Bitcoin thoughts

This is Joseph

Just a quick hit (thanks to Mark's cunning eyesight) to note that this Bitcoin report is hilariously bad, as noted by Jemima Kelly. The author of the Financial Times article notes that the authors mistake basis points for percentage points, which leads them to suggest 13.46% of credit and debit card activity is fraudulent. That would be . . . amazing if true. 

They also claim that 36% of small and medium businesses will accept Bitcoin in the US. There are some caveats in this point by Thomas Lumley that the two things are not identical but the volume of Bitcoin, worldwide, is a lot lower than the credit and debit card volume of the New Zealand economy. That's not really a sign of it being a major player as a form of payment, even if a lot of places might (technically) be able to accept them. 

This is besides the increasing issue with the power consumption issues with Bitcoin. 

If nothing else, the value of Bitcoin is going to need to be a lot more stable to be a good currency. The current high level of volatility of Bitcoin is the opposite of what we want in a store of value for exchange purposes and the idea that it might spike in value (relative to the dollar) is exactly what makes it a bad currency when things like taxes are in dollars.