Unfortunately, the term payment network would awake false hopes for many. It is like calling a truck a car, renting a truck out as a car to a couple who wants to have some relaxed holidays traveling in a nice car. Bitcoin is not what one would call a payment network I guess. Maybe a special purpose payment network at best. Imagine you never found out about Bitcoin before and someone says to you it is a payment network. You say cool, let me get Bitcoin and grab some coffee. Uhm, well, the fee will be three times as high as the price of your coffee and you may need to wait for an hour until your payment is confirmed. Bitcoin may evolve towards a payment network, but right now I'd say it is for sure not a general purpose payment network.
I like the bolded part of your statement, I totally agree!
Thanks for the reply! I agree with you to a certain extent. Bitcoin is not yet at a point where we can use it as an effective and efficient payment network due to the volatility of price. This is why I see its growth as a two-phase evolution. Until it reaches high levels of liquidity it will act more as an appreciating asset. Once the liquidity has established at higher level prices like (I'm thinking at 6 figures), we might see reduced volatility due to the involvement of banks, market-makers, etc.
If Bitcoin reaches low volatility, its use as a payment method would be more viable for people who are risk-averse. Alternatively, with all the financial engineering that we have today someone can create a decentralized currency that is pegged to dollar, but backed by BTC. If I'm not wrong there is already an incipient solution created by Money On Chain team.
Lightning network solves the waiting and the fee problem. We just need coffee shops to integrate it.
