I do not hold Bitcoin but it fulfills several genuine needs.
1. A lot of money that doesn't want to be tracked. This is primarily crime money: drugs, stolen goods, and associated illicit money.
2. A lot of currencies today are more volatile than Bitcoin. Think Venezuela. For people in Venezuela, holding a cryptocurrency benchmarked to a stable currency is better than holding a currency that is devaluing in the hundreds of percentages every week virtually.
3. Crypto enables cross border trade. Now say you are an Indian doing business with someone in China. It might just be more efficient to buy Bitcoin and transfer it to someone, vs buying Chinese Yuan and sending it to your business partner in China given the almost usurious rate of foreign exchange commission on transactions in foreign currencies (5 to 10%). You just need to be sure that the price of Bitcoin will not fluctuate more than 5-10% the day you do the transaction.
Having said that, betting on Bitcoin is like betting on our current currencies continuing their bad practices (cross border operability being low and expensive) as also betting on crime becoming a larger chunk of the global currency transaction space.
1. A lot of money that doesn't want to be tracked. This is primarily crime money: drugs, stolen goods, and associated illicit money.
2. A lot of currencies today are more volatile than Bitcoin. Think Venezuela. For people in Venezuela, holding a cryptocurrency benchmarked to a stable currency is better than holding a currency that is devaluing in the hundreds of percentages every week virtually.
3. Crypto enables cross border trade. Now say you are an Indian doing business with someone in China. It might just be more efficient to buy Bitcoin and transfer it to someone, vs buying Chinese Yuan and sending it to your business partner in China given the almost usurious rate of foreign exchange commission on transactions in foreign currencies (5 to 10%). You just need to be sure that the price of Bitcoin will not fluctuate more than 5-10% the day you do the transaction.
Having said that, betting on Bitcoin is like betting on our current currencies continuing their bad practices (cross border operability being low and expensive) as also betting on crime becoming a larger chunk of the global currency transaction space.
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