Key Points
Skeptics of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have had their prejudices reinforced..
The two main use casesfraud and crimehave been exposed to the public in dramatic fashion, so now all we have to do is sit back and wait for the inevitable collapse in value..
The popularity is behind a rush of small bitcoin purchases in recent months that has driven the record trading and reduced the median transaction size to about $20, from around $500 last year, according to Coin Metrics data..
Digital gold: When it became clear that bitcoin was useless as a currency, its backers switched to claiming that it is a store of value, with its maximum issuance offering protection against the money-printing tendencies of the Federal Reserve..
Crime: I was tempted a few years ago by the idea that the value of crypto could be underpinned by genuine transactions that need to avoid the financial system: Buying illegal drugs; money laundering; avoiding sanctions; anonymous (but legal) pornography purchases; terrorist finance; and ransomware..
