Rmilb

And lost 99% of its value!

How do you compare a traditional transaction to one that is uncensorable by anyone?

IRS considers it an asset not money.

I think the people in the panama papers would disagree.

This is false, you just have to wait for more confirmations. And if miners are censoring transactions there will be a fork where you can use your coins.

Exactly the point. Satoshi created the issuance curve of Bitcoin to mirror the amount of gold that was dug up.

There have been low transaction fees in the past and they can return. Currently that is not the case.

The crypto market trades more on sentiment first, then technicals.

> One caveat with Bitcoin is that the network is so slow (effectively just 3 transactions per second) that a crash would be spread out over time.

This is false, the majority of people selling already have their coins on coinbase or other exchanges and would not add to the transaction volume hitting the blockchain.

>you aren't any more free than you were under the banks, you're just beholden to a different master - the people who maintain the cryptocurrency networks.

Exactly. Bitcoin just like fiat is backed by trust in those who run the network. Bitcoin doesn't solve many problems as a store of value right now if you trust the government not to print trillions like they did after the 2009 crisis.

If you don't trust the developers, don't trust the coin.

>BTC could go to $0 tomorrow. Suppose the US Gov. makes everyone legally declare their BTC assets as assets and they are subject to taxation etc..

BTC is ALREADY taxed as an asset. If you buy $4 worth of BTC, price goes up 20% and the next day you buy a coffee for $5 that is a Taxable event that you need to record and submit a record of your 1$ gain to the IRS to be taxed. Currencies like the euro ect have an exemption for low dollar amounts of gains that BTC does not currently have. If you hold for a year, you can get the 15% long term capital gains.

>Because nobody is using BTC as a currency

People used to when there were low fees. We will get low fees again, but until then, it opens up the chance for other coins to take BTCs market share.

>Or illegal medicine/performance enhancing drugs/...

Like overpriced medication that is unaffordable in the US.

This is low level trolling. Visa and Mastercard are not decentralized. Centralization is an easy way to scale. They are not apples and oranges.

Also, Bitcoin settles transactions in 30 days, merchants get their funds in 30 days if they are lucky to not have the charge back.

Apples and oranges.