> we have a deflationary currency we trade for goods and services.
You do not, not really. Merchant adoption is microscopic. Even prominent Bitcoin fans admit it's terrible as a payment system. E.g., Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures: https://avc.com/2017/08/store-of-value-vs-payment-system/
Or look at Overstock, one of the few large retailers that accepts it. Something like 0.1% of their business is done using it, which explains why most other merchants don't bother. Even there, they price everything in dollars, so if the Bitcoin price shifts between you purchasing something and you returning it, you'll get the dollar equivalent, not the Bitcoin you gave them: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/03/style/what-can-you-actual...
This is especially obvious when you contrast it with something like M-Pesa, an e-cash system that launched around the same time. It's hugely popular in the countries it operates in. (Along the way, it did a lot for banking the unbanked, one of the mirage-like goals that Bitcoin is always approaching but never arrives at.) The transaction volume is orders of magnitude higher than Bitcoin. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-Pesa
Sure, it technically works; you can probably still buy a pizza somewhere. But "technically works" is a shaky standard even for something that just launched. It's no standard at all for something that launched the same time as Android or Uber.
You do not, not really. Merchant adoption is microscopic. Even prominent Bitcoin fans admit it's terrible as a payment system. E.g., Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures: https://avc.com/2017/08/store-of-value-vs-payment-system/
Or look at Overstock, one of the few large retailers that accepts it. Something like 0.1% of their business is done using it, which explains why most other merchants don't bother. Even there, they price everything in dollars, so if the Bitcoin price shifts between you purchasing something and you returning it, you'll get the dollar equivalent, not the Bitcoin you gave them: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/03/style/what-can-you-actual...
This is especially obvious when you contrast it with something like M-Pesa, an e-cash system that launched around the same time. It's hugely popular in the countries it operates in. (Along the way, it did a lot for banking the unbanked, one of the mirage-like goals that Bitcoin is always approaching but never arrives at.) The transaction volume is orders of magnitude higher than Bitcoin. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-Pesa
Sure, it technically works; you can probably still buy a pizza somewhere. But "technically works" is a shaky standard even for something that just launched. It's no standard at all for something that launched the same time as Android or Uber.