>They don’t want to hold their coins or be their own bank.
If the UX is better around this, I think they would. It's only in the last 15 years that people really stopped carrying large amounts of cash around. And from what I understand, people still use a lot of cash in places outside of the US.
But for example, there are bitcoin wallets (ZenGo) and nodes (Umbrel) that provide protections around footguns now and make for a much more straightforward user experience.
If Bitcoin sluggishness and fees got sorted out, I think people would like this. But I suspect that the powers that be do not want these issues fixed. Bitcoin is not a threat when it is "just another commodity".
> If Bitcoin sluggishness and fees got sorted out, I think people would like this.
They got sorted out via Lightning Network. Instantanious transactions with very low fees are possible. However UX around Lightning is lacking and regular transmission fees are still too low to incentivize the majority of people to take a look at it.
> If the UX is better around this, I think they would.
The UX isn’t the point. Why would anyone want to use a protocol with $8 transaction fees and no recourse for vendors stealing their money? We all have credit cards in our pockets that might even pay us cash back to use them, and if a vendor fails to deliver I can get the charges reversed with a phone call.
It’s not a conspiracy by “the powers that be” to keep Bitcoin sluggish and unusable. It’s Bitcoiners themselves who reject proposals to increase block size (see the BCH drama)
Bitcoin holders don’t want people spending or using coins. They only want people to do things that increase price: Buying and hoarding.
If the UX is better around this, I think they would. It's only in the last 15 years that people really stopped carrying large amounts of cash around. And from what I understand, people still use a lot of cash in places outside of the US.
But for example, there are bitcoin wallets (ZenGo) and nodes (Umbrel) that provide protections around footguns now and make for a much more straightforward user experience.
If Bitcoin sluggishness and fees got sorted out, I think people would like this. But I suspect that the powers that be do not want these issues fixed. Bitcoin is not a threat when it is "just another commodity".