Everyone talks about whether crypto is a scam, it may or may not be who knows? I know this: those that sat by and watched multiple bull runs in crypto the latest being 2017, are missing out on a perfectly viable money making asset class. Then they come onto ET to bitch and whine about everything instead of clocking out to the yacht for the remainder of their days. Enjoy not making the easiest money you could grab from the markets.
MrMuppet, I'm not in bitcoin or cryptos for the "replace fiat mentalitiy" and I mentioned this in some of my posts. ET is a trading/investing website, and I traded options in the past which is why I know this site (not that successfully, I may add, but overall, was slightly net positive over many years). Bitcoin (cryptos), in my opinion, is a new asset class, a new speculative investment, and in my opinion is more comparable to gold. If one invested in gold when it was $300, that money (in whatever fiat denomination) has risen in value by hundreds of percent, but you have to sell gold before you buy an airplane ticket or book a hotel, which is not the case with bitcoin. Last word on how bitcoin (cryptos) function from a real-world case usage, most of my cryptos are in cold wallets (private keys are inaccessible not even by me, until the time comes to spend some). I have several "spending" wallets that I refill (on my phone, tablet, and laptop) a few hundred/thousand $. To tsznecki's point, we're here at ET and we trade, I just so happen to trade cryptos for cryptos. My investment in bitcoin has worked out very well for me in "fiat equivalence", but I've been "lucky" to have increased my bitcoin "value equivalence" through trading cryptos. On that trading note and as a reference to the OP, Tezos has gained significant percentage returns against bitcoin, as it was down in the dumps, about 10 days ago sitting at ICO bitcoin price of about 17K satoshis (.00017 btc) and is now over 26K satoshis. At the height, it was at about 75K satoshis. My point? none whatsoever, since I don't think anyone here trades cryptos for cryptos, but there would have been a point if someone did and it would have put someone to perform DD, perhaps even shorting it. Peace and good wishes.
People don't need crypto to make digital transactions. They can use digital wallets or pre-paid cards. Also, with a digital wallet or pre-paid card, someone who lives 5000 miles away from me can't pick my pocket and steal all my money.
How can a guy from 5000 miles away can pick your pocket? What do you even mean? How are you supposed to pay with a prepaid card if your government prohibits cross border capital transfers and doesn't allow anybody to exchange the shitty local currency into USD or EUR? You're exactly the guy I was writing about in my post. Completly uninformed how things actually work but ranting anyway. Read the Satoshi Paper, get a grip on decentralised money systems as well as how to deal with them in a secure way.
When I say pick your pocket, I mean hack your bitcoin wallet from 5000 miles away. You know...like literally 1000s of people who've already had their accounts hacked. Many of them very knowledgeable in bitcoin with 2FA that were sure they couldn't get hacked. Google sim swapping. As far as the guy using bitcoin because he can't exchange his shitty local currency into USD or EUR, well riddle me this...who's going to sell this guy bitcoin for his shitty hyperinflated currency? You going to sell someone bitcoin for Venezuelan Bolivars? No? Well neither is anyone else. Nothing is 100% safe, but with dollars, the government gives you your money back if they are hacked or the bank fails. If you lose your bitcoin, its over. All that money is gone. Now if FDIC was revoked, bitcoin might have a leg to stand on, but there is no reason to own it other than speculation as of now. And lets be honest...you ain't holding it because you "believe in its merits" You're just thinking "what if bitcoin goes to 10 million per coin, then I can sell all this worthless bitcoin for dollars" Everybody is in it for the dollars. You're all just buying hoping to sell to the bigger fool.
You cannot remote hack a hardware wallet, just exchanges and online wallets and you would be stupid to use an online wallet as a storage of your crypto wealth or keep everything on the exchange. Also do not think that Bitcoin is used as a storage in problematic economies. People literally trade goods and materials for bitcoin. It's a parallel ecosystem, a little bit like an advanced black market. Nobody is interested in exchanging bitcoin back into "real" currency. They transfer everything they have into crypto and leave it that way. You might be surprised how many stores accept crypto in Venezuela. Your third guess is also wrong. I'm not holding it to 1m$, I'm buying from people like you and sell it to people who think it's going to go to 1m$ soon. I'm also using it as a currency to purchase stuff with via the internet, especially programmers like it a lot as it's safe, fast and transactions are cheap. I'm not a fanatic, I basically don't care if it goes to 10k or 1k. Liquidity is more than enough for active trading and that's all that matters to me. But I always tilt when I see people babyraging about stuff they have no single clue about. Get yourself a Ledger, buy BTC for 10$ and do a couple of transfers, practise how you can restore your keys in case your wallet is stolen or damaged. Then we can discuss how "dangerous", evil and how much of a scam cryptos are.
I've owned bitcoin before, so I know the ins and outs. But your whole premise of all these unbanked people are going to buy bitcoin is a pipe dream. First off, remember that bitcoin is somewhat complicated and half the world has an IQ less than 100. The unbanked people are generally not the ones with an IQ over 100. I used to be a bitcoin shill like you and I remember several times people not understanding that bitcoin could be split up. They said things like "Bitcoin is $500...that's too much"(you can tell how long ago this was) I tell them it can be split into fractions of a bitcoin and they don't have to spend hundreds that they can buy 1/100th of a bitcoin and either their eyes glaze over or they can't wrap their head around spending $5 for 1/100th of something because it seems too small. Like they're thinking they're spending $5 for a fraction of a penny because that's the way their brains work. I quickly realized its a lot of freaking effort to train someone on how to use bitcoin and most people are lazy. They don't want to learn something new. Poor people are especially lazy and unbanked people are usually poor. And also since these people are generally not smart, they will get conned out of their bitcoin. It will get stolen from their online wallet. Just like you said...you'd have to be stupid to keep your money in an online wallet, but at the same time you're assuming unbanked people will be smart enough to know how to secure their wallets. They wont be.