This was posted in the duplicate thread:

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There are three types of people who are into Bitcoin:

1. People who are in it out of sheer curiosity.

2. People who are in it to get rich quick.

3. People who have been scammed into it.

The people who are in it out of curiosity are the people I don't take issue with. At its beginnings, I found Bitcoin to be a curious thing because it was a novel and new idea. However, as things progressed and I learnt more about how it all worked, I saw it as a cumbersome idea that wouldn't effectively replace anything and as a result now I'd rather make jokes about it than take anything about it seriously. I've never spent more than $20 CAD on Bitcoin and I have gotten it all back for that matter too.

People who get scammed into Bitcoin typically get scammed either one of two ways: they're either being coerced into using it because they've gotten something like malware on their machines (CryptoWall and its variants) or they see it as an investment alternative. The only times I've ever seen non-technical people experience Bitcoin is when I have to tell them that the malware on their computers will only release their unbacked-up data requires a payment using the cryptocurrency to get it all back. And that is really what a non-technical person's experience with Bitcoin is going to be: it's a way to pay thieves.

As for the get rich quick people, they tend to fall into the third category or they themselves are scammers.

Right now there are two forces dominating the Bitcoin community: the miners and those who are holding out on whatever magical unicorn rainbows makes the coins have value. The miners don't want to see changes to the software because it'll hurt their bottom line and the people holding and exchanging it want to see these changes so they can benefit. So as a result, Bitcoin has entered a war of attrition and is starting to show its problems. Mike Hearn's leaving is definitely a consequence of this problem.

Earlier yesterday [1], I made a quip about how it's insulting to suggest that we get those who are "unbanked" as a result of living at no-fixed-address (ie: "homeless") should eventually move on to Bitcoin as an alternative to mainstream financial institutions. It's really for the reasons that Hearn made: would you want to wait a random period of time ranging from maybe a few minutes to a few hours for your transaction to go through? It's already insulting enough that they're living at the bottom of society, so why would we want to get them to use a bottom-tier financial system? Why not instead suggest making it easier for them to participate within mainstream banking schemes?

I anticipate based on my last remarks that the responses to this post will consist of feckless anecdotes and pointless accusations that I and others have a "problem" with Bitcoin. I guess to a certain extent the statement of me having a problem is true, but at the end of the day Hearn is right.

Bitcoin is a failure and if you invested into it then you're getting what you deserve. If you think that it isn't a failure then you obviously didn't comprehend Hearn's writing.

[1] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10898408