So the best part about being bribed with crypto is if one flees to another country to escape the law, one still has the aforementioned bribes. That plus some measure of anonymity.

What was the benefit to you over using USD? (actually wondering)

A Boeing. Straight cash. Naming anirports or other public spaces. The aforementioned shitcoin. What are the others?

Although it was originally intended to be cash it actually now is used as a "store of wealth" It allows people to build up wealth and be able to preserve it from government intervention and inflation. If you have stocks the ownerhsip and registration is controlled by a government and can be taken at any time from you.

Look at china where if you have a large company and take a stand against the government all your equity will be wiped out and you will be either imprisoned or banished to another country.

Cash in a government bank account is the same way, you can wake up one day and all your assets will be seized, your credit cards will stop working.

Bitcoin works because you can technically have your wealth memorized. You can memorize a string of charcters that allow you to bring money with you no matter where you go. NO government or other human can steal it from you (except through torture) but you can also easily not memorize it and instead distribute the keys throughout the world in opposing countries meaning even if you are attacked by one country you still have some wealth kept in another.

A store of wealth is what bitcion allows. True freedom from governments stealing your money because you have ideas which they do not agree with.

This in my mind is the main usage of bitcoin.

Other coins like stablecoins, or the btc lightning network have high value because they make transactions much cheaper as traditional banking systems are complex, error prone, and costly.

POSIWID = the Purpose Of the System Is What It Does.

Relevant citations:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_purpose_of_a_system_is_wha...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_mind

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bounded_rationality

"We must take the world as it is and not as we would like it to be." - Maurice Allais

I've never seen $100 for a normal sized transaction that seems rather hyperbolic.

Bitcoin via the Lightning Network is near cost-free and instant. And it's not a hack, it's just a network of payment channels.

>And transactions can take 30 minutes or more to settle >Fees have historically gone up above $100 per transaction

So it's cheaper to use Paypal ?

Pointing at the BTC transaction fee and saying it is super expensive is like pointing at a problematic car model and saying all cars are bad.

There are any number of other popular coins out there that have the same or better liquidity as BTC that charge tiny fractions of the fees. And also settle in seconds.

You're saying Bitcoin like BTC, but the parent commenter was probably referring to the giant ecosystem of coins, that happens to include BTC, but also many other much faster and cheaper options, that are used to globally remit payments every day.

What it's replacing, by the way, Western Union, Wise and the like, is also pretty unblockable and unrefundable.

This is incorrect, bitcoin is slower and more expensive, but bitcoin should not be used as cash, coins like stablecoins which direclty track US dollars or altcoins with lower fees should be used, the lightning network also is useful for transactions.

Bitcoin CAN be used as a store of wealth and the slowness actually makes it better as the slowness is part of the same process that makes it safer, harder to hack/takeover, and gives it value.

You should not look at all crypto as one thing.