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Indeed. In fact, there's some evidence that coins are being transferred out of some of the "cold" wallets. https://cointelegraph.com/news...

What? That doesn't make any sense. The US Dollar is far better for crime and used a lot more than Bitcoin for crime. Bitcoin is trivially traceable and hard to spend unlike the dollar.

Bitcoin has a lot of valid legitimate uses, such as cheap cross border payments, a hedge against inflation for countries like Venezuela and Argentina, a means of people without established banking sectors to transact, etc. It's also very useful in cases where there is risk of counter-party payment reversals in traditional systems, which lowers fees for such use cases. Another great potential future use is very small micropayments, possible future implementation for API calls without having to setup complex infrastructure and again, cross-border in countries where traditional banking systems don't operate or use different currencies. One novel current use where traditional systems fail is in rapidly purchasing a LARGE amount of anti-DOS capability in a hurry without counterparty risk. There are many new and novel uses. Here's one other small example: https://cointelegraph.com/news...

What specifically does Gold bring to the table? Are you using it to conduct electricity? (Its not the best conductor btw) Or are you using it in your nail polish? (its great you think its pretty... until its not: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...) Perhaps you mean its ARTIFICIAL scarcity? (Great news, Bitcoin is limited and scarce by design) Or how about cash... what specifically does the cash provide you other than an assumed unit of value? (good napkin? Great way to perform "off the books" transactions....)

Apparently CNN doesn't like to cover news like Argentinians using Bitcoin to protect themselves from their own countries Fiat Tanking:
https://cointelegraph.com/news...

Or Zimbabwes Fiat tanking:
https://www.cryptocoinsnews.co...

Cryptocurrencies have value from at least 4 specific areas:
1) Distributed Work Trust – Transactions are validated through a system of Distributed “Miners” that create a linked chain of parent child relationships leveraging consensus and Entropy of scale to build in protections against Fraud and Forgery.

2) Transactional Integrity – Transactions are signed in such a way as to make them quickly verifiable both in internal integrity to each block, as well as each blocks’ place in the chain to create an immutable sequence and protect against Fraud and Forgery.

3) An Immutable Data Store – Referred to as a “Distributed Ledger,” values can be added to the signed and verified transaction chain becoming part of the distributed, and immutable record.

4) Distributed Logic Processing – Ethereum provides the benefit of executing functions in a Turing complete language across the distributed node and mining network. These functions (commonly referred to as contracts) are added to the chain (or Ledger) as Libraries which will exist so long as the chain does. For reference, “Contracts” are also available in Bitcoin though under a non-Turing complete implementation. Either way these are executable "contract" code libs built into the chain... does your dollar do that?

Why is gold even a competitor? Its like comparing Apples and Teslas.

Its frustrating seeing so many people falling for the lines of a bunch of crooks and fraudsters that are just trying to manipulate markets so they can continue to profit from ignorance.

Some more resources for those that are having a hard time Googling Bitcoin Value and want to learn more:
https://99bitcoins.com/bitcoin...
http://www.google.com/

For some people, Bitcoin is a safety net against unstable governments.

In the USA, the government is not even in control of its own currency.

If they would have kept them in their own wallet, not some guys basement, they would have been fine.

Are you sure about that?

Despite the swift action by Trezor on the attack, the incident still created some doubt among users on the security of hardware wallets.

Yep. I am. Compare that ONE article with the many on exchanges. Also, there are other wallets. A paper wallet in a safe deposit box is possible too.

If they would have kept them in their own wallet, not some guys basement, they would have been fine.

Are you sure about that?

Despite the swift action by Trezor on the attack, the incident still created some doubt among users on the security of hardware wallets.

Japan recognizes Bitcoin as a legal form of payment. This helps, not hurt, Bitcoin. If they considered Bitcoin harmful they would not have done that. One of the factors pushing Bitcoin up to such high levels is the Japanese consumer who is now empowered by the Japanese government legalizing Bitcoin.

https://www.coindesk.com/japan...

Bitcoin Surpasses $4,000 Due to Strong Japanese Demand: CNBC
https://cointelegraph.com/news......

The high transaction fees could be solved but there is currently a deadlock within the Bitcoin community.
Two feasible solutions are on the table, but there is no consensus:

a) Increasing the block size, allows for more transactions to be processed within each 10 minute block. The downside is that the blockchain will grow at a multiple of the current rate. Generally favored by large miners. Decentralizes the network. Is only a short-term solution because it only scales linearly.

b) SegWit & Lightning. As far as I understand it, Lightning is 2nd layer on top of the blockchain that allows for much faster and cheaper transactions.

Other coins have already begun to adopt SegWit, most notably Litecoin, the early fork of Bitcoin.

no government will adjudicate public or private debts using it

That seems to be changing.

After reading up, I'm getting the feeling that the home run THROBBING BONER victory condition is to cannibalise what they perceive as Bitcoin's inherent scalability limit.

I suspect this premonition/pretense/pretext is the money-bag money-shot behind the scenes.

The Appcoin Revolution: Interview with Mike "Buttercup" Vine of LBRY:

CT: Do you see a possibility where (intentionally or not) your appcoin becomes an altcoin, and competes with Bitcoin as a currency?

MV: Yes, any appcoin has the potential to overtake Bitcoin. In the commodity world, it's hard to find something that can compete with gold as money because of gold's unique physical properties and distinctiveness [money-bug blather redacted]. There is a strong argument that you do want to have a resource that is used primarily as money. LBRY Credits are not designed to outcompete Bitcoin in that role.

However, if Bitcoin adoption levels off and LBRY apps are used by billions of people, then cryptocurrency speculators and users may decide that they feel more comfortable holding and using an asset that has a more widely-demanded end use.

But surely that's only a stretch goal. The next level down is harder to pinpoint.

Bitcoin will still be a payment option on the LBRY app, but it won't power the network. Fortunately, services like ShapeShift.io will make it easy to convert LBRY Credits to Bitcoin and back.

Sounds easy.

Shapeshift.io has been hacked

Oops. Now the claim from ss.io is that they had fully effectively firewalled user assets and that this is not the hack you're looking for. Okay, sure.

The boundary to the real economy is no small matter. I could be earning LBRY Ponzi credits tomorrow. Oh, yes, they are a Ponzi credit (on the production side) until you have a valid plan to get them back out again (and a lot can happen between here and there). As things stand, appears that the main road out exits through the Fire Swamp known as Bitcoin. Nobody ever gets burned or sandbagged or ROUSed to death en route there. Sign me up.

I do kind of like this new era of kinder, gentler, reduced friction, liberal-values, neoliberal Ponzi schemes (we'll not discuss the environmental Death Star of sweaty appcoin minting minions.)

But ... bottom line, end of the vine, to get out, there has to be an equal and opposite demand to get in. Well, that's 90% of the iceberg here, and the sticky end of the wicket, too.