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> This fact is why cryptocurrencies have such a seemingly difficult time finding grounding to the marketplace. It’s not transaction times or energy usage. Don'
by abeppu 5y ago
> This fact is why cryptocurrencies have such a seemingly difficult time finding grounding to the marketplace. It’s not transaction times or energy usage.
Don't you think it's overly simplistic to claim there's only one reason?
Transaction times (or ETH gas costs or whatever) have made them infeasible to use in a bunch of cases.
But isn't part of it also that every fiat currency has a baked in demand, in that if you don't pay your taxes in that currency you go to jail? As a US citizen, even if every business I frequent accepted BTC, I would still need USD. Using cryptocurrencies by contrast is entirely optional. And to the degree that you believe in the usefulness of cryptocurrencies, would you really spend it on a regular basis?
- politician 5y agoLook, you don’t need to trust or believe me, but every major country central bank is evaluating switching to cryptocurrencies and real-time instant payment settlement systems. Google keywords “Central Bank Digital Currency”. Central Banks, FIs, and FinTechs are hyper aware of the value of distributed ledgers.
- acdha 5y agoI think you’re right but that comes from mixing a couple of distinct concepts: most blockchain fans class distributed ledgers as a separate category because they don’t need anonymity and the expense of proof-of-work mechanisms. I’d be unsurprised if whatever the next round of modernization ends up being is called a blockchain for marketing reasons (unless the big consulting firms have moved on by then) but ends up being a far more conventional ledger system because they have existing trust relationships and don’t even want anonymity.
- hakfoo 5y agoAre they valuing a distributed ledger, or are the various CBDC projects more of a faster-horses answer for ACH? A significant part of the need for distributed systems goes away when you're no longer trying to be trustless, and much of the role of a central bank is to be a central anchor of trust. They can run the whole damn ledger, and there's a solid case for doing so being part of a modern financial system. The more sinister factor I could see is that bad actors like distributed systems because they represent a workaround for KYC/AML/capital control regulations. If Chase allows an account opened by $boogeyman_of_the_week, heads will roll. There's nobody that can be readily sued or intimidated to encourage a decentralized network into excluding a participant.
- pgwhalen 5y agoCBDC’s are anything but cryptocurrencies. This is a major misunderstanding of why central banks are pursuing them.
- politician 5y agoYou’re correct about the internal layers, but incorrect about the external layers of the proposed systems.