I feel that this article pointed them out as accurately as possible.

Anal Magician

The article was written on 17.03.18 shortly after the crash from historical highs. Let’s review the arguments from the perspective of the years passed.

1. So far, this is pure theory, not proven by practice

Bitcoin is believed in by adepts of ancap and AES, others don’t need it. For most, the state is fine, and anarchy is not fine.

True. There is no point in trying to persuade. They will come themselves when life forces them.

2. “Solvable problems” are made up

Blockchain is inconvenient as a real estate registry, etc.

True. The bottleneck is the mechanism for confirming the truth of the information stored in the blockchain. The maximum amount of information about the non-digital world that can be entrusted to a blockchain is a certification that an event took place no later than the addition of such-and-such a block to the blockchain. It’s like photographing a person with a newspaper to certify that they were alive at the time the newspaper was published—it’s possible, but it’s using a newspaper for something other than its intended purpose.

3. Irreversibility of transactions

Examples are given of handing over bitcoins under duress without the possibility of return.

With the same success, one could shake out a PIN code and cash out a bank card. Large sums in bitcoin are not hard to protect, for example, via multisig. It works no worse than additional confirmation of bank transactions. The problem is contrived, unlike the problem of blocking bank accounts.

4. Cryptocurrency payments: expensive and slow

Fast and cheap on-chain payments are a vanishing luxury, the infancy of the technology. Those wishing to stay in the game need to master second-layer protocols.

5. Unsuitability as a medium of exchange

The exchange rate is unstable.

Those for whom it is critical can use stablecoins, and convert small amounts into fiat immediately. There are plenty of tools.

6. Unsuitability as a means of long-term investment

The author is not talking about what one might think based on the headline, but about the fact that bitcoin’s capitalization is small, and if one invests a large sum, it will be impossible to withdraw it within a reasonable timeframe without crashing the rate. That is, it is about low liquidity, not long-term price trends.

True. With the current capitalization, medium capitals are entering bitcoin—large ones still cannot.

7. Blockchain as a noose for the economy

Deflation is harmful.

For hard money, this problem does not exist.

8. Blockchain democracy is worse than existing systems of separation of powers

A Belarusian explains to Russians that the state system of checks and balances works perfectly, while bitcoin’s mechanisms for ensuring decentralization are somehow dubious.

Incorrect. Bitcoin’s decentralization is stable because it is beneficial to everyone. Every participant has something at stake: funds invested in miners, in the bitcoins themselves, in maintaining a node, or in software development—an attempt at dishonest play leads to losing those funds. This is how the creators of bitcoin cash manipulated the price and suffered losses.

9. Inequality and market manipulation

There are whales in the crypto market who control serious amounts; they are capable of playing with prices.

I can offer my old posts on this as an answer: one, two, three.

10. Technology does not save from collusion

For various small cryptos, things like a 51% attack are relevant.

All the worse for small cryptos. Bitcoin has already passed the stage where it could be attacked for a reasonable amount of money.

What is the result?

Cryptocurrencies lost the first round; work on mistakes is necessary. The demand for crypto-anarchy ideas will fall; the “straight guys” choose centralized solutions.

From the height of the past two years, no loss is visible. Bubbles burst, the viable strengthened. Centralized solutions may be useful for small payments, but decentralized ones do not tolerate haste, and solid gentlemen prefer them.