Does Bitcoin Meet These Criteria to Replace Money: divisible, portable, acceptable, scarce, durable, and stable?

Let’s take a look at each one of these categories and see how Bitcoin stacks up.

Divisible

It’s hard to come up with a currency that is more divisible than Bitcoin. It breaks down into 8 decimal points and could easily be programmed to breakdown into more decimal points if it was needed. I rate it 10/10.

Portable

Transporting Bitcoin is even easier than transporting USD. You can put it on a smart phone, a computer, or even write down a code on a piece of paper and put it in your sock! I rate it 10/10

Acceptable

In some ways Bitcoin is more acceptable than most currencies and in some ways it’s less acceptable. Bitcoin’s greatest weakness is that it’s not legal tender and it’s greatest strength is that it’s not legal tender. Bitcoin is accepted as payment in almost every country in the world; you just have to find the right people and the right businesses. There are major businesses that accept Bitcoin including: Wikipedia, Microsoft, AT&T, and Overstock. If you want to see a list of businesses check out this site. Here’s the big advantage you can spend your Bitcoin in almost any country in the world. That can not be said for a lot of currencies; especially currencies from third world governments and micronations. Even major currencies like the Euro can’t be spent in the USA; I would have to exchange them for Dollars.

The disadvantage is that Bitcoin isn’t accepted everywhere even places that are crypto friendly are hit and miss. Fiat currency has the advantage of being legal tender and thus forces merchants to accept it. If a shop owner doesn’t like Bitcoin no one can force him to accept it. This means while Bitcoin adoption is worldwide it isn’t thorough. However, I do believe Bitcoin adoption will continue to grow over the decade. So I rate Bitcoin’s worldwide acceptance at 10/10 but it’s local acceptance a 1/10. Therefore, I give Bitcoin a 5/10 average in acceptability.

Scarce

Bitcoin is very scarce. There will only be 21 million Bitcoin’s produced by the year 2140; not even enough Bitcoin to go around for every millionaire in the world. Rating 10/10

Durable

Bitcoin is decentralized and is hosted and mined on many different servers and throughout many different countries in the world. Because of it’s decentralized nature it’s as durable as the internet. As long as the internet is up Bitcoin will not be able to get shutdown. I don’t think the internet is quite as durable as gold because an ounce of gold requires no electricity, no computers and no internet or even any civilization. So I think Bitcoin a step or two below gold in durability but more durable than fiat currency that’s dependent on governmental systems that periodically melt down. I rate Bitcoin’s durability at 9/10.

Stable

It’s a well known fact that Bitcoin is volatile and experiences huge price swings. Over the course of this week (1/11/2021- 1/18/2021) Bitcoin has dipped to 32,000 USD and spiked to 40,000 USD and dipped back down to 36,000 USD. There are fiat currencies that do worse than this (look at the Venezuelan Bolivar) but it’s price swings are severe compared to currencies like the US Dollar or the Euro. Many people believe that Bitcoin’s price swings will level out the more people adopt it but only time will tell. I rate Bitcoin’s stability at a 2/10 only because there are currencies that are worse but I do expect Bitcoin to get better with time.

Bitcoin’s Overall Rating

If we add all my numbers up and divide it by 60 we get a 7.6/10 not bad for a currency that doesn’t have men with guns enforcing it. If you are interested in buying Bitcoin check out OKEx. OKEx makes purchasing Bitcoin easy and supports Bitcoin purchase with over 15 different currencies. It also supports buying Ether, Litecoin, USDT and many other cryptocurrencies. They also have the OKEx Academy where you can learn more about Bitcoin and the cryptocurrency market.