Why Bitcoin Sucks 2013-06-11

Bitcoin is essentially online currency. You can call it digital currency, alternative currency, cryptocurrency, or a scam... it is all the same shit. The idea is that instead of having physical money like bills and coins you would have an online database of money that you could use to purchase stuff (though I don't think there is a plethora of merchants accepting them). But this isn't so special, because most of your money right now is "digital money" and the amount of cash that you keep in your wallet or purse is probably pretty small by comparison. So another part of the concept is that the big banks and the big bankers would not have control of your money and would no longer be able to lend out more money than they have. Here's what doesn't work...

Bleh

It favours the rich

There are a few ways to obtain bitcoins such as "mining" for them, offering services, or buying them. Well I think it is safe to say that the "poor" do not have the ability to buy bitcoins... that is kind of the definition of being poor in the first place isn't it? They also don't have the ability to provide services (whatever that may mean) because they are far more likely to lack any technical skills or hardware required to provide those services. Which leads me to mining - the "poor" obviously don't have fancy video cards, fast computers, or the bandwidth to do the mining either. The people who can obtain bitcoins are the people who can already afford to get them, and this doesn't solve the problem of greedy fucks who want to own everyone's ass.

There's no confidence

People are so massively dependent on money that they will not pull their existing funds and exchange them for something they have no confidence in. If I made a new currency called Snorkobucks would you buy any? Perhaps for novelty but not on a serious scale. Why? Because you won't be able to buy shit with Snorkobucks and because once I take your existing currency in exchange for Snorkobucks there is no guarantee that you'll be able to exchange your Snorkobucks for anything later. Bitcoin is probably more reliable than whatever fake currency I can make up, but it sure ain't enough to convince most people to buy them.

There's no antidouche control

I don't see any rules in place to keep Bitcoin from being abused the exact same way that our current monetary systems are being abused. Currently rich people are making shitloads of money at the expense of everyone else and I don't understand how Bitcoin will help that at all. Perhaps it is not the mandate of Bitcoin to do so. Perhaps Bitcoin doesn't care if that is a problem. Perhaps Bitcoin actually plans to BE those rich people if the currency were ever to miraculously become commonly used. Whatever the case may be, the bottom line is that Bitcoin offers less confidence and the same risk of abuse as any other currency, with a significantly limited merchant acceptance rate and no improvement on transaction simplicity.

Ultimately the real problems with our existing currency are that you have to slave to get it, you have to beg to borrow it, you have to get screwed to repay it, and even if you are able to save a little bit of it... you'll get nothing for lending it out.

I forget where I stole this pic.