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Comment by jacquesm | Hacker News Reader

> Cryptocurrencies are used for financial speculation, fraud and illegal trade.

You mean like cash?

> With only tiny fractions of the cryptocurrency-using fraction of society using them for other purposes.

Well, tiny datapoint from tiny fraction: I've only used bitcoin for totally legit stuff. But I concede that all the other transactions might have been financial speculation, fraud and illegal trade. But I can't prove it either way, and I suspect neither can you.

> I would not call that nonsense the embrace of a generation.

Well, I would not call it nonsense either. And it probably isn't the embrace of a generation. But it is moving the needle.

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It seems fairly uncontroversial to me to state that the vast majority of people who own cryptocurrency are treating it like a commodity, not like a currency. There's nothing wrong with that, and these people have made a lot of money (dollars) so far, but there's certainly a distinction to be made.

> There's nothing wrong with that, and these people have made a lot of money (dollars) so far,

They have only made a lot of dollars when they sell their crypto currency. Until then it is all fantasy, which is something a lot of .com millionaires would agree with, especially the ones that sold their solid companies for stock in less solid companies.

> You mean like cash?

I would guess that the OP means 'yes like cash, but cash is also used for other things whereas crypto currencies are not practically used for anything else.'

"crypto currencies are not practically used"

Again and again: no data demonstrates this claim.

The burden of proof isn't on the claim there is no practical usage. The default hypothesis is no usage.

The burden of proof is on the claim that non-speculation uses are greater than the speculation uses.

"The default hypothesis is no usage."

Says who? I agree speculators are a big fraction of crypto users, but you are making the even bolder claim that "crypto currencies are not practically used". Consider that lots of hard & anecdotal evidence suggests otherwise: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15094514

> Says who?

Says the burden of proof. http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Burden_of_proof

Here's your data, a single sample size:

- I live in a US city with a population over 1M. - I have about 0.5 BTC - I have never - ever - seen a place in the Real World where I can spend it. - I cannot be sure of this assertion, but it's worth saying anyway: The only place online I can recall seeing that accepts BTC as payment is PIA vpn service. I cannot recall any other place (this certainly doesn't mean there aren't any!).

If a reasonably tech-savvy person cannot spend it in the real world, it does not meet my standards for something being 'practical'. Period.

I spend my bitcoins on: my CPA, computer gear (Newegg), games (Steam), VPS and domain names (Vultr, Gandi), furniture (Overstock), etc

Also you fail to realize it but Bitcoin's practicality extends to more than just payments: it's great for informal person-to-person transactions. I gift bitcoins to my family overseas, I pay back lunch money to coworkers in bitcoins, etc. In fact I think person-to-person transactions is one of Bitcoin's most promising use case...

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