BITCOIN as an alternative to regular currency

[GranpaChook]

Stablecoins do. USDT is the biggest I think. They're always pegged to the dollar.

How do they peg it?

Wasn't there one that was supposed to be pegged but suddenly wasn't?

Yep, I think that was the Terra-Luna one. I think that was really dodgy as they had their own stable coin and native token. So the stable coin was backed by the token (which was obviously worthless). When the token crashed the stablecoin was no longer stable and the whole thing went caput. The owner was arrested for fraud in the end I believe.

To be honest, anything outside of Bitcoin is a total scam and should be veered clear of. Bitcoin itself you can debate for hours but it is at least decentralized and doesn't have a CEO or owners manipulating the supply at the drop of a hat. Genuine stablecoins do have their use (as you have alluded to as a bridge to Crypto betting platforms) and they *should*, theoretically be stable.

[Euler]

Y, I did some more research this afternoon to check how it was pegged to the dollar and how the underlying company works, etc. In theory, it should work. But a lack of regulation means it's not impossible there could be a problem. But regulators aren't known for spotting issues anyhow!

[ruthlessimon]

I can't lie, I'm impressed with how well BTC has held up despite all the craziness right now.

[bdamir]

Yeah, no matter what the market does, Bitcoin seems to stay pretty resilient compared to most other coins. I started out trading smaller tokens and stablecoins and after witnessing things like Terra-Luna, I just stick with the basics for longer-term stuff. But for side projects or launching a token, it’s still hard to ignore Solana because of the speed and low fees.

[firlandsfarm]

Why do people still mine for BTC? I'm not referring to the mining farms but more the 'hobbyist' type miner with some machines in the garage. With the price fluctuations of BTC, the price of electricity (especially in the UK) and the life of the equipment there is the constant on/off question "is mining profitable?". Because of that why don't people just buy some BTC and save the capital cost?