Did you become a believer without evidence (faith) or do you wish to share what changed your mind? Like physicist Richard Feynman said, if you can't explain it simply, then you don't understand it.
I'll try to be brief because there are lots of reasons why I changed my mind:
1) I actually think I understand it now (I could still be wrong) because I studied it.
2) I had a very annoying use case sending money to a company in China and after having a terrible time with AliPay and getting nowhere, when I tried using crypto (not BTC) it was a breeze.
3) The way our financial system is setup has bothered me since 2000 and as a Finance professional one of the biggest problems our clients have is inflation, not CPI or RPI, but the growth of the M2 money supply. I've spent a long time thinking of solutions and the problems with fractional reserve banking and fiat currency. I've seen how money rots in real terms over decades sitting in cash (frankly due to poor investment decisions) and I'm certain that there needs to be a better way to store value in real terms. BTC is a likely contender for an intergenerational store of value. It's obviously not gold... but it could be as useful. Since the market cap of gold is ~10T, I think BTC could at least reach that level of utility.
I have other reasons but I rather not write an essay.
2. wise.com (not familiar with alipay) says I can send USD5000 to China and have it arrive by tomorrow. I guess you were trying to send a bigger amount? Did your transfer just bypass regulations, either in the country you were sending it from or in China? See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29646492
Not saying it's something nobody wants to do, but if it does end up being a significant use-case, there's no reason wise.com and others can't catch up, apart from regulatory reasons.
Thanks. I hear international money transfer a lot and I can understand that. It's not something I ever do, but I'm glad Bitcoin works for those who do.
> BTC is a likely contender for an intergenerational store of value
OP here. Please refer to the study resources I posted above and please go through them.
Yes there is a lot of FUD, FOMO and scammers... but I encourage you to think about cognitive biases and take the time to assess crypto through the lens of a new technology.
Honestly it's in the spirit of discussion and idea exchange that I post on HN. Karma points aren't really worth anything except a proxy for my contribution to the discussion and community.
As for encouraging you study it, it's really because I didn't myself, and I wished I did, that's all.
Take it or leave it, either way you have my best wishes moving forward!
> I then decided to venture into crypto with money I could completely lose and not worry about, and it really helped my understanding further.
Did he?
Did he really?
As someone who has genuinely used bitcoin for one of the (VERY few) use cases where it's actually useful - buying drugs on a dark market. I don't buy it. You can find a lot more detail on my position here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29331167
OP here. Yes, I had to send "money" to China, for a service rendered in the US, while I am physically in London. It was a totally legitimate transaction and had nothing to do with anything dark market or drug related. Thanks for the link to your discussion, I will read it, but please don't throw out criminal accusations in HN.
> please don't throw out criminal accusations in HN.
Pointing out that you have a very clear conflict of interest here, and that you should be taken with many grains of salt, is not a criminal accusation.
If you think I'm claiming you use dark markets, please go read my comment again. I'm very clearly not... ( and I hope you had better reading comprehension on the crypto materials! :P )
