Would it hurt just to know a little bit more about Bitcoin?
Below is a comment a gave on YT but I thought I should share it as an informational piece. The argument was that you can only use Bitcoin when it is accepted worldwide and it's not safe because they stole a lot from a Bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox in 2014.
Bitcoins are excepted worldwide. You can trade with anyone around the world and fees are just a percentage from the fees the banks charge. The fact that bitcoin is rising in value against the dollar is just a bonus. It shouldn't be the main purpose for holding them. The main purpose is to put banks out of the equation so they have no power and control. A true bank should store currency from people and borrow it to other people who want to do business or whatever and are likely to pay it back. For the risk they take they charge more interest then they give to the people who loan them the money. Maybe this was the system 150 years ago but we drifted away from it and created monsters like central banks.
Mt. Gox was like that bank from 150 years ago. It was relatively easy to rob banks. So it was relatively easy to rob Mt. Gox. In those days you could hold gold coins in your own safe and they were pretty secure which is what you should do with your bitcoin. About 5 years ago I installed electrum wallet on my computer and I wrote down the key on a piece of paper. Now 5 years later I don't have the computer anymore but I can install the electrum program on my new computer or smartphone and put in the key from the paper and my bitcoins are still there. The piece of paper is the key to my safe.
Let's say you can spare $20. You can go to the cinema or buy 0.005 bitcoin. You will spend the same amount of time to setup everything. In the first instance you change your $20 for entertainment. In the second instance you change your $20 for education. And who knows, next year it is still there and maybe more. Even $22 would be a 10% increase. That's a lot more than %0.7 that the bank will give.
One last argument: In the end it's all about trust. Who do you trust your "money" (currency actually) with? Today you trust the banks so that's where you put your dollars. But can you trust them? What do they do with your dollars? A lot of stuff you may not agree with. Borrowing to a lot of shady people not to mention the exorbitant bonuses for managers.
The other alternative is Bitcoin. A decentralized system that is practically unhackable and very secure.
I am taking about the underlying technology, the blockchain. It's just a matter of time before you will hear that your bank is going to switch to the blockchain and you will be participating in this technology anyway. So it's best to be informed and have choices.
It just occurred to me that probably everyone on steemit owns bitcoin already and understands more or less the blockchain technology. Anyway, no harm done :-)