Why people bother with cryptocurrency
What is it about cryptocurrency that people have become so fascinated with it? "Buying a lambo" is one reason. For those who don't know, that is a meme for making an immense fortune to buy anything you want. Mostly people seem to be fixated on lambhorgini's. Not sure what that is about? Why not a helicopter? Why not an island?
The thing is, cryptocurrency became a speculative craze when some people bothered to invest in it because it is a good thing even if it doesn't make a fortune. It is a store of value but then so is gold and silver so why do people choose cryptocurrency which is ... nothing ... just a whole lot of code swirling around in the ether that lot of folk have a copy of so nobody can mess with it. It is also quite nifty because it doesn't upset the folk at customs whereas a gold bar would. But then again, anyone can carry a bank card through across international borders and there is the small matter of international transfer fees. Cryptocurrency is less of an issue but in truth it is still a very small market and you would have difficulty operating entirely in more remote parts of the world. Waving your phone with its crypto mechanism at the locals in a third world village market and saying "I pay you bitcoin" is not likely to work. It might, but probably not mostly. At least not now, maybe some time in the future.
This store at the Bonriki Airport, Tarawa Island, Republic of Kiribati is affectionately known as "Starbucks" by the expat patrons. No, they don't take cryptocurrency and their food is excellent, such as the burger below. Now how many bitcoins or litecoin (or whatever coin ...) would you pay for that?
Cryptocurrency is not fuss-free. Thing of all that drama with have private keys, wallets, remembering passwords and suchlike. it takes a fair degree of passion and commitment to learn and understand the security arrangements for your cryptocurrency. Then when you just thought you were the guru, there is talk of a fork and you listen to some experts going on about the "New York Agreement", UASF, "hard forks", "soft forks", "segwit", etc. You look intelligent, make vaguely affirmative statements that look like you understand, yea right, fake it till you make it. Its not easy.
The thing that really sets crypto apart is that governments and banks can't fiddle it. They can't control it and they can't print more of it when they please. The success of cryptocurrency represents trust or more specifically the differing level of trust that people have in the banks and governments of the world and their fiat currency and trust in an alternative store of value. Cryptocurrency represents the end of the global world order as we know it. of course, there will be attempts to contain or even destroy cryptocurrency but this will fail because of the borderless nature of the decentralised ledger.
There is the nagging fear that owning cryptocurrency is just asking for trouble and that there will be the inevitable late night raid and arrests. Right now, the cryptocurrency is but a small fraction of global commerce. Governments and banks are looking at it and thinking it might be best to keep it hush-hush and hope it just doesn't ever really grow. Then they destabilize some country, refuse access to the global SWIFT system or whatever and immediately the country concerned gets really interested in crypto. Observe the interest in crypto by the likes of Mexico, Venezuela, South Africa, North Korea, China, Japan.
This is where the game is truly over because as soon as nation states embrace cryptocurrency, other states are virtually forced to engage in the crypto space as well. it is a bit like Russia or USA not wanting nuclear weapons but have to have them so the other crowd don't have the upper hand. Balance of power etc. It is the same with crypto because crypto is a bit like cockroaches in the nuclear ground zero.
Crypto is becoming the default alternative to the status quo. The status quo has a major crisis of confidence of trust because of the abuse of currency by virtually every major power. The corruption of money as we have always known it is why people bother with cryptocurrency which is like the virgin in white robes in comparison.