If you live in a stable democracy with a stable financial system, Bitcoin might seem foolish and unnecessary. But for the billions of people who live under authoritarian regimes or don’t have access to global financial markets, it will be life changing.
It’s not quite an apples-to-apples comparison because fiat currency has been around for centuries, while crypto currencies are relatively new. Therefore, comparing the number of alleged illicit transactions between the two doesn’t tell the whole story. Perhaps a more valuable discussion would be - which underlying framework is the most effective at stopping, or even flagging, illicit activities?
2 major points of your video that I'd like to refute. - The fact that criminality was funded through Bitcoin is moot. So much more criminality is funded through dollars and Bitcoin logs every transaction which makes it stupid to use as a criminal because it leaves a trace. - Bitcoin is a crypto asset first. Not a cryptocurrency. It might grow into that later but not any time soon. Even if Bitcoin will never be a cryptocurrency it's still a much better asset than gold and yet it has only 1/8th of the value right now.
also we don't want bankers to buy bitcoin anyways with someone else's money. We want the 99% to buy it before they do. So there is a massive massive wealth transfer back to people. This is good!
Wonder how much electricity our Banking Systems use in comparison to that of Bitcoin.. (Netherlands! So what..) do a better job in comparing apples to apples 🕵️
Very energy consuming and bad for the environment, you say? What about gold mining? How about banning gold mining because of the enviromental damage then drop its price so that it can be used in an affordable manner in electronics?
End product of crypto will be the same as the current financial system, just a more efficient and advanced one. It's not a question if, it's a question when.
This piece misses the entire raison d'etre of Bitcoin (in my opinion) which is that it allows people who cannot afford to buy traditional investments like real estate the chance to store value in a form of money that is not going to be diluted over time by the central banks. It mentions nothing about the ingenious way that Bitcoin invented digital scarcity and digital value, which is essential for our now digital culture to evolve. It also mentions nothing about layer 2, 3 and 4 functions that are currently being built upon the Bitcoin blockchain, which amounts to nothing less than a parallel decentralized trustless and secure financial system that has a chance to narrow the wealth gap slightly, from the ridiculously inflated level it is at currently at, due to the traditional financial system that the Economist is trying to defend.
Bitcoin might not handle many transactions per second but the layer two of bitcoin (lighting network) is infinitely scalable so that point is irrelevant.
How is it the the economist completely overlooks lightning as bitcoin transactional layer. It scales the transactions per second not the base settlement layer.
Here we go again, just another lazy mainstream artical on Bitcoin price volatility, comparing Bitcoin to VISA, not to forget Bitcoin criminal use, blabla… is this the quality of information “The Economist” has to offer?
Question: How exactly do crypto currencies like BitCoin exchange into US Dollars? (For example, Monopoly money in the game of Monopoly has 'value' but basically only in the game of Monopoly. So, how to these crypto currencies with basically nothing backing them exchange for US Dollars?)
Given that a bitcoin currently cost $36,597, there are only enough bitcoins for every person to have $88.72 worth. If bitcoins were distributed using the current global distribution of wealth, 99.9% of people would have $16.87 worth of bitcoins, and people in the top .001% would have 0.73 bitcoins each. WITH THAT BEING SAID ITS TOO RISKY NOT TO OWN ANY AND EVERYONE SHOULD HAVE AT LEAST 1% OF THERE
Nice FUD video. Bitcoin has been appreciating 200% per year for the last 13 years. How long will you sit on the sidelines. Better than gold, more secure, easier to access, deflationary. You are a fool to spend negative energy on this FUD. They even mention tulips and the mysterious creator. This is good shit lmao.
Consider the following: a. Not everybody has the same internet connection speed. b. Location matters: Take 3 entities, A, B and C. A and B are close together and C is very far away. The electronic transfer time between A and B would be short compared to A and C or B and C, relatively speaking. It's the same principal people utilize with Wall Street. Computers closer to Wall Street can have faster transfer speeds due to their location. High speed, high frequency trading can make one very rich relatively quickly. Also easier and quicker to manipulate markets. c. But, with crypto currencies like bitcoin that are not centralized, not everybody would be on the same page so to speak. The reality each would be experiencing would be different for the same universal time. d. In other words, reality still matters. There are those who will be 'screwed' and there will be those who are the 'screwees'. And if you are not 'screwing' someone else, guess which one you are.
To be honest, the government and central banks wouldn’t like to lose their control right for the currency in the economy so that they give the obstacles to the cryptocurrency so far. So if there is no obstacles by them, the price of cryptocurrency should be high and can get popularity among people. Of course, in terms of stable, the volatility of the price is problem which we need to deal with from now on.
The financial system we have now is the one creating very few winners and lots of losers. We need something new, something decentralised. I opt in for Bitcoin. The amount of misinformation in this video is a bit sad. Someone should lose their job.
There are no words to describe the bias/lack of impartiality of this opinion piece. And yes, this is an opinion video. Low journalistic standards. Hidden agenda. PS: of course we had to squeeze the tulip mania in there. Nice.
I’m 84, a retired attorney, in and out of the movie industry as a producer and executive, owner of real estate and general investments, even owned race horses (awful investment), and radio stations. To listen to a man who is obviously a multi-millionaire and not a publicity seeking jerk is a fabulous pleasure.
Good video. Ignored the simple fact that Bitcoin Cash BCH can do everything better than Bitcoin BTC. It's already scaled to 25k transactions per second and go for 1 million transactions soon!
So much negative 'framing' its unworthy of an unbiased publication of The Economist and def will make ppl unsubscribe from your paid services! Its easy to attack something what does not have a voice ...but true 'time will tell'. But def 'framing' bitcoin for criminals is kindergarten reporting. How about all the drug trades in the past ....paid in what? ....exactly USD!
I wonder if people will complain about volatility when it goes from $200k to $135k later this year/next year. "10 transactions per second" aka you're completely unaware of Layer 2 solutions.
Digital currencies will only succeed when they are able to scale i.e. as more people desire to transact, the cost and time to perform a transaction remains the same instead of climbing exponentially. Noone has figured out how to do this quite yet.
Crypto will carry on with or without it's value various countries will adopt it as legal tender and others will regulate Bitcoin, and the government Stablecoin or in general Altcoins are here to stabilize Bitcoin and to circulate Bitcoin, the question here is why are Economist are scared to invent? INVENT TO STAY ALIVE AND TO KEEP THE MARKET MOVING!
Bitcoin is the best cryptocurrency to invest in rises alot than others you should actually be wise to withdraw once it reaches a certain point I got double what I invested before the dip Try and invest now that it's low though
Ridiculous u guys still comparing Bitcoin to Tulips, Bitcoin price has plummeted multiple times since 2009 only to recover stronger, how many times did Tulips do this and how long did that last? BTC clearly has a use case as a global store of value as digital gold and hedge against inflation whereas Tulips doesn’t
ok stop saying money has value because we have trust that it does, no the reason money has value is because governments require you to pay taxes with those dollars that's the only reason they have value.
