Do "bitcoin proponents" dream about defrauding people at a disproportional rate? This has been the opposite of my experience.
The levels of fraud in Bitcoin are vastly higher than in other money systems like credit cards. Even if you count just one incident, Mt. Gox, the % of bitcoins that have been stolen is immense.
So, yes there are definitely lots of Bitcoin proponents dreaming about (and actually carrying out) fraud!
Why do you think the people stealing bitcoins are proponents? Bank robbers are rarely dollar proponents in the US, or yen proponents in Japan. Muggers generally aren't cash proponents or jewelry proponents. Conmen might be proponents of certain financial schemes, or they might just be charismatic.
A lot of the Bitcoin proponents are anarcho-capitalist – "I don’t want to have governments building streets from my tax money, I’d rather have every road be a toll road".
Check #bitcoin-assets on freenode, I hung out there for a few weeks, and it’s... crazy.
"How will the government force me to pay taxes? I don’t own bitcoins, I merely happen to have the piece of knowledge that is required to spend them"
In my town, gold buyers buy gold at market rate, with cash. They sell gold at premium. It is quite easy and effortless to change your gold to cash, and then buy food from the market.
With bitcoin it is a little different, bitcoin ATM's have usually quite ridiculous premiums. I think the most used one in our town has 5% both ways.
And it probably never will be – transactions speeds are horrible (even international wire transfers through SEPA are faster than Bitcoin transactions) and the energy usage of the mining systems is growing exponentially.
* No, bitcoin is totally meaningless if you can’t pay for food in it.
In my town there were couple of regular markets accepting btc. However I heard they stopped accepting it, because of transaction speeds. I guess there is still one left.
