Comment by FrancoisT | Hacker News Reader

Comment by FrancoisT | Hacker News Reader

I'm no expert and I find both positive and disconcerting points in cryptocurrencies so I am not sided on this issue. What is perplexing me is the fact that more or less every discussion on the topic is centered on the dollar price (or another government currency) of the cryptocurrency in question. I'm curious to be presented a counterargument but if it was a real currency and not a speculative asset (not to criticize) why would it be the center of discussion? For example main focus over the Euro (except in specific cases such as Forex exchange for example) is not about conversion to another currency because it is a widespread and accepted way to settle your debts while cryptocurrencies are not there yet(?). In my current vision the way it will be cryptocurrencies over cryptoassets will be the day the conversion will be a secondary issue as it will suffice in itself because it's an organic (really) widespread way to extinguish debt for good & services consumption.

It's difficult (but not impossible) to find niches where cryptocurrencies are being used as currencies. They are more often described and used by enthusiasts as securities or investments, so it's this aspect that dominates discussion today.

Outside of criminal activity (including "positive" criminal activity like evading the capital controls of authoritarian regimes), there's not much to recommend cryptocurrency as a currency. Bitcoin maximum throughout is several orders of magnitude too small to support meaningful use, and transaction fees on popular chains are punishingly high. I personally like to use payment instruments that can be clawed back in the case of fraud (like credit cards) for large purchases, so I can't really understand the appeal of an irreversible payment instrument for routine use.

Anecdotally I’ve personally seen a lot of “Bitcoin accepted here” signs while traveling around America. It’s not ubiquitous, but it is there. Hell, I bought a plane ticket with Bitcoin way back in 2014 for a family member to come see me.

I’m not sure if you’ve ever heard of the “lightning network” but it uses some really clever cryptography which allows people to send/recv Bitcoin almost instantly, with finalized settlement done on-chain as a normal transaction when the payment channel closes https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightning_Network

The other thing about payment finality is that thanks to blockchains with smart contracts (so not really on Bitcoin) things like escrow become pretty simple to conduct. You can write programs to enforce exactly how an exchange should work (“only release payment after proof has been posted to the chain”), and both parties can have confidence that no one is getting taken advantage of because they’ve agreed to immutable rules beforehand - to me that’s a super powerful primitive to build neat stuff with.

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