re: Why bitcoin is worse than a Madoff-style Ponzi scheme

I'm not going to lie. It took me a while to warm up to the concept of bitcoin. My first interaction with it was using it to buy mushrooms. Back then a bitcoin was equivalent to $10-$15. I saw no use for it other than buying illegal things, and it was very clunk to use. I used it once, got what I needed, and forgot about the whole thing for seven years (Loved that I could read reviews on the mushrooms before buying them - what an awesome world).

Flash forward, and my real introduction with cryptocurrencies came from a conversation with my brother in law, who is a successful tech entrepreneur. He introduced me to Ethereum and explained how the ecosystem works and how Ether is used as the transaction medium yada yada yada. He explained to me trust, decentralization, basic blockchain technological concepts, and elementary cryptography. I got deep into researching Ethereum, which brought me back to Bitcoin. I could now understand the usefulness of Bitcoin other than buying drugs

You need to think of it like this: We are only moving towards a more digital society. We will need ways to transact and prove ownership in a way that is accepted and trusted by all the users. Cryptography and blockchain technologies allow us to do that in a decentralized way that can't be changed at the whim of a government, thus creating more trust in the system. That's the value of bitcoin and other decentralized digital currencies.

Say our government wants to create a digital USD coin. Cool, whatever. It still has the same flaws as a physical dollar in that I don't trust that the government won't change it's value down the road or restrict how I can use that USDC. In the bitcoin world, it takes 51% consensus to change things. In the government world, it takes one slapidick president to change things.

Look, you don't have t accept it. That's fine. That's your right. I do accept it, though, and lots of other people accept it. It's volatility is still a major issue, though. It's not a mature enough of an asset to be gold. That doesn't mean it won't get there some day. It will, but right now is the time to make money with it before it becomes the thing to keep money with it.

End coffee-fueled post.