We’ve all heard it from so many people.  “I get that you love Bitcoin and all, but it’ll never catch on because it’s too hard to use.”

In fairness to a lot of people, the user experience in Bitcoin is much different from the existing systems.  Private and public keys, wallets, addresses, blocks, and everything else under the Bitcoin sun can be intimidating for the person trying to learn.  Meanwhile, they’re used to using their banks and apps like Venmo to move money around.  But that’s the thing—they’re just used to it.  They don’t actually have anything to compare their experience to, so since they’ve really only used to it, they think it’s optimal.

But after a recent experience within the fiat system, my response to the above objection is:

“You think Bitcoin is hard to use? Have you ever tried using the fiat system?”

I am one of those “Get On Zero” guys who has decided to use Bitcoin as his money.  I don’t hold any US dollars and I convert my paychecks to Bitcoin.  Now I still have to exist in the current world, so I use a credit card and have fiat bills, but I float my monthly expenses on a few forms of credit and then convert some Bitcoin into fiat to pay those off each month.

The Bitcoin side of things is awesome.  If I need to send Bitcoin, I get an address, check the fees, and send a transaction.  Minutes later, my transaction has confirmed on chain.  The experience on the Lightning Network is even better.  My troubles come when I have to interface with the fiat systems (including the on and off ramps).  The state puts all sorts of rules and restrictions on the services that I use to plug back into the fiat system and make things more painful than they otherwise would be.

A great example of this is when I got a bonus at work last month.  I use Cash App to automatically convert my direct deposit paychecks into Bitcoin, but since there are withdrawal limits, the bonus check had the potential to make it very difficult to withdrawal my Bitcoin to my own wallet in a timely manner.  What’s nice about my company’s payroll system is that I have some flexibility on direct deposits.  I’m able to specify one bank for normal bimonthly paychecks, another for bonuses and, even another for expense reimbursements.  Given my concerns about withdrawal limits, I set my bonus bank to Strike, which I had previously used for my day to day Get On Zero activities.

So let’s go through a timeline of what happened.

• Friday, December 8 – Everyone is talking about getting their bonus, but I have not seen it show up in Strike.  I go and doublecheck the account and routing numbers and notice that my account number in the Strike app is different than the one set up in the payroll site.  I remember that after I had switched to Cash App, Strike went through some issues when they halted their direct deposit services.  I assume that when that happened, the accounts associated with the direct deposit closed, so when they reinstituted it, people got new account numbers.  I’m willing to accept the blame for this part, but I reached out to Strike’s support to let them know what happened to see what they could do on their end even though I figured the payment would fail and my company would reach out to me.  To their credit, they were helpful.
• Monday, December 11 – My company’s HR department notifies me that my bonus payment was rejected and that they would be issuing me the bonus by physical check.
• Thursday, December 14 – HR notifies me that my check is ready for pickup.  I collect the check from them.  This is where it starts to get good.  My credit union cannot be linked to Strike, so I used my Ally bank account to deposit my check with my cell phone.  Otherwise, if I had deposited it with my credit union, I would have had to do an ACH transfer from my credit union to Ally and then from Ally make the transfer to Strike.  Strike offers wire transfers, but my credit union requires you to call them to set one up, and my past experience doing that (mostly waiting for an operator to be available) led me to opt to avoid them.  I deposit the check with Ally and the deposit shows up as pending.
• Friday, December 15 – I check my Ally account early the next morning and notice that only a small portion of the check’s value is available.  I see a note that says the balance of the check will clear within two business days.  It is a Friday, so I have to wait until next week. 
• Monday, December 18 – Monday rolls around and I am happy to find that the rest of the check cleared in the morning.  I submit my wire transfer request (with the $20 fee) and wait.  I get notified of the deposit in Strike around 6 PM that evening.  I make my Bitcoin purchase and withdraw it to my own wallet.

From start to finish, the ordeal took ten days.  Had I done things my way and used Bitcoin for the entire transaction, none of this would have happened.  Even if you wanted to blame me for the Strike account number issue, the situation wouldn’t have ever occurred using Bitcoin because there wouldn’t have been other parties canceling banking services on me.  I would have just given them a Bitcoin address to send the bonus to.  And by I, I mean they would have pinged my BTCPay Server for a new address, so I wouldn’t have needed to do anything.

The payment would have confirmed on chain in a matter of hours at most assuming they paid a reasonable fee (Remember that $20 wire transfer fee that no one would bat an eye at?).  If their fee were too low, it would be easy for me to send a child pays for parent transaction to get it confirmed more quickly if I needed it.  But while we’re in my Bitcoin fantasy world, I would probably have a fat Lightning channel open with my company, so my bonus payment would have settled instantly.  The on chain payment would only be used as a backup in the event that there were routing or capacity issues on Lightning.

If we want to talk about comparisons between Bitcoin and fiat, let’s do it.  People accept waiting for days upon days to move money around because that’s just what they’re used to.  Well, I’ve used Bitcoin enough that I’m not used to it anymore.  The fiat system is an old decrepit dinosaur that’s dying (thank goodness).  Even without the scaling layers being remotely close to being finished, the Bitcoin experience isn’t comparable to fiat.

So the next time someone tells you Bitcoin is too hard to use, don’t be afraid to act like they’re the one who is crazy.