Perhaps the landscape would be different if it were legal and regulated, but as it is today, no... It is one of the most disgusting parts of our culture. The average age of entrance into prostitution is 14. Young girls are psychologically manipulated or outright kidnapped and for forced to have sex with strangers. The money exchanged does not end up in the girls pocket.

I don't get this criticism. Not that there are precise definitions to begin with, but there certainly isn't anything in the definition of "commodity" or "currency" that excludes something from being the other. Gold is a good example that has been used as both. There are markets that trade foreign currencies as stocks and commodities, that does not negate the US Dollar, Euro, or Chinese Yuan as currencies. The 12,000 business that use Bitpay's merchant services and the users of those businesses are treating bitcoin as a currency.

AC, you keep using those words. I don't think they mean what you think they mean.

Partly true. With companies like Bitpay the volatility is moot on one end of the market. The consumer still deals with it, but over the long term that has only proved a beneficial store of value... so far. Viability and going mainstream are the cure to the volatility. I don't think it's a chicken/egg thing. Rather, volatility and adoption will improve incrementally together.

I'm starting to think that saying came from the government.

Okay, obesity is a disability... but a Segway would make this disabilty worse rather than help overcome it.

Unoriginal and they complicated the design by adding all the electronics when all you need is some boxes and a few hundred Chinese men

If political pressures cause you to abandon the location, your lack of physical presence has deemed you unable to physically defend the location, so it is no longer yours. It is yours for as long as you stay at your impregnable base. Read the post by ModernGreek again. he said what I did a bit more succinctly.

It is about physical defense. Lacking the supplies or being cut off from needed supplies means your physical defense was compromised by attrition. In no way does your point logically counter the comment you were trying to refute. Are you arguing to be difficult or is your reasoning really this weak?

Well, the dollar is backed by the biggest most advanced army ever known in the history of the world. I count that as a point for Bitcoin, though,

If you are talking about some sort of bond or note backed by gold, well there is nothing stopping one from doing the same with bitcoin. A company that holds bitcoins can take your info and provide you with an "IOU x bitcoins". So we'll call it a tie in that scenario. Now if you want the security of personally owning your bitcoins(keys), then yes, if you lose them... they are lost... same for gold. <snark>Of course you could pull out your backup of you gold you had in another location</snark>

I'm sure there are many properties in which gold would win, but I still see no added convenience to owning gold as opposed to bitcoin. Using gold for something other that trading in some sort of market/exchange would require carrying it around. Go into a store with a gold note and try spend it. Doubt there will be many takers, (remeber... you can just go to the issuer with your id and get a new record) though I'm sure you could find a few fools. There might be a few more that would take government issued golds coins... a quick search on the internet could provide enough of a value to reach an agreement. However you have to carry the coin and protective sleeve and it's not divisible. Random bullion though? Doubt they are going to take the time or have the equipment to verify the weight and purity. Not that you are going to find many places taking bitcoin at the moment, but it takes little more expertise or equipment than current payment solutions take. If it's a large sum of money you would need to let some time pass for several blocks to verify the transaction, but that's still much easier. Buying something from an online shop? I don't care how hard you push your gold bar into the ethernet cable... it's not going in and come out the other end.

Less convenient than fiat, of course, fiat has had an infrastructure being built around if for quite some time. If bitcoin continues to hold it's own eventually there will me more convenient ways to use it. Less convenient than gold or silver? I can't think of one way that is true.

"like spokes on a wheel" was not apt description and set my exceptions of the image a bit too high. Meh, indeed.

FTFY

Perhaps because in America (historically at least) one had great opportunity and could improve their position in life by applying their talent to something useful. Your prospects become limited if you dedicate the kind of time it takes to become a master of that level.