this post was submitted on 04 Dec 2023
202 points (100.0% liked)
Technology
37740 readers
629 users here now
A nice place to discuss rumors, happenings, innovations, and challenges in the technology sphere. We also welcome discussions on the intersections of technology and society. If it’s technological news or discussion of technology, it probably belongs here.
Remember the overriding ethos on Beehaw: Be(e) Nice. Each user you encounter here is a person, and should be treated with kindness (even if they’re wrong, or use a Linux distro you don’t like). Personal attacks will not be tolerated.
Subcommunities on Beehaw:
This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
But you can't disregard the cost. No big box retailer is going to start accepting BTC transactions at the point of sale. It takes too long, and is too resource intensive. So you're essentially limited to secondary markets or person-to-person transactions where seconds in processing the transaction don't count. Not to mention the volatility of the exchange rate. A business or a government aren't going to accept that the currency they accepted today could potentially be worth half its value tomorrow. Without some sort of major catastrophic world event, something like that isn't going to happen to the dollar. That kind of shit destabilizes entire economies and nations.
There's also the issue of reputation. Regardless of validity, cryptocurrency is seen as something used for criminal activity. If your local city government said they'd start accepting BTC for your water bill or trash bill, the majority of average folk are going to think "that stuff people buy drugs with on the Internet?"
BTC has never been and will never be viable as a mass market currency system.
I agree, BTC is awful. But I also think its just a starting point for something that has the potential to become much better.