“True, but 10 Franklins in my pocket is a whole lot harder for some 15 year old 4chan troll, foreign hacker or a just a garden variety computer glitch to take away from me.”
The Franklins are still only an IOU on paper though. Without banks accepting them, they only useful for writing on, setting fires and wiping your a**.
Most Franklins only exist in the digital world. The moment those are hacked, the banks shut down and everyone finds out, your paper will be 100% worthless too.
Cash does have its uses though and I was able to buy food and feed many people on my block after Hurricane Sandy while power was out. Many people had no cash at all and fully depended on cards!
However, the stores only took the cash because they fully expected the lights to turn back on soon. Once that expectation is gone, it’s just paper...
“The Franklins are still only an IOU on paper though.”
—
Backed by “the full faith and credit of the United States government”. The guaranteer backing bitcoin is....who, now?
“Most Franklins only exist in the digital world.”
—
Yup, a bank can be robbed digitally or in real life. Again, your money is covered by FDIC, up to 250,000. When Bitcoin is hacked and your money taken, you are covered by...what, now?
“Once that expectation is gone, it’s just paper...”
—
I haven’t seen too many people who, spotting a dollar bill on the street, pick it up, grumble about litterbugs and then toss it into the nearest trashcan. And I’ll be more than happy to take a pile or two of that “paper” off your hands, if it’s taking up too much space.
All kidding aside, though - if the SHTF and world governments collapse, all the bitcoins in the world ain’t gonna help anybody - same as with government issued currency.
At least the tangible paper currency is still good for toilet paper, if nothing else.