The web was immensely useful before, during, and after the dot-com bubble. Debate about its utility didn't last long because of how obviously useful the Internet was. Skeptics were proven wrong in a matter of weeks or months.
"Yet crypto use in Pakistan is nevertheless active, as people are reportedly converting their salaries into stablecoins to prevent currency erosion. The rupee has dropped more than 20% against the U.S. dollar year-to-date, more than 30% over the past year. Meanwhile, BTC in rupee terms is up 103% so far in 2023 (vs 63% in U.S. dollar terms). It’s probably not a coincidence that a 2022 report from forensics company Chainalysis placed Pakistan 6th in terms of global crypto adoption."
Indeed, the analogy is limited. I would agree that Bitcoin has limited utility today, compared to the early days of the web. But there was also no real competitor to the web and it was not threatening some of the most powerful entities on earth (e.g. the US government). I don't know how long it took for gold to become a form of money but I bet it was a lot more than 14 years.
Regardless, the point was not to compare the utility of Bitcoin to that of the web. It was to highlight that the prevalence of bad investments and fraudsters in a given technology sector is not necessarily linked with the merits or potential of the underlying technology.
Why are we comparing Bitcoin to the web? Bitcoin will never have as much utility as the web. I don't think anyone has ever expected such a thing to happen.
The utility of bitcoin is well defined in my eyes. It is a store of value that can be borrowed against. People will complain all day long on the day to day volatility, but that is irrelevant in the long term when you're using it for collateral.
> The utility of bitcoin is well defined in my eyes. It is a store of value that can be borrowed against. People will complain all day long on the day to day volatility, but that is irrelevant in the long term when you're using it for collateral.
The volatility is very relevant if you are using it as collateral because it increases the risk of margin calls.
I don't believe there is any way to borrow against bitcoin that isn't susceptible to some kind of margin call when the price of bitcoin drops.
Bitcoin when ~50% collateralized is pretty stable honestly. Sure, we see it go to $60k and then eventually down to where we are now at $27k... but we've been in this current range for months now. It also is only an issue in one direction if the item you're borrowing is USD (btc going up, doesn't hurt you). If you borrow something like ETH, they are so tightly correlated, that it is easier to maintain.
Any way... this is something that can be managed, while still giving BTC a lot of utility.
These are key differences in the comparison.