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You can downvote this because you're mad that blockchain exists, for those who don't know the actual real life use case: Bitcoin has been around for 15 years, it is a blockchain. It has a real life use case.
I can send money, with my android phone, from my couch, in my underwear, to anybody else on planet earth who also has a phone and a halfway reliable internet connection. The transaction is not only sent, but actually settles, in under a second with Bitcoin lightning. And I pay pennies in fees. No going to the bank, no bank holidays, no paying wire fees or making sure their bank can talk to my bank. It's just simple and instant and it works. It doesn't matter if they are a dissident or if their country doesn't allow women to own bank accounts, the transaction goes through anyways. In many countries, their app can also instantly convert that BTC into the currency of their choice and deposit it to their bank account. That's assuming they have access to stable banking infrastructure, which billions of people do not.
Bitcoin has delivered on its promise of being a currency with a capped supply (21 million coins) and transaction system consistently for 15 years without a single hack, without a single hour of downtime, without a single hiccup. It just works.
You can argue that Bitcoin isn't better than <insert local currency and transmission system>. You can argue that there are "better" solutions. But it has a clear use case. I use it on a daily basis and it has a fifteen year trend of continued growth whether you are looking at total market cap (bigger than Sweden's GDP), number of nodes, number of transactions, whatever.
Most everything negative you've heard about Bitcoin is either hyperbolic or about other crypto. FTX wasn't Bitcoin. Crypto coins collapsing or people being rugged? Not Bitcoin. For more information, FAQs, and myth-busting, check out http://bitcoin.rocks
The last time I had to send 30 Euro to someone, I had to pay 5 Euro for gas fees. It used to be even worse. Your statements are bullshit, we all know what the usual use cases are (other than speculation)
5 Euros seems like a pretty standard fee for a Bitcoin transfer, which is insanely cheap for large transfers. Your 30 Euro transaction is more suitable for the lightning network, which handles off-chain transactions for much lower fees. The person you were responding to was specifically talking about the lightning network.
Crypto coins collapsing or people being rugged? Not Bitcoin.
Bitcoin has collapsed like three times in the last like 7 years dawg.
But it has a clear use case.
Sure, I suppose, if you count things like "destroying the environment" and "lining Nvidia's pockets" as "use cases".
Hey, you forgot being the world's slowest payment processor
and one of the world's most scammer-friendly and least-anonymous
Bitcoin has collapsed like three times in the last like 7 years dawg.
If you bought 1 BTC 15 years ago, you still have 1 BTC. It has not collapsed. The price relative to USD has collapsed a few times, but the average trend is growth. Bitcoin does not guarantee any price relative to any other currency, because it can't, all it can guarantee is a stable supply of currency. The USD, in that time period, has lost >20% of its purchasing power as well, so the USD also "crashed".
it would be nice if the price of bitcoin was stable enough that when I sent $100 to somebody it wouldn't be a gamble whether what they actually received was double or half that
It is. Lightning transactions confirm in under a second, you can sell those instantly via an exchange. The price is not that unstable and already more stable than many national currencies. You can guarantee that they receive the same amount of BTC.
I don't care about amount of BTC, I care about amount of dollars. It may also surprise you to learn that I don't care about countries where the currency is so unstable that a currency that can double in value in the space of a few months has it beat.
If bitcoin is going to become usable as a currency, even in niche circles, it has two problems to solve: energy use (three quarters of a megawatt hour per transaction, according to Forbes!) and conversion stability. I don't want keeping money in my wallet to be a high risk investment.