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Volatility aside, stuff like Bitcoin _is_ already used for payments, albeit in a much lower volume than the crypto proponents wish it would be. I pay contractor
by herval 4y ago
Volatility aside, stuff like Bitcoin _is_ already used for payments, albeit in a much lower volume than the crypto proponents wish it would be. I pay contractors now and then with BTC, particularly in South America and Africa, and works MUCH better than SWIFT (even if I have to convert from USD to BTC and they have to convert from BTC to whatever on their side).
Projects like Ripple also have their use - it's mostly a replacement for SWIFT & similar systems (you'd be surprised by just how fragile these interbank systems are).
Some countries are implementing their own "digital currencies" as well (notably China), and they may end up being some flavor of crypto currency (although a public blockchain is not mandatory for these cases - see the example of PIX in Brazil, which works incredibly well without any public chain shenanigans).
So yea, there's value on the whole thing, but the amount of fraud, money laundering and flat out scams (in particular now that mainstream VCs are propping up the entire system) is really too big of a downside to ignore.
- yieldcrv 4y agoAvoiding all regulatory scrutiny and delays of an international wire transfer by converting them to domestic transfers in both countries is a major use of crypto that has almost no way of being quantified. International wires are fraught with painful user experiences and costs and time issues and its all unknown beforehand. This works even better when you already have inventory of ANY crypto, or keep stablecoins on hand because you use them. then the request to pay doesn't require you to get USD over to a crypto exchange and convert, just the near instant act of transferring. When your contractor is able to get goods and services and invest in crypto, they don't need their local fiat either, just a common reality, not something to convince anybody of (unlike when we were doing this during the last decade).
- happyopossum 4y ago> and works MUCH better than SWIFT (even if I have to convert from USD to BTC and they have to convert from BTC to whatever on their side). Assuming the exchange you're converting in doesn't collapse before giving you your money...
- theturtletalks 4y agoCryptocurrency is Pandora's Box and the last thing to escape it will be decentralization. Everything you listed is the cost of decentralization and making sure a few powerful players can be held in check. Before someone chimes in and says things are still "centralized" in crypto, things are slowly progressing to decentralization. And even if it takes decades, some industries like payment processing are the ideal case for crypto (Pornhub only takes Bitcoin for payment). Decentralization has a cost, but understanding if it will even work has a even bigger cost.