"The facts on the ground show the reality: 15 years after Bitcoin was created, no-one uses it as a currency. It’s an asset. It’s still far slower and more expansive even for complex international money transfers than the “old world” financial system. Bitcoin and the other currencies around it are barely even useful for criminals: online drug markets proved much easier for law enforcement to infiltrate than traditional organised crime networks, and the traceability of crypto transactions has brought down crime kingpins across the globe. The failure of Bitcoin – or any other cryptocurrency – to actually get used as a currency has led to people searching for more outlandish explanations as to why is might have value, rather than just a high price. It was once claimed it would topple the existing financial order, but its embrace from hedge funds, big tech, and other financial world staples make those ring hollow. There is a deeply confused claim that because Bitcoin mining requires huge amounts of energy, that means that Bitcoins are themselves a store of energy – almost like a digital battery. This sounds clever to a certain sort of galaxy brained young man, but incredibly dumb to everyone else. The latter group are correct: a forest fire might incinerate a huge number of trees, but that does not make fire a store of wood." https://www.theneweuropean.co.uk/thanks-to-trump-bitcoin-is-booming-but-it-is-still-useless/ #USA #Trump #Crypto #Cryptocurrencies #Bitcoin