Seems strange to call blockchain nonsense given your second and third sentences. Those properties of bitcoin (scarcity, decentralization, immutability) depend directly on core features of blockchain tech.

But it also seems a bit odd to me to think that those properties, especially scarcity, are enough by themselves to make something valuable in any stable way over a long period of time. It's like, part of what makes a Vermeer painting valuable is the scarcity of supply, but there are a lot of equivalently scarce objects which are not valuable. The supply side of the equation is important, but so is demand, and demand is driven by more than scarcity.

Okay, let's start by listing some compelling use cases for Byzantine fault tolerance. Since you seem to be brimming with enthusiasm you can go first.

It's not complicated. The technology is overhyped because some people think it's going to change every aspect of our lives.

Of course demand is driven by more than scarcity. If all you could do is buy and hold BTC and not be able to do anything with it, if it just sat stuck on your computer with no utility, then it wouldn't be worth much.

This is why people laugh at gold. As Buffett puts it: "Gold gets dug out of the ground in Africa, or someplace. Then we melt it down, dig another hole, bury it again and pay people to stand around guarding it. It has no utility. Anyone watching from Mars would be scratching their head."

But BTC has utility. It is the most secure, opensource, permissionless, verifiable payment network in the world open to anyone with a smartphone and internet connection.

Lol. So after all those posts by Bgrif in the last few days, he gets banned for spamming pm's to people to join X site which has "great BTC deposits and withdrawals". Can't make this up.

lol really? He had started some good threads in SE.

By his join date it was obv. he's been banned before (probably in LVL).

Just salty he was actually someone that BTC was useful for and he still sold way too early in the mega bull.

If he cleaned the salt from his eyes he'd see that he could get back in @ 70% discount to ATH and rolllllllllllllll onnnnnnnn

If you think XRP and BTC are in the same ballpark you need to reset your views on crypto and start from ground zero.

You also need to study basic economics (supply & demand) if you can't see why all those lost BTC is a monsterous bullish feature.

Most scarce things that have ever existed in human history have been easy to take from another human (my weapon bigger than your weapon).
BTC is not easy to take from someone (assuming you aren't bragging about owning some in public).

And yet people seem to be having them taken from them, or losing them, right and left.

Lollllll

RIP bgrif

You either die a nocoiner or live long enough to see your bags get too heavy.

Lol at this take. The Winklevoss twins are geniuses and haven't yet sold a single coin.

They sold at least $500k worth for this.

What about stocks, bonds, mutual funds, gold in a bank, ETFs, CDs, anything lock in your safe deposit box, real estate, commodities, options, futures, beanie babies or tulips (stored in a secure greenhouse)?

You can't store any of those in a trezor or brainwallet (along with a duress wallet in case of torture).

Banks have gone under (yes, FDIC, but has limits), safe deposit boxes robbed, real estate stolen via forged titles, Lehman Brothers for the stock-related stuff. It happens.

Granted brainwallets are not recommended but this is the first asset class that can be purely digital / like a mental bearer bond without requiring a third-party.

And I have no reason to want to.

FDIC insures up to $250k per person per financial institution so yeah it does have limits but those limits are pretty large. If you are worried about a bank going under create 30 bank accounts and spread you money out.

I'm sure safe deposit boxes have been robbed, but I can tell you a lot more money that has been stolen via crypto than safe deposit boxes. Same with real estate via forged titles. I am sure the title forgery and safe deposit boxes robbery happens but I can't tell you the last time I have heard of either.

The stealing of stock is a lot harder now than it was back in lehman's heyday. It is still possible, but if you are vigilant this is so unlikely to happen today it isn't even worth talking about.

Elephant in your argument:

https://rados.io/list-of-documented-exchange-hacks/

Yes, keeping crypto on an exchange is a bad idea. Worse than Lehman brothers for sure.

But you don't HAVE to keep it on an exchange, or with any third party government, bank, or company. They can confiscate your gold, but they can't confiscate your brainwallet.

As far as safe-deposit boxes, here's one from last month: https://sacramento.cbslocal.com/2018...tolen-drilled/

Thanks for sharing the link. I'd love to hear what the bank has to say about this supposed issue. Crazy to hear that at least 2 or 3 people out of the tens of millions who have safe deposit boxes have been effected recently.

So I guess the verdict is still out on if it is safer to store capital in BTC or stocks, bonds, ETFs, beanie babies, gold... (everything else I named earlier), but what isn't likely up for a debate is if the investments I mentioned are a safer* investment than BTC or not.

I'm not talking about the quality of the investment. If you bought btc under $1 you are doing great, if you bought at 15k+, not so much.

What i'm saying is as far as safety from being stolen (by thieves, government, rogue employees at banks) - there has NEVER been an asset class like bitcoin where you literally can hold the password to the asset in your head - without ANY thirdparty government, bank, or company as custodian - travel around the world and have access to that asset. It can't be blocked, can't be frozen, stolen by TSA/customs, etc.

Just think about that from a technology standpoint, again not talking about price. Simply the fully independent control of the asset (your stocks and bonds are handled by a broker/bank custodian, who will quickly freeze your account if the government asks - your gold and beanie babies are easily stolen from your luggage while traveling, etc.).

Bitcoin is individual sovereign power that has never existed before. Again, nothing to do with price or "safety" of investment.

It is also the only asset that you can't recover once stolen or lost. Pretty sure that is more likely to happen especially when it comes to inheriting assets.

Not much different from cash or fungible gold coins, if it's gone, it's gone.

No doubt there is an educational hurdle, and many people will still use bank-like custodians for bitcoin. But the fact you CAN have international individual sovereignty is pretty amazing, no wonder banks and governments hate it. But it's too late to ban it - they can't unring a bell.

Bitcoin's complete irretrievablity is what will keep it from ever being adopted, even beyond the technical limitations.

It's the answer to a question no one is asking: what if we operated without trust?

Yeah paying a 2% fee to Visa/Mastercard isn't fun, but in exchange we get literally everything that makes modern commerce possible. Instant transactions and fraud protections. Switching to a medium of exchange where permanent loss isn't a big but a feature is a nonstarter.

It's not an educational hurdle tho, it's an undesirable trait of the product.

Having a currency that's only truly safe when kept on a paper wallet, encased in cement and buried under your birdbath isn't an acquired taste.

Yeah because there is no version of the future in which the majority of BTC is held in custodial accounts with insurance.

For the millionth time, BTC isn't trying to be paypal/visa 2.0.