something that will store value over a longer time period than 6 months.

If you bought BTC as a store of value with any kind of reasonable time frame, i.e. have held for at least a year, then BTC has rewarded you handsomely.

^Without upward movement, your last statement will only be true for a bit longer.

Yes.

There may be a time in the future at which you will be able to call BTC a failure as a store of value.

Today is not that time and I would argue we'd need at least a few years of going nowhere before we got to that point.

As it stands today BTC has been the best store of value the world has ever seen.

I've been on the "right track" the entire time. I said from the beginning that the issue wasn't someone hacking (or even 51% attacking) the BTC BC itself, the issue is that in the process of spending/exchanging BTC, it has to be exposed to theft, no different than any other asset.

The difference is that once it's exposed to that risk, Bitcoin is, by design, effectively impossible to recover if stolen. In order to mitigate that issue, we have to essentially destroy BTC by centralizing it and putting it under the control of one or several regulated banks.

As for your second question, BTC has been around for 10ish years, so I would assume even if it's entire market cap disappeared tomorrow, it would pale in comparison to all the value lost in "all other industries".

By what metric do you base those assertions? It's absolutely done quite handsomely for early adopters, but then, most pyramid reverse funnel schemes typically do.

Gold is almost as useless as BTC but has the advantage of having been used as the universal SoV for centuries. It does have some wild swings, but those generally have been more gradual than BTC. More over, because Gold has been used as reserve currencies and been pegged to major currencies, it's hard to separate the fluctuations from some geopolitical decisions.

BTC has abjectly failed as a money so far. It's not accepted as a unit of exchange in all but a handful of places. It's swings are far too wild to be useful in minute-by-minute transactions and it's technologically incapable of handling anywhere near the number of transactions requires to replace the Dollar/Euro/etc.

lol.

If you bought for $400 in 2016 were you an 'early adopter'?

What about if you bought for $4000 exactly one year ago? Is that an 'early adopter'.

If I buy today at $6500 and make a 100% return in two years, am I an 'early adopter'?

I would say yes to both as a function of total transactions but it's admittedly a gray area.

If I develop an awesome app and don't release it for 10 years, the first people to download it after I publish 10 years later would be early adopters.

That's a silly example, but it's not far off. The exposure and usage of BTC absolutely exploded during the Great Bull Run of 2017 (tm), so in a very real sense, most of the people that got involved in BTC prior to that are early adopters.

For reference:
Jan 1st 2013 there were ~32,000 transactions
Jan 1st 2015 there were ~79,000
Jan 1st 2017 there were ~290,000
At the peak of the mania in the middle of Dec. 2018 there were ~425,000 transactions


When moon?

So in your opinion almost every single person who owns some BTC is an early adopter. That is, well, an interesting opinion.

If BTC is lower than $12k at the next halving in 2 years, you win. I'll give you that.

Wish I didn't bought bitcoin and a bunch of altcoins in January.. Now they're worth 250$ from 3k..but they could been worth 30k. I'm sad and mad with myself.

In your opinion, does store of value == investment?

no, obviously they are much different.

??

Props to TheMVP for going through this argument. Every other 100 posts the amount of cluelessness by someone who's new to this seems to come up again.

There's nothing wrong with being new and not understanding the intricacies of certain subjects, but stating all this with that high a level of certainty is ridiculous.

And this didn't peak your iron-o-meter at all?

I understand the principles of BTC as a store of value, but I'm not convinced yet. The 21 million cap is a very strong and explicit implementation of limited supply, even if I agree with others that it is somewhat diminished by the possibility of a multi coin future. Those limited amount of coins will, however, only have value if they have a use case, or many. There are use cases today, but if we are to have a long term view, as you suggest, then the use cases have to persist over a long period of time. Every year that goes by makes a stronger case for Bitcoin, but to say that it has proven itself over a long time is an overstatement in my opinion.

There is also the issue of changing use cases. As the technology is new, and it's a programmable and changeable asset there are many potential use cases being discussed that have not been implemented yet, unknown future use cases that have not even been thought of, and the existing use cases haven't reached even a fraction of their potential. Any expansion of use is good for the price of BTC, and all use and use cases are good to cement it as a store of value. The different use cases will have to fight for block space, so there isn't room for an endless number of different uses, but ones that are priced out can in some sense act as backups in case a more "profitable" one fails.
The issue lies in the fact that more use and use cases drives up the price, meaning that as long as there is a large potential for price increase, a large portion of the price will comprise of speculation on that price increase. If the potential use doesn't come into fruition, then a large portion of the price disappears. That is an undesirable trait in a store of value.

Comparing Bitcoin to gold and land, for example, it is quite obvious that the latter two have much more defined and time proven use cases, whereas Bitcoin has more potential to grow. The growth potential is good from an investment perspective, but since some of it is already represented in the price, there is a downside risk that makes it less ideal as a store of value. Right now it seems quite clear that the investment aspect is much stronger than the store of value aspect, but as time goes by it should converge more towards a store of value. But there are many hurdles and unknown factors to overcome on the way.

It did a little, but then I decided you are in way bigger violation of it then I am, so decided to post anyway.

If you can't figure out a use case for an asset that can be sent anywhere in the world in a few minutes for almost no fees, and can't be blocked, confiscated, inflated or counterfeited - and doesn't require a thirdparty bank, company, or government's blessing...then just leave this thread now and never come back.

Everyone is aware of the use case. Many people don't feel the demand of that use case justifies the valuation or hype.