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@m_deff @lopp @prestonjbyrne @matthew_d_green It doesn't, but it's not as bad as all that. Since Bitcoin is the most expensive transaction system ever devised, it hasn't been widely adopted for transactions, or anything else other than speculation in bitcoin and electric power price arbitrage in closed economies.
@m_deff @lopp @prestonjbyrne @matthew_d_green Fundamentally, a product has to be competitive to survive. Bitcoin has no benefits for most users, which is why almost no one as a fraction of world population uses it, and why fewer people use it over time. Peak was a while ago.
@m_deff @lopp @prestonjbyrne @matthew_d_green It's the least private known transaction system, it's expensive, the price is highly volatile so it's useless as a unit of account, it can't handle enough volume to be useful, etc. But many people have their whole life staked on none of this mattering, so they believe anyway.
@m_deff @lopp @prestonjbyrne @matthew_d_green Unfortunately, while we're waiting around for people to figure out that over time there's no increase in adoption because it isn't useful, enormous amounts of productive capacity are devoted to keeping the thing going. People can stay irrational for very long periods.
@m_deff @lopp @prestonjbyrne @matthew_d_green It may be years or decades until the whole thing comes crashing down, or it could all disintegrate when the Tether scheme folds. Hard to say. What I do know is this: it's not displacing Visa cards or Euros any time soon. It's not as good as either of them, for anything.
@m_deff @lopp @prestonjbyrne @matthew_d_green (Which is very sad. The idea of a transaction system that's censorship resistant, cheap, private, and independent of state currency manipulation is very attractive. But Bitcoin isn't that thing. People want it to be so desperately that they pretend, of course.)
