That’s only the Chivo wallet (ie no other wallets and no P2p transactions) , and that’s +3.9% Yoy.
It is more interesting in value, that’s $52m from Jan to May, so if we extrapolate that’s ~$10m+ in remittance fees saved only on the Chivo wallet.
$10m directly in the pocket of people.
So unless you are a western union shareholder, I don’t see what there is not to like here.
So there is demand… But no adoption 
something is not adding up…
Ok, that’s only Chivo but at the same time it’s also +3.9% YoY, when last year the Chivo wallet didn’t even exist?
There might be a misunderstanding, i like that graph very much
Exactly. Relatively high demand for little to no real-world adoption.
As evidenced by the last five or ten or so years of Bitcoin’s price and history.
Hey crypto bros, how is the Inflation hedging goin on? Feeling protected? Last year someone was telling me that BTC will go to 100k by this year and if we will have Inflation, it’s gonna happen even faster. I don’t see that happening…
One of the most hilarious arguments about Bitcoin’s value I’ve heard is that Bitcoin derives it’s value from the fact that it is useful decentralized payment system, yet when I asked why ain’t nobody (including cryptolunatics) is using it on daily basis to buy goods and services, I’ve got a response that it’s due to Copernicus-Gresham law, that is Bitcoin is too strong currency to be used for such silly stuff like paying (similarly to gold). And they don’t see contradiction in this - Bitcoin is good because it’s useful, yet nobody is using it for anything except trading and FOMO investing.
Another argument was that it is good store of value and an inflation hedge, yet it is too volatile for store and apparently it’s not protecting us from the Inflation either.
Why not?
As Get-rich-quick schemes go, it has been one of the most successful and promising.
And this forum is about getting rich quick, innit?
Who can explain me - who takes responsibility if things go south with bitcoin, crypto or blockchain on operational, tactical or strategic level?
Simplified example - I know that company I invested or government to which I pay taxes uses expensive Windows package while they could get all for free using Ubutu. But I’m ok with that, since I know that there is Microsoft behind as a responsible counterpart to do all it takes up to agreed contract in the even of cyber attack or huge bug in software. In the worst case, you can fine or incarcerate someone due to misdoes.
With Ubuntu you are at them mercy of community where responsibility is diluted. No central guarantor, no contract and no one to take accountable, no one to blame.
Why would I put money in crypto if in the even of loss I don’t know who is responsible behind?
In other words, I really doubt that this DeFi will fly in whatever form if there will be no central guarantor behind, let it be private company, central bank or government.
I’ve read recently that +90% of the transactions in BTC is trading, the remaining 10% is most likely people who can’t use bank transfer - e.g. criminals or some third country people who don’t have banking infrastructure but they do have Internet infrastructure.
Evidence is clear - Bitcoin is not used for payments in places where it has competition of banks. It’s also a terrible store of value and inflation hedge. Adoption for payment or store of value and not for trading is going nowhere.
Bitcoin might be the best monetary system in the universe (which I doubt), but as long as the general public treats it as a lottery, gambling, and trading platform, it doesn’t really matter what qualities it has - it won’t get adopted as money. You need people to use it.
There’s not much to unzoom, it’s too short time perspective. I think we are still in the bubble. It is pretty good trading and speculation platform because it has high volatility. The interesting trend is that Bitcoin cannot become payment system and store of value because it is too volatile. And the more volatile it is, the more traders it attracts because volatility is an opportunity to make money on bets. And this fuels further volatility… And the cycles go on and on. All my friends who are using Bitcoin, they use it for trading and not as money. In fact, I think the main driver of Bitcoin price is the adoption for trading. And the problem is that nobody will use it as money if so many people fuel volatility with trading. It’s a vicious cycle that Bitcoin can’t get out of to become money (payment system + store of value) - no matter how big the market for Bitcoin really is.
Sorry, you put some non descriptive image in between, do I pronounce this correctly “bla bla bla meanwhile it’s called decentralized finance”? 
Yeah, and the table is missing 2022 YTD returns: -57.19%. Besides, if somebody showed me such a table with returns and asked me what is it - I’d say it’s a bubble. These returns are ridiculous - nothing, no matter how revolutionary technology, can be sustainable with these levels of hype-fueled growth. Eventually everything reverses to the mean.
i like this analogy, and it always seem like btc is cash invented by some fancy programmer with a over complicated feature that no one wants just like ubuntu…
The earth, its resources and (fiat) money supply are finite.
This curve won’t be sustainable forever.
I think the demand for crypto trading is finite too - and there’s no other demand for this tech, so eventually, this will flat out or even revert to the mean. Unless a miracle happens and people start actually using cryptos instead of just trading them.
Very good points you made. I have two thoughts:
a) At this point, BTC is not meant to make payments. It is like the crypto gold. You don’t pay in gold coins or jewels, yet until some years ago economies as big as the US one were tied to it. That is its main purpose and also of transfer big sums of money quickly. It certainly takes less than a SEPA/SWIFT transfer.
b) Once we start to see central bank digital currencies imposed into us, the true value of cryptocurrencies will start to flourish. And then, again, BTC could serve as the gold standard.
Price wise I don’t know where is it going to go, my guess is up but I don’t really know, nobody does.
But cryptos are here to stay in one way or another.
IMHO.
I’m skeptical about this - gold standard was not installed out of the blue as a monetary standard. It took hundreds of years for gold to win the competition with other monies. Gold has many inherent values that no other money has and on top of that it’s actually used in industry, jewelry, etc.
It would be interesting to see how much money was on the dot-com bubble and how much money is now in the crypto.
Also in terms of engineers/users involved in both, how does it compare.
I do not believe crypto will ever be able to compete with fiat or gold. It will gradually lose popularity and disappear or, at best, stay a small niche. However, I do find it incredibly exciting what crypto does to people. Imagine all the scientific insights we can gain from this hype, not only financially, but also psychologically. So I actually do see LOADS of value in crypto 
One more thing about volatility. Look at what companies which accept Bitcoin payments are actually doing with them. They immediately sell them. Why? Because you don’t want to hold money that can lose anytime 90% of value - that could basically kill a company. In other words it’s economically irrational to switch from dollars to Bitcoin.
That’s the difference between BTC and gold, and that why gold used to be a monetary standard and Bitcoin most likely will never be.
First fiat supply is limited, it can only increase within scope that makes inflation sustainable for the economy - if inflation becomes too high, then the money is abandoned as store of value by society (e.g. Zimbabwean dollar) - and even before that happens in democratic societies you have rising pressure on government to do something to curb inflation. Secondly, the relationship between dollar and Bitcoin is not that mechanical because the price is not only determined by supply but also by demand. If the demand fades away, it doesn’t matter how restricted the supply is.