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Bitcoin’s Drawbacks

I first recommended Bitcoin on this website in November 2015. The price was less than $400. Since then, I’ve learned a lot about it, and a lot has changed. Bitcoin is currently at $43,000 and has been as high as $69,000. It is extremely reliable, and much easier to purchase than in 2015. It was a bit of a challenge to purchase it at the time, but it was also anonymous.

I purchased my first BTC by depositing cash into a company’s bank account and emailing them a picture of the receipt from the bank. I gave them my wallet address and they sent it to me. No one asked for my name. I bought more by meeting a guy at a convenience store and gave him cash. That is still a valid method for maintaining privacy, and I’d still do that, but it’s not quite as worry-free as it was at the time. I even had a Coinbase account where I linked my bank account, but gave a false name. Not sure how privacy-minded it is to link your bank account and give a false name, but it’s an indication of where Bitcoin was at the time.

At some point, Bitcoin decided they wanted to please the government so you can’t buy it on any decent exchange without KYC (know your customer) and providing all your information. You can’t buy very much at a Bitcoin ATM (which are a huge ripoff) without KYC. Americans are banned from many exchanges because they don’t want to comply with whatever the US government is requiring. Bitcoin is government’s bitch.

That’s not all. Something I didn’t realize until recently is that from the beginning, every wallet balance and every transaction is completely public and will be public information as long as Bitcoin lasts. At first it was pseudonymous, as I pointed out. But now, the government can track everything and for the most part can know every penny you spend. It is a government dream-come-true. It is not even close to being as private as a bank.

Bitcoin may still be useful and may still go up in value. However, since most people don’t realize how public it is, they aren’t being careful about how they use it.

Furthermore, when I first got into Bitcoin, its purpose was to work as a currency. Now, they say it’s digital gold. You’re not supposed to ever sell it. It would be foolish to sell it or use it as a currency, because it is going to go to $100,000 or $1 million or whatever. It was supposed to be a way to phase out dollars. You can’t use it to phase out dollars if you’re only supposed to hold it.

There are alternatives that I can recommend. I can’t guarantee they’ll go up in value like Bitcoin, but I think they will. However, they aren’t to be horded but they are to be used and traded. They aren’t digital gold; they are currency to be used.

Monero and Pirate Chain are two completely private currencies. No amount of government spying on the block chain will yield any results for them. Pirate has the best technology, while Monero is older but definitely good. We need to be using these and developing businesses with them. They aren’t to be horded but used to destroy the monopoly of incredibly depreciating US dollars.

Theonomy

Bitcoin: There Is No Biblical Basis for Government Currency

What is the biblical justification for the government to coin
money? There is none. The U.S. government went off any kind of
precious metal standard, and now they print paper that isn’t based
on anything. It would be a joke, except that no other country
bases their money on anything either.

When I was about 12 years old I liked collecting NBA basketball
cards. I had a book that would say what a certain card was worth,
and my dad would always say, “It’s worth what someone will pay for
it.” That was pre-internet, and the only way to sell anything would
have been by word-of-mouth, classified ad or a card shop. Card
shops would only buy wholesale. Classified ads were expensive, and
word-of-mouth was limited in scope. I couldn’t have gotten the
amount printed in the books for any of those cards, though on
paper I was doing pretty good.

U.S. dollars are valuable, because people accept them as
payment–not because it’s backed by anything. The government has
no business issuing it, and it can manipulate it (they are
manipulating it) to its advantage. Since 2008, they’ve created
trillions of dollars out of thin air and kept interest rates at
zero. This is making it very difficult for people on a fixed
income. These people worked their whole lives to save for their
retirement and their income is based on the interest they earn,
which is near zero. What they’re doing is immoral.

How Does Bitcoin Help?

I’m certainly not an expert on Bitcoin, but I’m very excited by
what I’ve learned. Bitcoin isn’t based on anything, but there will
only ever be a certain amount issued. So, just like the basketball
cards and the U.S. dollar, its value will be determined by the
free market. The price of it fluctuates. But it fluctuates based
on market forces. No one (no government) can manipulate it.

Bitcoin is also not a company owned or controlled by anyone. It is
a computer program that runs on thousands of computers around the world. Every computer keeps track of every transaction. No
government can come in and shut it down.

The Advantages of Bitcoin

What websites have done to newspapers, Bitcoin technology will do
to banks. They will eventually be obsolete. (I give banks 20 years
at most before they start going out of business en masse.)

With Bitcoin, you can send any amount to any account anywhere in
the world in an instant. No government can take any part of it or
control any part of it. That means credit cards, checks, cashier’s
checks, money orders, Western Union, wire transfers, etc. are
obsolete. You can set up a Bitcoin “wallet” for free and
anonymously, and you’re ready to send and receive Bitcoin.

The Drawbacks of Bitcoin

A lack of merchants is a problem right now. Not many people know
about it. The last time I looked, there were two businesses in
Colorado accepting payment in Bitcoin. If you can’t pay your
electric bill or buy groceries with it, the usefulness will be
severely limited.

Changing dollars into Bitcoin isn’t easy or cheap from what I’ve
seen. I bought some from a website by depositing cash into a Wells
Fargo checking account owned by some random stranger. I then took a picture of the teller receipt and emailed the picture to them.
Within a couple hours, they sent the Bitcoin to my wallet. It
wasn’t too hard, but I don’t know what kind of recourse I would
have if they chose not to perform. They took a 5% commission,
which isn’t cheap, but I thought it was reasonable as compared to
exchange rates for foreign currency I’ve paid in the past.

How To Fix The Problems

I think Bitcoin solves a lot of problems with the Federal Reserve,
unjust weights and crony capitalism rampant in America’s banking
industry, and I’m excited about the future of it.

I think the problems will go away as more and more people start
using it. Exchange will be easier if more people were using it. If
a lot of people were using it, you could put an ad on Craigslist
and exchange at zero cost, person-to-person. If you are a world
traveler, you could buy Bitcoin with dollars person-to-person with
zero exchange costs. Travel to another country with a different
currency, and exchange Bitcoin to the local currency at zero cost
person-to-person.

Another big obstacle would be the ability to pay bills with
Bitcoin. If Wal-Mart started accepting Bitcoin, the usefulness
would go through the roof. But I think the government would flip out if they tried that. We need more individuals to start using it and local businesses to start using it.

I’m willing to accept Bitcoin for my business, and if more small
businesses started accepting it, it will become more and more
popular.

Let’s get government out of the currency business. The free market should determine which currency is best, but I have a feeling the banks and fascist governments aren’t going down without a fight.