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Even with its downsides, crypto serves as a useful medium of exchange for fringe goods. Digital (gaming) goods, guns and accessories, adult materials, and all k
by hansvm 5y ago
Even with its downsides, crypto serves as a useful medium of exchange for fringe goods. Digital (gaming) goods, guns and accessories, adult materials, and all kinds of things are flat-out banned at many payment middlemen (PayPal, Stripe, ...), and it causes problems from time to time even for large players.
CBDC's _might_ fill that void, but governments would need to treat it as infrastructure and not exercise some of the power that companies like Visa enjoy (blocking otherwise legal transactions).
To be fair, crypto hasn't really stepped up as being fantastic even for those fringe goods (insufficient adoption, painful user experience), but some utility still exists.
- arcticbull 5y ago> Even with its downsides, crypto serves as a useful medium of exchange for fringe goods. Yep, I agree. > CBDC's _might_ fill that void, but governments would need to treat it as infrastructure and not exercise some of the power that companies like Visa enjoy (blocking otherwise legal transactions). I'll be the first to say that the current legacy financial system is no panacea. Visa and Mastercard should be infrastructure just as you say. In my opinion, they should be required by law not to discriminate against any legal transactions and have safe harbor. That said ACH carries all legal transactions without discrimination. I don't know why CBDCs wouldn't do the same. What we need isn't crypto, it's payment network neutrality. The legacy financial system needs a refactor, but crypto ain't it. It's strictly worse in every way.