
Ask HN: Fundamental Bitcoin Questions - theprofessori
With all the hype about Bitcoin, maybe we can have a real discussion about the potential and longevity of it? Thank you!<p>What can I do with Bitcoin that I can&#x27;t do right now? I’ve never made a payment with Bitcoin, and never felt the need to. What have I been missing out on? How will my experience of buying from Amazon, or paying my bills, be different with Bitcoin in terms of convenience, speed and costs? Is that something that banks and payment processors are going to be unable to replicate?<p>I can send the coins somewhat anonymously (although not completely) but what practical use is that unless I’m doing something illegal? Since Bitcoin is not totally anonymous and  governments are getting increasingly interested in the identities behind customer accounts at Bitcoin exchanges, is this a strength at all?<p>What will the effects of a downturn in world economy be? We have low interest rates, for instance, and households being in record debts in many countries. When rates increase, people face higher interest costs and start run out of savings, won’t they go to their bitcoins to get some more fiat currency?<p>How can Bitcoin handle a sudden rush of conversions from Bitcoin to fiat currency? Will the system be able to handle that without absolutely crashing? Could people lose their faith in the idea of getting rich simply by purchasing some bitcoins in such a situation? And then what?<p>The people I know don’t invest because of the technology, or because want to use bitcoins in the future; they invest because they want to make more dollars and euros. True, their reasons may not matter if there&#x27;s a real reason for the value of Bitcoin. Rarely does the world reward people for irrational behavior.<p>Also since the price ”always goes up,” are people ever going to be able to sell, considering the price is always supposed to go higher and they fear missing out of future profits?
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theprofessori
Sorry for some writing errors... that's the result of quickly trying to trim
the text down to 2000 characters. :)

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nunez
I wish there were more answers here; I have the same questions.

