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Bitcoin is still absolutely useless as a currency and a technology. It's still cryptobros waiting on a foolish bag holder to take the L. But its price is skyrocketing since Nov 5th, because everyone thinks that Trump and Vance will dump this loser of a technology on the American tax-payer.
At this point there's nothing to stop them from doing that.
On the other hand, India's UPI system does around 15 billion transactions a month, most with zero transaction fees.
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@mekkaokereke It may be useless to you, but for a lot of us in a lot of countries it’s useful.
Vulture capitalists praying for the downfall of a legitimate central banking system, pretend that Bitcoin is widely useful in those countries.
In those situations, I say "Do what you need to survive." 
But what would you use Bitcoin for in a stable country with a fast, free, open, and zero cost micro transaction system like UPI?
@mekkaokereke @carlosrodriguez
Seems to me there are two separate conversations going on here. One is about fast, direct transactions. In the UK we take this for granted. People in the USA tend not to realise how primitive their banking systems are in comparison with civilised countries.
The other, more fundamental, conversation is about what defines money and gives it meaningful value. Only governments can do that. Bitcoin doesn't qualify, and its supposed value is spurious.
@regordane @mekkaokereke @carlosrodriguez Spurious, capricious, volatile...all features you *don't* want in a currency. One reason we dropped the gold standard is that international trade became punishing for some countries who could not control their currency. Bitcoin is no different than gold.
@dan613 @regordane @mekkaokereke @carlosrodriguez
Totally agree.
The biggest issue with gold is actually liquidity. If you wished to gold out US government debt how would you need to provide someone with $35.94 trillion dollars of gold. Thats about 700 tons of gold.
For the whole global economy, which means that even if you traded in units of gold mines, you don’t have enough gold on the planet (maybe in it). This also ignores price hikes on increased demand during physical settlement.
Cash is more liquid.
The liquid value of bitcoin is probably around the sum of the $ exchanged for it, so like the $ it’s based on confidence. The confidence of the work doable by the US economy is broadly measurable but the confidence of coin is subjective, hence the volatility.
It may be maintained indefinitely, however it could crash. It’s actually the risk of wipeout that rules it out as a currency… what you said.
@dan613 @regordane @mekkaokereke @carlosrodriguez The other reason the gold standard went away is that the gold-backed currencies: USD and GBP (but primarily USD) started to be used as proxies for gold by countries with no gold reserves. This created inflationary pressure on the US dollar, because each outstanding dollar held by another country still had to be honored by the US Treasury.
@regordane @mekkaokereke @carlosrodriguez how do you get people in your colony to work for Lil scraps of paper?
Burn their house down if they don't.