It is a value store which is insulated from manipulation by Central Banks and not speculatively dependent upon the performance of a particular company or nation. It is subject to precise, predictable, and slow inflation.
If you look at Greece where savings accounts got a haircut and ATM withdrawals were frozen, or Venezuela where staple commodities and health care are now in cases only available for Bitcoin due to their currency crisis, the robustness of it is apparent.
It does have technical risks, but those are simple and easily understood. Personally, I am excited about ethereum, which turns the global mining network into a Turing complete engine for arbiterless smart contracts, where payment is built into the process mechanically rather than obliged legally and bolted on by trust like in a traditional contract.
Yup. I think the authority-less-ness of Bitcoin is what is harming it the most right now. The theft reversion was actually the moment I gained confidence in ethereum and moved half my holdings out of BTC to it. Consensus liked that move and the price went up.
If segwit becomes merged, it suffer the exact same central authority criticism, but the divided community will likely cause a shock selloff.
If you look at Greece where savings accounts got a haircut and ATM withdrawals were frozen, or Venezuela where staple commodities and health care are now in cases only available for Bitcoin due to their currency crisis, the robustness of it is apparent.
It does have technical risks, but those are simple and easily understood. Personally, I am excited about ethereum, which turns the global mining network into a Turing complete engine for arbiterless smart contracts, where payment is built into the process mechanically rather than obliged legally and bolted on by trust like in a traditional contract.