Agreed, but it doesn’t have an infinite number of possible supplements since it has a special standard as legal tender.

You make a few points there – here are replies to a few. “Appeal to authority” is a well known logical fallacy. The more interesting part here is that your “authority” are tech entrepreneurs rather than economists or monetary policy experts. So it’s an irrelevant argument, made poorly.

Your comment re intrinsic value doesn’t address my criticism. Without intrinsic value, other crypto currencies can be perfect substitutes (network effects aside). Fiat currency, issued by a central bank and made legal tender by law, doesn’t have that weakness.

The book (and my comments in my review) are about Bitcoin the currency being a Bad Idea. If you’re arguing that the technology is useful so don’t worry about a single implementation called Bitcoin, then I’d agree – but that’s perpendicular to the rest of your arguments.

If you thought about it a bit more carefully, perhaps you would understand that the dark underbelly that you reference is the dark underbelly of humanity not the web or bitcoin. That dark underbelly is far more prevalent in the cash monetary system of dollars, pounds, etc than it is in bitcoin.

Most bitcoin enthusiasts understand it well enough to know perfectly well that other cryptocurrencies can copy bitcoin, that’s why we already have over 500 of them today, without in any way detracting from bitcoin being by far the strongest and most popular. Most of us also recognise that doesn’t mean it is 100% resistant to competition.

Regarding intrinsic value, anyone who talks about any kind of intrinsic value when it comes to money, is wrong. It does not exist in any form of money, it is all about perception. Please point to one that you think that does and I will prove to you that it doesn’t.

Of course bitcoin still has limitations as a currency right now because it is still in its embryonic stages, but over the coming years, it will become stronger, less volatile, easier to us, and completely universal.

Final comment: it is not bitcoin per se that is the game changer, it is the technology that underpins it. You talk about bitcoin as a currency but that is only one App of the network & blockchain technology.

If you really want to understand it, I suggest you listen to Andreas Antonopoulos educate the Canadian Senate about it. He’s probably the most knowledgeable and articulate person when it comes to bitcoin:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUNGFZDO8mM