
Ask HN: Can Bitcoin go to zero? - joering2
If possible, what happens then?
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D_Alex
Ever? Certainly. Within say 50 years? Possibly, perhaps even probably. It
would seem unusual to me that a first attempt at a digital currency would
survive as long as this.

Consider the fate of early search engines, eg Alta Vista. The number of
searches on this once leading search engine is, today, exactly zero. It lasted
less than 20 years.

What happens then: probably nothing significant, it will not be something that
happens in a single day. Possibly the value will be transferred into some
other medium. Or, the remaining hodlers will lose the last iota of value,
which has been slowly declining for ages.

Oh... how much are tulip bulbs worth today?

~~~
PaulHoule
Tulip bulbs are worth something like 25 or 50 cents per bulb.

If people decide they aren't interested in Bitcoin then the value can go to
zero. The main detail is how exactly the Bitcoin network fails when that
happens.

------
fiiv
And here we return to the currency vs. store of value debate.

In terms of currency, it goes back to utility. At the moment, Bitcoin (or
almost any other crypto) has no or limited utility. By that I mean it is
pretty well isolated from the real world – while you can pay for some things
with it, you cannot pay for even a significant portion of things you might
spend money on in a given day.

Some merchants accept it, that's true, but ya, the idea that you can move your
money into BTC and buy groceries, a coffee, pay your rent, buy lunch, pay for
the taxi, etc are not possible now unless you really go out of your way. In my
neighbourhood (capital city of a north central European country) you can buy
coffee at one place with Bitcoin but there's nothing else around to use it on.

And if the merchant takes it, then what? So now they either use a service that
accepts BTC and takes a cut of it to translate it to fiat or they let you
transfer BTC to their wallet as a way to pay, so they still have to move it
into fiat to pay their bills, employees, etc.

And as a store value, it's pretty volatile. It's been bleeding since January.

Don't get me wrong, I believe in digital money and the concept of Bitcoin, but
I think there's still a long way to go. It's not inconceivable that it hits 0.

