The biggest tell IMO is that you still can't buy many things with Bitcoin.
The transactions are extremely slow, and Steam etc. have even stopped accepting Bitcoin payments.
Then where does the value come from? Sure there's a base layer of narcotics trading, etc. but that could switch to other cryptocurrencies too (like Monero). It just feels like a massive pump and dump built over some base layer of illegal transactions (drugs and money laundering).
> The biggest tell IMO is that you still can't buy many things with Bitcoin.
I get that there is a prevailing anti-cryptocurrency sentiment here and that it's natural to read a statement so often and come to internalise it, but it's really quite egregious to keep reading this when it is beyond trivial to find websites that sell literally anything for bitcoin.
No sites actually accept Bitcoin, they partner with companies that convert them to human dollars. The volatility against the currency their suppliers use and the government uses for taxes makes it entirely impractical not to.
There’s substantially one merchant that accepts Bitcoin: bitpay, and all sorts of merchants happy to take bitpays actual money.
Look if the customer wants to pay a $20 transaction fee to buy something, and an hour to confirm, and bitpay is willing to deal with this absolute garbage situation and turn them into dollars for me for 1% what kind of merchant would say no? The fact any are saying no speaks volumes to be honest.
