Umm, this forum is full of threads declaring the superiority of bitcoin over every other transaction method.  In truth, it's only theoretically superior and only in a few ways.


But if that's the scope of distribution for bitcoin, the price will surely be back under a penny before too long.  Very very few people here care about it's viability as a currency: they just want to get rich quick.  Hence all the desperate calls to spread the idea of bitcoin without providing valuable bitcoin services or goods.  And no, a person who buys you a prepaid VISA card for 20% markup is not a valuable bitcoin service.

I think you are improperly using the word psychiatric.

At the very least a "sticky" so people can just go through the list and hit ignore

nothing(except illegal stuff, but you could also buy that with cash).
but thats not the point.
The Point is:

Considering BTC is priced in fiat money and fiat money begins and ends every BTC transaction, I don't really understand how it's an alternative.

Let me put it this way: has a vendor ever received bitcoins and then spent those bitcoins on a good or service that wasn't basically fiat money?  If there's no second step in the currency chain, it's pointless except as an experiment in giving exchanges money.


Ok.  


This doesn't make a whole lot of sense.  How are your bitcoins backed up?  If you lose them, they're gone.  There will never be an insurance on bitcoins because it would just be a siren call to be defrauded.


Again, this doesn't make sense.  Inflation only matters in terms of spending power, and bitcoin spending power has been incredibly inflationary since it peaked at $30.  You used to be able to buy six Dominoes medium pizzas for a single bitcoin.  Now you need 2-3 for each pizza.  


And by control you mean trusting a mysterious third party who developed this whole thing, then trusting money changers to convert your fiat money into some kind of electronic form, then trusting the exchanges to not just disappear with your money or bitcoins, then trusting that the difficulty never gets so low that a real blockchain attack could through the whole thing into disrepair, then finally trust that a vendor who accepts your bitcoins won't just vanish with them because you cannot prove that your bitcoins went to someone else (yay anonymity).


You have some very strange requirements for your currency that are not shared by many people.  Libertarians, the free market has spoken.

go read the source! no mysterious third party, the whole thing is clearly readable.
and exchanges are not to be trusted, and so are banks too.
real blockchain attacks DO NOT HAPPEN, in reality. (yet, and hopefully never will)

all your trust issues, can be solved by reputation. i would never buy from someone that i did not know, or do not have a reputation.

These are the exact same people.


I think you're being a little hyperbolic when you say every BTC transaction. I too suspect that it's mostly currency speculation right now, but we can never tell for sure what it's all being used for.

Mysterious development: You don't need to trust Satoshi, you can check the code and compile it yourself. Or if you lack those skills, you can find a trusted party to do it for you.
You can exchange with anyone. If for some reason you trust me, I will sell you Bitcoins.
Bitcoins are not anonymous. If you're worried a vendor will deny payment, get them to sign their receiving address so you can post a block explorer link proving you paid.

It's the best of both worlds - you CAN make them anonymous, but you can also prove that an address has been paid.

Bitcoins failure is the least interesting thing about this now.  Here is the delicious food that keeps the outsiders visiting:

1.  Libertarians with poorly thought out ideas.  Atlas reigns supreme at this.  But other gems like logansryche and Matthew N. Wright help add to the Greatest Hits of Bitcoin.

2.  Scammers.  Hopefully Bruce will get bored of laying low and trying to get OWS folks to shower in his apartment.

3.  Desperation.  You can smell it a mile away.  Each time the price of BTC dips, you see the threads pop up with terrible ideas about how to spread knowledge of the existence of bitcoin without improving the services or products.


If I can just keep one person from losing their shirt on this stupid shit, it will all have been worth it.