Well from a casual following of the coin world I'd say the ship has sailed a while ago on centralization. Individual miners represent what, low 2digits percent hashing power?
It seems everyone wants to believe so hard bitcoin is the currency you'll buy bubblegum at 25c with, maybe it's more the coin you use for 100s$ type transactions rather?
What would be wrong with embracing using other chains? I fail to see anything short of a dynamic altcoin ecosystem to keep the required pseudonymous/microtx/decentralised characteristics alive.
I mean bitcoin is great and all but it can't be everything to everyone and that's okay. Let the 'real world' interface on BTC, and we'll interface BTC to what we actually use. As always.
You conflate people mining with people who could benefit from bitcoin as a uewful currency.
The issue your parent comment describes isn't an issue of just usability though, but of market control. If you push out people who can't afford large transactions then you eventually have currency owned and controlled by the few who can afford it. Hardly the original vision of bitcoin.
But for everyone else, if I can't buy lunch with it due to high transaction cost then I have no interest in storing any wealth in it either, money is useless if it isn't usable.
So if it isn't a currency for buying lunch, and it isn't a currency for storing wealth, what the hell do I use bitcoin for? Pretending to play daytrader at the foreign exchange?
You'd be a fool to store value in it long-term regardless of target tx value.
I'd argue it's main purpose is as "middle currency". It has the potential of acting as synchronization mechanism for any two parties arbitrarily across mankind.
You buy some with your preferred currency (EUR, LTC whatever) when you need to transact in some context conventional money isn't fit for. The transactor is then in a position where he needs to unload the BTC for his day to day currencies of operation.
Do you not see how having major actors in the network is good for liquidity? If you use it as medium of exchange mostly, you're fairly isolated from price tampering from the rich and mighty.
We've been functioning like this for quite some time now. Risks from exchange value falling or physical exchange robbing you are close to nil if you manage your inventory and trades appropriately.
I don't accept your dismissal about conflation. If the tx-validation is centralized, the distribution and intentions of the actual users makes little difference to the potential for misappropriation of the network behaviour
> I mean bitcoin is great and all but it can't be everything to everyone and that's okay.
Any system that requires users to hold various different forms of money for various transaction sizes is doomed to fail to a single money that scales to essentially any transaction size or frequency. A single currency that can solve both micro- and macro-transactions will easily dominate a system of different kinds of money.
It seems everyone wants to believe so hard bitcoin is the currency you'll buy bubblegum at 25c with, maybe it's more the coin you use for 100s$ type transactions rather? What would be wrong with embracing using other chains? I fail to see anything short of a dynamic altcoin ecosystem to keep the required pseudonymous/microtx/decentralised characteristics alive.
I mean bitcoin is great and all but it can't be everything to everyone and that's okay. Let the 'real world' interface on BTC, and we'll interface BTC to what we actually use. As always.