you’re thinking about it way too traditionally, bitcoin isn’t used to trade goods and services on the free market (Aside from illegal goods and services maybe)
It’s traditionally used as a “anonymous” or “non legal identity based” payment method, let’s say i wanted to wire you 20000 USD because you gave me some access to some highly illegal leaked government documents from the country of “oops all government corruption”
It’d be stupid for me to pay you in any form of traceable currency, bitcoin may be traceable, but unless you get access to the private keys, isn’t particularly meaningful, and even if you did, it’s highly unregulated, and there’s no clear path tracing when it comes to the actual money, like with USD for example, which is entirely serialized.
Certain VPN providers will actually accept bitcoin as payment, as it’s more secure than legally identifying payment information.
A lot of dark web services will also use crypto, again for security/anonymity.
I think given how big bitcoin currently is, the bubble may burst, but it will always exist, and it will always be around, for the trading of more illicit goods, or at the very least, more anonymous transfers of money.
Sure, occasionally Bitcoin is useful for paying for illegal things, or for paying ransom after a ransomware attack. The thing is, that that basically makes it a payment gateway. You convert your dollars into bitcoin and make the payment. There’s no reason to hold onto bitcoin. You get it and then you use it. For that purpose, it doesn’t matter if the exchange rate is $100k per bitcoin, or $1 per 100 k bitcoins. Since you’re spending it as soon as you get it, you don’t care.
The dollar value of bitcoin only matters to people who are holding it as some kind of “investment”. If those people become convinced that the next sucker is about to cash out, they might cash out before that sucker, and the price of bitcoin could plunge to zero.
Bitcoin might always exist, but it might always exist like old Italian Lira coins. They’re cool collectors items, but have almost no real value anymore.
you’re thinking about it way too traditionally, bitcoin isn’t used to trade goods and services on the free market (Aside from illegal goods and services maybe)
It’s traditionally used as a “anonymous” or “non legal identity based” payment method, let’s say i wanted to wire you 20000 USD because you gave me some access to some highly illegal leaked government documents from the country of “oops all government corruption”
It’d be stupid for me to pay you in any form of traceable currency, bitcoin may be traceable, but unless you get access to the private keys, isn’t particularly meaningful, and even if you did, it’s highly unregulated, and there’s no clear path tracing when it comes to the actual money, like with USD for example, which is entirely serialized.
Certain VPN providers will actually accept bitcoin as payment, as it’s more secure than legally identifying payment information.
A lot of dark web services will also use crypto, again for security/anonymity.
I think given how big bitcoin currently is, the bubble may burst, but it will always exist, and it will always be around, for the trading of more illicit goods, or at the very least, more anonymous transfers of money.
Sure, occasionally Bitcoin is useful for paying for illegal things, or for paying ransom after a ransomware attack. The thing is, that that basically makes it a payment gateway. You convert your dollars into bitcoin and make the payment. There’s no reason to hold onto bitcoin. You get it and then you use it. For that purpose, it doesn’t matter if the exchange rate is $100k per bitcoin, or $1 per 100 k bitcoins. Since you’re spending it as soon as you get it, you don’t care.
The dollar value of bitcoin only matters to people who are holding it as some kind of “investment”. If those people become convinced that the next sucker is about to cash out, they might cash out before that sucker, and the price of bitcoin could plunge to zero.
Bitcoin might always exist, but it might always exist like old Italian Lira coins. They’re cool collectors items, but have almost no real value anymore.