I hope this will let you know how bitcoin is truly a money, even if it has not gone mainstream. Probably you are misinterpreting fiat definition to money definition. Are all the stores you mentioned not accepting bitcoin, are they accepting gold, is gold not money. Anything the have intrinsic value and can be spent is called money, as I can sell my gold, I can also sell bitcoin.
Many people do not know what money is, like I ones thought money is the first which are acceptable as a means of payment in individual countries, but this is a misconception. Money is anything that has intrinsic value and that can be spent. Good examples of money are bitcoin, other cryptocurrencies (altcoins), gold and fiats. Among them all, is a money called bitcoin, created in 2009 and has now being greatly accepted and adopted in the world due to its decentralized nature.
https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/bitcoin-laptop-wallet-virtual-currency-gold-1043355598IntroductionBitcoin, being the first and the most successful cryptocurrency, has being well adopted in many countries of the world which has reflected through its increasing marketcap and price that also proved it to be a well known deflationary currency. Bitcoin has been increasingly and successfully adopted and proven to not be a ponzi or regulated in any way by any centralized authority, everything about bitcoin is open source and available to the public to the extent bitcoin community are even regarded as the founder of bitcoin, Satoshi Nakamoto. Although, officially, Satoshi Nakamoto is the creator of bitcoin in 2009.
What money isMany people do not know what money is, like I ones thought money is the first which are acceptable as a means of payment in individual countries, but this is a misconception. Money is anything that has intrinsic value and that can be spent. Good examples of money are bitcoin, other cryptocurrencies (altcoins), gold and fiats. Among them all, is a money called bitcoin, created in 2009 and has now being greatly accepted and adopted in the world due to its decentralized nature.
Money vulnerable to theft and depreciation until the onset of bitcoinBefore the onset of bitcoin, all types of money were either vulnerable to theft or depreciation, there was a time in the past when there was money but no bank, people will still think of a way to protect their money, but at the time, money were vulnerable to theft. So, later comes bank, to help individual to keep their money, fiats was adopted and was accepted by all countries of the world, and money centralized regulation evolved. Now, fiats are manipulated, the manipulations are from governments because fiats are centrally regulated and due to this, money owned by individuals are manipulated and making fiats to be a depreciative asset.
Money like gold that are physical are more vulnerable to theft while fiats kept in banks are more vulnerable to governmental manipulations. All these do not make money characteristics to be completely fulfilled until the onset of bitcoin that created indirect bridge known as blockchain between fiats and cryptocurrencies. Now, people can hold bitcoin in a way to do away with theft and central (governmental) manipulations.
Fiat inflation vulnerabilityAlthough, the central bodies (governments) may not be blamed at times for the reason they are manipulating the fiats, especially while devaluating it during inflation, and can be blamed when their is excess fiat creation and introduced into circulation. Fiats are manipulated/devalued for the benefit of the country but making citizens of the country to lose and make their worth depreciating. That is why fiats needs alternative, a kind of money that will be easy to spend like fiats and yet not vulnerable to governmental manipulations, bitcoin created the bridge to that part.
There are many strong fiats, while some are weak and more volatile, a good example of strong fiat currency is dollar, and can be used as a good example of bitcoin-to-fiat price trend comparison. For the past decade, bitcoin hodlers have more increase of 20% in bitcoin price not actually as a result of bitcoin instrinsic price increase, but due to dollar that is not immune to devaluation and gradaully depreciating over the past years.
This was taken when bitcoin was at a price slightly above $10800 in accordance to a crypto news. A decade ago bitcoin price gainLimited supply + marketcap = 80% in bitcoin price
USD deprecuation = 20%
(Limited supply + marketcap) + USD deprecuation = 100% butcoin price trend.
https://cointelegraph.com/news/fiat-inflation-has-cost-bitcoin-hodlers-20-over-the-past-decade/ampIf you check some other countries like African, where fiats are more vulnerable to depreciation, these would be the worst cases. This is one of the major reasons the need for bitcoin especially. Normally, fiats are depreciating assets by design, while physical money can still be vulnerable to theft, but with expert knowledge about bitcoin, bitcoin is not vulnerable to theft, and also not vulnerable to governmental regulations. Bitcoin has limited supply of 21 million, and this makes it a deflationary currency, the more people adopt it, the more people make use of it and the more it is getting stronger, and also increasing in marketcap and price. Although, the price of bitcoin may seem decreasing at times, but later, the price will increase unlike fiats that are constantly depreciating.
Centralized (governmental) bodies compromising bitcoin and crypto in general. Nowadays, governments have now being trying to make bitcoin so centralized, many people are now using bitcoin do not even know what private key or seed phrase is and depending on third party while not knowing the third party are actually third party due to how fiats are working, they thought bitcoin and other crypto works that way, therefore not even knowing about privacy. These are all wrong because bitcoin is a privacy currency, people can hold it without depending on any third party which is the best way to go while dealing with bitcoin with the current settings, some people even knowing about this but because of trading flexibility, they still keep their bitcoin and other crypto using centralized party services, which makes them not to be the owner of the coin on blockchian while the third party are not safe and secure.
People do not need to keep bitcoin with third party, you can keep it yourself without anyone knowing, all you need to do it to make use of noncustodial wallets, generate your seed phrase and/or private key. Storing the seedphrase and/or the private key in a safe place that is safe from thieves and damages. If the seed phrase and/or private key is compromised, that means all your funds are lost.
Some approaches towards seed phrase/private keys protectionBitcoin is digitally created, users should be digitally conscious, while privacy, security and safety should be maintained. Malicious actors are also trying their best to steal bitcoin from people having it. But, there are many approches to avoid hackers from stealing bitcoin, few of this is discussed below.
1. Avoiding custodial servicesThere are different custodial services, although they have helped in bitcoin adoption, but still must be avoided, they make use of hot wallets to hold customers assets, while hot wallets are prone to hackers activities, and they are targeted by hackers because the custodial party keeps thousands to millions of customers assets. Most custodial services are often hacked and many have resulted to lost of users funds and never recovered.
2. Avoid using hot wallets for high savingsAlthough, hot wallet can be good for saving low amount of bitcoin, while experienced users can still avoid hackers by avoiding malware on the device used, but for saving high amount of bitcoin, cold wallets are best, and for ease of use and for frequent transactions, hardware wallet is good as a type of cold wallet.
3. Use of Shamir's secret sharing to protect seedphrase/private keySeedphrase or any other sensitive information like private key can be protected by the use of shamir's secret sharing, in a way the the seed phrase is converted into secrets, and the secrets are divided into parts for high protection.
4. The use of multisignature walletMultisig wallets are wallets that can be regarded as M of N wallet, in which the wallet can be generated for N users having their own private keys while M users among the N users will be able to sign transactions. This makes it difficult for hackers to penetrate, even if one private key is compromised. It can also help in a way another wallet can be created and the bitcoin in the previous wallet is sent to new wallet if any of the M or N users lost his/her private key, or if anything like malicious activity is suspected.
There are still many other approaches, like having more than one wallet. But the approaches to be used should not be too tedious in a way wallet owner will not be able to recover back his/her wallet during wallet lost.
ConclusionBitcoin is money, the first successful decentralized digital currency, which was created as an alternative to centralized fiats and also altenative to money that are vulnerable to physical thefts, thereby, fulfilling what early days money can not fulfill.
I have been reading about the differences between money and currencies, even I have not seen anyone referring bitcoin as money but only as currency. I read about the difference on many site. Check the quotes below:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_moneyMoney may take a physical form as in coins and notes, or may exist as a written or electronic account. It may have intrinsic value (commodity money), be legally exchangeable for something with intrinsic value (representative money), or only have nominal value (fiat money).
https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-difference-between-currency-and-moneyGold Silver explains that the most significant difference between money and currency is that currency does not have consistent value. Currency is used as a physical representation of value that changes over time and varies from one country to the next. According to the Gold Silver website, gold and silver are the only items that have served as money and represented fixed value throughout human history.
https://quickonomics.com/different-types-of-money/Commodity money is the simplest and, most likely, the oldest type of money. It builds on scarce natural resources that act as a medium of exchange, store of value, and unit of account. Commodity money is closely related to (and originates from) a barter system, where goods and services are directly exchanged for other goods and services. Commodity money facilitates this process because it acts as a generally accepted medium of exchange. The critical thing to note about commodity money is that its value is defined by the intrinsic value of the commodity itself. In other words, the commodity itself becomes money. Examples of commodity money include gold coins, beads, shells, spices, etc.
https://medium.com/@goldma/currency-vs-money-did-you-know-theres-a-difference-f344aa496867The one major difference between currency and money that many are not conscious of, is the store of value. Currency is not a store of value, in fact, it can even go to zero because of extreme circumstances. It is also volatile because it has no intrinsic value. Money, on the other hand, is a store of value. Gold (which is money) has always been a consistent store of value. Even when the world financial markets become unpredictable, investors turn to gold because it is less risky and more secure.
From all quoted links above, it is evident that bitcoin is actually money, I still have other links that proved this but did not included it because I want this topic to be easily readable.
Gold, silver and and the likes are money which has been existing and have intrinsic value. Like I have mentioned, money can not be seen, only currencies can be seen and the intrinsic value of gold is its value in the world that is influenced by its demands and its price.
What about bitcoin? I will like you opinion on this but as for me, bitcoin itself is completely money because it is also a safe haven like gold, currencies can be seen physically but what makes the currencies money is the value they possess, this makes me conclude that bitcoin is money, bitcoin have such value and a safe haven people turned during economy inflation.
Money are not subjected to governmental manipulations but currencies do, the price of bitcoin is not regulated by any central body or the governments it is regulated by people that buy and sell it in the world and this makes it to have value like gold and the likes by having the same value all over the world not from country to country. So, bitcoin is money and will be referred to as money during its races to recognition.
