Why is every Bitcoin skeptic citing its lack of utility as its biggest flaw? It seems everyone is comparing Bitcoin to digital gold or digital real estate, but has everyone forgotten that it’s a currency? I’m sure Peter Schiff feels good prodding the Bitcoin community with his perceived wisdom, but it’s like asking for people to demonstrate your iPhone’s ability to open a beer. It can’t, it’s a phone!
So going into depth on this concept of Bitcoin being a currency (I know, Peter, this is a difficult concept), the reason people are grasping at straws in making these analogies with commodities (gold) or interest accruing assets (real estate) is because the world has never seen a currency with a limited supply. Greed has always trumped the utility of currency to function as a medium of exchange and thus, any king, despot, government, financial institution, etc. issuing the historic currency, has always succumbed to the temptation to just make it rain = print more money.
And here is your utility, Peter:
When you accept the fact that Bitcoin is a currency, then you can recognize the fact that it’s the first massively accepted and adopted medium of exchange that is not issued, regulated or manipulated by governments. This means that Bitcoin is the currency to liberate people all over the world from the rampant mismanagement, nepotism and greed that has inevitably plagued every other currency up to this point. The fact that El Salvadorians are able to provide an economic future to its desperately poor or the way that Bitcoin can provide stability to the Lebanese people who are currently suffering after their government’s impotence and rampant corruption has thrown the currency into free fall is the utility of Bitcoin. It empowers the poor and disenfranchised by giving them access to banking and financial tools that were previously out of reach. It frees people from the monopolistic stranglehold the banking industry has held over the world which free market capitalism has been unable to solve. It gives people a currency that doesn’t rely on trust or manipulation for the first time in history. And this, Peter, this is your sought after utility. Perhaps I’m being too bold, but I think I’d rather take this than a shiny metal that makes me feel fancy.
