4 ms·

It is not a better currency in any reasonable way besides illicit uses. To be honest, it would even be hard to classify it as a currency. It is not a currency,

It is not a better currency in any reasonable way besides illicit uses. To be honest, it would even be hard to classify it as a currency. It is not a currency, neither a store of value. The blockchain technology is also not really technologically relevant.

lawn 8y ago
> It is not a better currency in any reasonable way besides illicit uses. Oh yeah? * Donations to wikileaks. Paypal froze their account and there are tons of examples where they have done this without good cause. * Legal businesses like marijuana sellers, porn, escort services and gambling platforms have had trouble using and keeping payment services. Some have been forced to only accept cash payments as they couldn't accept credit cards. * A way to accept irreversible payments digitally. Credit card charge back fraud is a big problem. * Credit card companies take a 5-10% fee. Cryptocurrencies are much cheaper (see Bitcoin Cash as Bitcoin is not a good example). * Send money to remote countries, for example to countries in war, Argentina or North Korea. Western Union is slow, expensive and cannot be used to send everywhere. With cryptocurrencies all you need is internet (sometimes a VPN as well).
- ThalesX 8y ago
  I'm not a connoisseur but your last bullet point seems strange. In order for a currency to be functional, it needs to have someone accepting it. Would a war torn country really find value in digital currency?
  - lawn 8y ago
    So sending money to your relatives, who presumably have lost their homes and savings, isn't valuable? Sure we're not there adoption wise yet where it would help them much. The fundamental properties are there though and nothing else can claim the same.
  - etherael 8y ago
    The more corrupt and broken a given economy is, the higher the markup for reliable crypto and (relatively reliable) foreign currencies. Rule of thumb I have almost always found to be true. Case in point, Zimbabwe just tried to ban bitcoin and now the market price there jumped by almost 5000 USD. It's hard for people who don't see the government as what it actually is, to see the value in cryptocurrencies. Some governments hide their nature better than others. For those which are very straight forward about their parasitic nature and do not make any real attempt to justify it though, people subject to them are extremely aware of the actual value of state and central bank proof currency. Inhabitants of OECD nations will at this point say "but nobody here needs that" with a straight face, unaware the US government just "lost" 21 trillion dollars. Which actually probably means worse than lost. It probably means it was illegally spent for nefarious ends. And given the foreign policy objectives of the US coupled with the "questionable partnerships" they've recently been discovered to be directly financing, that money probably has a lot of blood on it. Such is the actual naked nature of the state. It's depressing, but there's no getting around it. And that's why the world needs cryptocurrencies; to destroy them all. They are the only possible tool for that essential job.

lawn 8y ago

> It is not a better currency in any reasonable way besides illicit uses. Oh yeah? * Donations to wikileaks. Paypal froze their account and there are tons of examples where they have done this without good cause. * Legal businesses like marijuana sellers, porn, escort services and gambling platforms have had trouble using and keeping payment services. Some have been forced to only accept cash payments as they couldn't accept credit cards. * A way to accept irreversible payments digitally. Credit card charge back fraud is a big problem. * Credit card companies take a 5-10% fee. Cryptocurrencies are much cheaper (see Bitcoin Cash as Bitcoin is not a good example). * Send money to remote countries, for example to countries in war, Argentina or North Korea. Western Union is slow, expensive and cannot be used to send everywhere. With cryptocurrencies all you need is internet (sometimes a VPN as well).

ThalesX 8y ago
I'm not a connoisseur but your last bullet point seems strange. In order for a currency to be functional, it needs to have someone accepting it. Would a war torn country really find value in digital currency?
- lawn 8y ago
  So sending money to your relatives, who presumably have lost their homes and savings, isn't valuable? Sure we're not there adoption wise yet where it would help them much. The fundamental properties are there though and nothing else can claim the same.
- etherael 8y ago
  The more corrupt and broken a given economy is, the higher the markup for reliable crypto and (relatively reliable) foreign currencies. Rule of thumb I have almost always found to be true. Case in point, Zimbabwe just tried to ban bitcoin and now the market price there jumped by almost 5000 USD. It's hard for people who don't see the government as what it actually is, to see the value in cryptocurrencies. Some governments hide their nature better than others. For those which are very straight forward about their parasitic nature and do not make any real attempt to justify it though, people subject to them are extremely aware of the actual value of state and central bank proof currency. Inhabitants of OECD nations will at this point say "but nobody here needs that" with a straight face, unaware the US government just "lost" 21 trillion dollars. Which actually probably means worse than lost. It probably means it was illegally spent for nefarious ends. And given the foreign policy objectives of the US coupled with the "questionable partnerships" they've recently been discovered to be directly financing, that money probably has a lot of blood on it. Such is the actual naked nature of the state. It's depressing, but there's no getting around it. And that's why the world needs cryptocurrencies; to destroy them all. They are the only possible tool for that essential job.