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I agree that people shouldn't be forced to use any currency, and should be able to choose freely. The reality is, most countries force you to use the currency t

I agree that people shouldn't be forced to use any currency, and should be able to choose freely. The reality is, most countries force you to use the currency they issue. The worse reality is, all of them are inflationary by design. Cryptocurrencies give you a deflationary option. Don't like it? Don't use it. I think cryptocurrencies are the future, and we will see more and more stores accepting them, and the conversions will happen automatically.

grey-area 5y ago
As a retailer why would you accept payment in a currency with this sort of daily volatility of 10%, which doesn’t even have instant confirmation (!!??), has slow transactions, no rollback, no fraud detection or insurance and has high fees? As a customer why would you make payment in a currency with high fees, poor ux, slow transactions and just enough anonymity to make it perfect for scammers? As a payment processor why would you touch this currency with a barge-pole given the above problems? Cryptocurrency isn’t the future of currency or payments, and bitcoin in particular is solving the wrong problems, badly.
- deadfish 5y ago
  Not that I don't agree with a lot of what you are saying, but I think despite being digital crypto is a lot more like cash than card payments. But cash also has 'no rollback, no fraud detection or insurance'. At least you are don't have the risk of counterfeit notes.
  - grey-area 5y ago
    Sure, and that's one of the reasons cash is going to disappear in the coming decades and yet another flaw in the design of bitcoin (which was modelled on physical currency or some sort of electronic gold just as that loses favour). It's not competing with cash, it's competing with free instant transfers between bank accounts and free payments (for the customer), which many people enjoy right now. Physical currency was always an instrument of states, and now they have better ones, which retailers, consumers, and states prefer (digital currencies, not cryptocurrencies). In many countries cash usage is down to 20%, it's expensive to produce and manage and not required any more.
q1w2 5y ago
A small amount of inflation (single digits per year), is a feature, not a bug. It prevents the boom-bust of people hoarding currency, and forces the currency itself to be used efficiently. If the gov't can maintain a bond rate below that of the inflation rate, it also acts as a small tax to help fund the gov't - which also isn't a bad thing. Not that any of this matters at the moment, because the real limitation of cryptocurrencies is the tiny transaction throughput.

grey-area 5y ago

As a retailer why would you accept payment in a currency with this sort of daily volatility of 10%, which doesn’t even have instant confirmation (!!??), has slow transactions, no rollback, no fraud detection or insurance and has high fees? As a customer why would you make payment in a currency with high fees, poor ux, slow transactions and just enough anonymity to make it perfect for scammers? As a payment processor why would you touch this currency with a barge-pole given the above problems? Cryptocurrency isn’t the future of currency or payments, and bitcoin in particular is solving the wrong problems, badly.

deadfish 5y ago
Not that I don't agree with a lot of what you are saying, but I think despite being digital crypto is a lot more like cash than card payments. But cash also has 'no rollback, no fraud detection or insurance'. At least you are don't have the risk of counterfeit notes.
- grey-area 5y ago
  Sure, and that's one of the reasons cash is going to disappear in the coming decades and yet another flaw in the design of bitcoin (which was modelled on physical currency or some sort of electronic gold just as that loses favour). It's not competing with cash, it's competing with free instant transfers between bank accounts and free payments (for the customer), which many people enjoy right now. Physical currency was always an instrument of states, and now they have better ones, which retailers, consumers, and states prefer (digital currencies, not cryptocurrencies). In many countries cash usage is down to 20%, it's expensive to produce and manage and not required any more.

q1w2 5y ago

A small amount of inflation (single digits per year), is a feature, not a bug. It prevents the boom-bust of people hoarding currency, and forces the currency itself to be used efficiently. If the gov't can maintain a bond rate below that of the inflation rate, it also acts as a small tax to help fund the gov't - which also isn't a bad thing. Not that any of this matters at the moment, because the real limitation of cryptocurrencies is the tiny transaction throughput.