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> central banks face growing competition from private actors offering their own digital alternative to physical cash Are they though? Which goods and services
by peteretep 6y ago
> central banks face growing competition from private actors offering their own digital alternative to physical cash
Are they though? Which goods and services can I buy where the price is set in crypto cash, rather than translated to crypto cash?
- capableweb 6y agoDoes that matter? There are many American products that are initially set in USD that I can buy with EUR, doesn't that mean that EUR is competing with USD when I have a choice to use both?
- mvc 6y ago> There are many American products that are initially set in USD that I can buy with EUR Ultimately those EURs are being converted to USDs because the producers of those American products are taxed in USDs.
- ArtTimeInvestor 6y agoYou can buy art for example: https://opensea.io https://opensea.io
- peteretep 6y agoThe ability to "buy" art here is vaguely interesting, but it doesn't surprise me that the only thing denominated in cryptocurrency is an entry on another blockchain.
- yokaze 6y agoHow are you paying ransom-ware then, if not for crypto-cash?
- peteretep 6y agoI haven't checked, but I reckon the asking price for ransomware is figured out in USD and then converted to crypto. Presumably the pricing model is pretty sophisticated for maximising revenue. EDIT: 20s Googling: "(2013) Bitcoin instability over the past few months has prompted CryptoLocker's masterminds to reduce the ransom to 1 BTC, 0.5 BTC, and then to where it is currently: 0.3 BTC."
- yokaze 6y agoYes, the price is not hard fixed in Bitcoin, largely because it is not really a habitual currency, so any fluctuation will directly impact the actual asking price for everyone. But still, the asking price for the "service" is in Bitcoin as peteretep was asking. They could've asked an amount in US$ payable in Bitcoin, but the price is given in BTC. I would argue, the change of price is "just" reflecting the deflation of bitcoin, which from my point-of-view is not terribly different to other price-adjustments across currencies. E.g. Apple increasing the prices in their App Store in UK£ due to its depreciation (https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jan/17/apple-ios-mac-app-store-prices-rise-25-per-cent-following-brexit https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jan/17/apple-ios...)
- michaelt 6y agoSome would say the fact Tether has a market cap of $34 billion demonstrates there's demand for digital currencies denominated in conventional currencies. Assuming you overlook any suspicious behaviour, that is.
- anm89 6y agoAs someone whose extremely pro crypto currency, you are right in pointing out this is nonsense. The authors seem to be putting a lot of effort into building a narrative here, for what purpose isn't clear.
- ccortes 6y agoI think it's referring to stablecoins like USDC more than traditional crypto. Also, why would they wait until it becomes a thing? It's clearly just getting bigger so might as well do something before it actually becomes a "real" competitor.
- notahacker 6y agoThe paper does also say stablecoins are more likely to widely used as money than crytocurrency (if properly regulated). But it also acknowledges that they carry significant counterparty risk, especially as holding asset backing is unprofitable and so issuers are incentivised not to hold the assets they claims to hold. And the reality is that stablecoins aren't really used for anything other than buying crypto on offshore exchanges. (tbf to the paper, apart from the sentence highlighted by the OP it's pretty level-headed about actually existent crypto)