Bitcoin Questions I ask myself

1/ Is Bitcoin a good investment.
No. Yes… it’s complicated…
2/ In 2015 a restaurant patron paid for a $14 meal with Bitcoin. Now the 0.057BTC he paid is worth $661 plus $103 in Bitcoin Cash. Isn’t that a good investment?
Maybe it’s a bubble.
3/ Why might Bitcoin/Blockchain be a bubble?
@Gartner_inc research says we are almost at the top of the Blockchain Tech Hype Bubble.
https://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/3412017
4/ Are you sure Bitcoin is a bubble?
It looks like we are in a bull trap based on the typical Bubble Cycle. Right when it looks like it’s a good time to buy low and floor drops out from under us.
https://charts.bitcoin.com/chart/price
5/ @Forbes said Bitcoin was in a Bull Trap in 2013. Why is this different?
Very amateur people are investing. @paulkrugman, Nobel prize-winning economist, said:
6/ Is Cryptocurrency doomed with no future?
No, it IS the future. Maybe not in 2018. But within 10 years it could be more valuable than the value of all USD and gold.
Data from https://coinmarketcap.com/charts/
7/ How soon until Crypto takes over?
Adoption rate happens quickly once a technology reaches 5–10% of the market. Right now Crypto is at <0.5% adoption rate. Once technologies get a foothold, they tend to spread quickly.
https://www.blackrockblog.com/2015/12/11/economic-trends-in-charts/
8/ Which currency will be a good investment?
The most useful currency will be the most valuable.
9/ What makes a currency useful?
In the long term, 7 characteristics define useful currencies: Acceptability, Durability, Portability, Divisibility, Limited Supply, Uniformity and Intrinsic Value. I made a YouTube video applying Thinking from First Principles.
10/ Why isn’t Bitcoin valuable?
It’s not widely accepted (low Acceptability), though places like http://Overstock.com accept Bitcoin.
11/ Why does Bitcoin have low Acceptability as a payment method?
As far as I can tell, the reasons are: Bad governance, Bad User Experience, Long confirmation time and High transaction fees. Oh, and Instability. If it’s not stable, how can a business use it?
12/ Why do Bitcoin transaction take so long to confirm?
The block time is about 10 minutes. Shorter block times mean more wasted computing power and miners closest to the confirmed block get an unfair headstart. Satoshi chose 10 minutes as a compromise. Ethereum has a 14 second block time, for example.
13/ Why are transaction fees high for Bitcoin?
The block size is limited to 1MB worth of transactions so only transaction willing to pay the highest price are accepted. A larger block size would solve the problem. Transaction fees are now over $20.
13b/ Why not make the block size bigger if it’s causing high transaction fees?
Bitcoin Cash did that. There is currently a bitter soap opera between BTC and BCH including developers with a conflict of interest documented by 
Daniel Morgan
14/ Bitcoin is too volatile to be used as a currency.
The volatility is going down. By 2022 the Bitcoin to Dollar exchange rate could be less volatile than the Dollar to Euro exchange rate.
http://charts.woobull.com/bitcoin-volatility/
14b/ What’s wrong with Bitcoin’s user experience?
Aside from the confusion of many wallets, some backed by questionable companies, if you lose your private key there’s no one you can call to reset your password. That’s a problem for me, not to mention my grandmother.
15/ How does bitcoin value increase with the number of users?
By Metcalf’s law, a network’s value increases with the number of users squared. http://www.businessinsider.com/Bitcoin-price-movement-explained-by-one-equation-fundstrat-tom-lee-metcalf-law-network-effect-2017-10 … @fundstrat
16/ What can I use crypto for?
Upvoting content at steemit.com, remittance, tips (@tipprbot), a savings account that the government can’t touch. Startups raise capital in ICOs using Ethereum. But no one has a breakdown. Or knows how many transactions are speculative investments or not.
18/ Sounds pretty risky. Can I wait out the crypto bubble?
Sure. But we might have a dollar crash in the next 10 years. It lost 95% of its value the last 100 years due to inflation. Will the USD in your retirement account still be valuable in 40 years?
19/ Can I hedge my bets and get a crypto index fund?
Currencies have strong network effects and likely winner take all. Based on past performance, index funds might lose money in the future. I made a short video on the related MentalModel called Survivorship Bias on YouTube.
20/ But Bitcoin is expensive. Do I have to buy a whole one?
It’s infinitely divisible. You can buy a sliver of a bitcoin if you want.

21/ Bitcoin will be valuable in the future?
Maybe. But more likely Bitcoin is the MySpace (or Friendster) of Cryptocurrencies.
21b/ Bitcoin is the Model T (or 1769 Cugnot Steam Car) of cryptocurrencies. There’s room for improvement.
22/ What is the Tesla/Facebook of cryptocurrencies? Do any top cryptos of the future exist today?
Maybe, here are the promising ones: Bitcoin Cash has better governance lower fees, Ethereum has smart contracts that enable startups to raise money more easily via ICOs than trying to raise money from Venture Capitalists, Litecoin is widely used and has low transaction fees, ZCash is private and fast, to name a few.
23/ What do all of the cryptocurrencies do?
Here’s a spreadsheet of the top 14 that you can play around with:

Cryptocurrency Tracking

Data 0, Ticker, Price, In four words, MarketCap, Rank, Started, Volume, Max_Supply, Available_Supply, Change, Minable…
docs.google.com

24/ Why should I trust you?
Trust no one. But you might like:

• Podcasts: Laura Shin
•  How Crypto is Squeezing VCs
• Wisdom: Naval Ravikant
•  “Bitcoin is a tool for freeing humanity from oligarchs and tyrants, dressed up as a get-rich-quick scheme”
• Critic (+ MarmotCoin): Preston Byrne Nakamoto Scheme
• Overexhuberance: @crypto_rand
• Scientist: @peterrizun 1GB Block Test
• LTC Creator: Charlie Lee
• Data: @woonomic Determining the ideal block size for Bitcoin, a story of three graphs
• Dev->Journalist: Brian Schuster
•  The Ripple Currency Problem
• Summaries: Linda Xie
•  Beginner’s guide series on cryptoassets

Bonus/ Bitcoin is such a controversial topic. Are people going to complain about my answers?
Yes! Here are my favorite critiques:

• BCH, LTC, ETH all have the same issues BTC has and then some. Reality is they don’t scale on chain no matter how big you make the blocks.
• You talk about stability but 1 year ago ETH was $8. LTC was $3. Now look at them. Do you call that stability?
• Too much agenda setting on this thread
• You lost me when you quoted krugman
• BCH has better governance?? because it’s under control of fake satoshi and scammer roger ver?
• The problem for BTC is price volatility, but not for other cryptos?