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Sending money over the internet. If you don't understand why that's an critical utility for billions of people on this planet, then you're not worth arguing wi
by px43 5y ago
Sending money over the internet.
If you don't understand why that's an critical utility for billions of people on this planet, then you're not worth arguing with.
- grumple 5y agoSending money over the internet is faster and safer using methods that existed before bitcoin (sending via banks / paypal / venmo / cashapp / etc). Crypto does not enable this.
- px43 5y agoNone of those services actually let you send money over the internet. All of them are custodial. You give them your money, they hold onto it, and when they feel like it, they might let you interact with other users within their closed ecosystems.
- grumple 5y agoThat is a distinction without a difference and a nonsensical one at that. I have money in my bank account and it goes to someone else’s bank account. The same is true for Bitcoin anyway - you have to use exchanges to get money in/out and you are completely dependent on strangers to process your transactions, and they cost far more. Sure you can have your own wallet but it’s entirely useless until you interact with an exchange and the network.
- px43 5y agoYou've got that backwards, exchanges are only used by people with USD or trying to get USD. The Bitcoin ecosystem did just fine before exchanges existed. I was there. We either mined our own coins, or earned them by doing work for people with coins. It was great. Also recognize the privilege that you were born with that allows you to open a bank account. About a third of the people in this world don't have that luxury. I've used Bitcoin to pay under-served artists and programmers in corners of the world that I had never heard of, and with many of them I never knew where they were located geographically, because it just doesn't matter anymore.
- thehappypm 5y agoCrypto is one tool for sending money over the internet, but it's hardly the only one, and it's far from the best. Most transaction utilities don't have potential for your transfer to lose 30% overnight.
- px43 5y agoHave you invented a magical currency that always retains its value? If so you should probabally let the world know.
- thehappypm 5y agoI use the wonderfully stable US dollar.
- lowkey 5y agoThe US dollar has lost 99% of its purchasing power since moving off the gold standard in 1933. Wonderfully stable if you consider $1 in 1933 = $1 in 2021, inflation is hidden taxation and disproportionately affects widows and orphans.
- AnimalMuppet 5y agoAnd bitcoin lost 30% of its value in the last month. So yes, the dollar is in fact wonderfully stable by comparison.
- lowkey 5y agoNo one is arguing that Bitcoin is stable. I was simply pointing out that the USD is not as stable as you presume on a long-enough timescale. In fact it loses approximately 100% of its purchasing power per century.
- thehappypm 5y agoIt took a century for USD to swing 99%, how long did it take BTC?
- mcphage 5y ago> Sending money over the internet. > If you don't understand why that's an critical utility for billions of people on this planet, then you're not worth arguing with. Are you aware that there are other ways to send money over the internet than Bitcoin?
- AnimalMuppet 5y agoIs bitcoin really going to enable billions of people to send money over the internet? Or is it going to enable a very few people to send money over the internet? This isn't a question about whether people want to use it. The question is, does bitcoin scale to that many users?