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Not entirely related, but in my personal cache of "I was almost a billionaire" stories, my favorite is when I was approached to build a porn platform that would

by issa 4y ago

Not entirely related, but in my personal cache of "I was almost a billionaire" stories, my favorite is when I was approached to build a porn platform that would accept payment in Bitcoin. Who knows if the site would have made money, but we would have purchased a LOT of Bitcoin at under $1.

cowtools 4y ago
I think the scarcity is a bad feature for a currency used for payments. It encourages users to hold instead of spend. I imagine that's a major reason why we don't see many payment-oriented cryptocurrency use-cases. The allure of speculative investment is too great for many.
- TimJRobinson 4y ago
  Stablecoins on crypto rails are the much more likely solution. There's networks like Polygon Nightfall or Aztec Network that are private, cheap, secured by Ethereum, and allow sending stablecoins (so any fiat currency). I can imagine these being integrated everywhere in the future. Stripe has started to get into Ethereum connectivity lately to make it easy to add them to any website. Many other payment providers and websites will follow because it's permissionless.
  - cowtools 4y ago
    I think stablecoins are fundamentally a centralized technology. It betrays the purpose of cryptocurrency in the first place if there's a single point of failure that can be regulated to hell.
    - Sargos 4y ago
      There are lots of stablecoins of all different types. You are probably thinking of Tether or USDC which are companies and can be regulated/shut down but there are also stablecoins like DAI which are decentralized and cannot be shut down. I imagine most people would just use DAI on Aztec when buying porn or drugs.
      - cowtools 4y ago
        From what I understand, stablecoins generally fall into two categories: 1. Relies on some central entity to buy/sell it as to peg/back it to another asset. 2. Relies on some central observer to sign exchange rates so that the system can automatically adjust its reward system.

by issa 4y ago

cowtools 4y ago

I think the scarcity is a bad feature for a currency used for payments. It encourages users to hold instead of spend. I imagine that's a major reason why we don't see many payment-oriented cryptocurrency use-cases. The allure of speculative investment is too great for many.

TimJRobinson 4y ago
Stablecoins on crypto rails are the much more likely solution. There's networks like Polygon Nightfall or Aztec Network that are private, cheap, secured by Ethereum, and allow sending stablecoins (so any fiat currency). I can imagine these being integrated everywhere in the future. Stripe has started to get into Ethereum connectivity lately to make it easy to add them to any website. Many other payment providers and websites will follow because it's permissionless.
- cowtools 4y ago
  I think stablecoins are fundamentally a centralized technology. It betrays the purpose of cryptocurrency in the first place if there's a single point of failure that can be regulated to hell.
  - Sargos 4y ago
    There are lots of stablecoins of all different types. You are probably thinking of Tether or USDC which are companies and can be regulated/shut down but there are also stablecoins like DAI which are decentralized and cannot be shut down. I imagine most people would just use DAI on Aztec when buying porn or drugs.
    - cowtools 4y ago
      From what I understand, stablecoins generally fall into two categories: 1. Relies on some central entity to buy/sell it as to peg/back it to another asset. 2. Relies on some central observer to sign exchange rates so that the system can automatically adjust its reward system.