Jordan Tuwiner

We have yet to see any meaningful adoption in the retail world and the institutional world seems quite lukewarm. . . . The deflationary quality of [Bitcoin](https://99bitcoins.com/) – by design and not by accident – is a major drawback. Deflation naturally encourages hoarding and delays spending, which is the behavior we are witnessing with BTC holders.

Sometimes it’s hard to tell whether Bitcoin is more like Ponzi scheme or a pyramid scheme. Whatever it is, though, it isn’t a currency. . . . It’s not clear what Bitcoin is or what it will be, but it is clear what it’s not. It’s not a currency.

I don’t think Bitcoin is the correct technology to build these sorts of ideas on. I understand and strongly sympathize with the desire to move to decentralized systems and plan on eventually working in that space myself, but between Bitcoin’s efficiency problems and poor tolerance of network partitions, I do not think it’s suitable as a general purpose global decentralized database in the way people want to use it.

Bitcoin, at its core, is an attempt to solve big socioeconomic problems through technology. But so long as it remains an overwhelmingly male domain, it’s going to continue to concentrate on the economic problems, while missing the big social problems. Which means that it’s going to continue going nowhere.

The price of Bitcoin lost most of its value since its parabolic rise and speculators have lost a lot of money. The next electronic payment technology will be very large. We eagerly await the next version of electronic money to appear.

Another multi-million dollar Bitcoin heist could be the nail in the coffin for the troubled cryptocurrency.

Nevertheless, the chances of bitcoin, the most popular of this new breed of self-clearing financial instruments, making it as a mainstream currency are now zero. Prices have been floundering at around $350 a coin for months, escalating losses for those who invested at last year’s $1,200 highs. Add to this a stream of high-profile scandals over the past year, such as the collapse of Tokyo-based currency exchange Mt Gox in February, and you realise it is not a question of if but when the public loses interest in this experiment entirely.

It doesn’t take a genius to realize that if a Bitcoin futures market is implemented, in the United States and Europe, the large speculators with bankrolls in the billions, will be more than happy to turn bitcoin into another crude oil-style pump-and-dump. In the case of Bitcoin, the volatility will kill any chance bitcoin ever had of becoming a medium of exchange.

Bitcoin will fail, not for fans lack of trying, but rather its status will never be more than an interesting concept championed by those in the techie or libertarian camp. Holding Bitcoin is more of a political expression rather than a sound economic investment. . . . Ultimately, Bitcoin will be relegated to the history books unless structural changes are made. It will never be fully adopted in its current form, being nothing more than a neat concept for people to lose money on.