Congolese Refugees Use Bitcoin To Build Grassroots Economy

submitted by Drewski from bitcoinmagazine.com

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[–]Canbot 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

The fact that transaction fees can be as high as $20 per transaction totally invalidates bitcoin as a possible currency.

[–]Drewski[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

There are other cryptocurrencies that have faster confirmation times and lower transaction fees than bitcoin.

I just checked and according to this chart the average transaction fee spiked to $62.79 on 4/21/21. Now the average fee is around $3 which is still quite high. However, you can send btc with a fee of around 20 cents now and it will go through.

[–]Canbot 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

"Just use a different coin" is a cop out excuse. They all lack something. Bitcoin was the one that was supposed to deliver change and it failed. None of the others have the market share, name recognition, or capitalization.

There is no reason to use crypto over any other "company coin". In fact starting a private currency is better. Why pay into someone else's crypto coin?

[–]Drewski[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Excuse for what? I'm not saying Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies don't have their flaws, but how can you say they've failed when they're clearly being used in counter markets such as here, in Venezuela, darknet marketplaces, and many others?

Bitcoin was a pioneer, but other cryptocurrencies have built on the ideas it presented and improved many of them. Monero for example is private, fungible and fully decentralized (so not a "company coin"). There are many others that are also innovating in the field of distributed finance.