7 ms·

I travelled to Argentina around this time and, plane ticket aside, I used Bitcoins for everything. I bought BTC from localbitcoins, travelled there, paid for my

by zorked 4y ago

I travelled to Argentina around this time and, plane ticket aside, I used Bitcoins for everything. I bought BTC from localbitcoins, travelled there, paid for my stay and some meals in BTC (there was a website that showed restaurants and cafes that accepted it) and exchanged BTC for ARS for the rest of expenses from someone whom I met via localbitcoins there (could be you!). This was peak crypto actually. It was useful, peer-to-peer, actually allowed people to opt out of the monetary system, it felt like a community, there was this sense of excitement. Then all the crypto ICO pump and dumpers with frog avatars came and it was over.

capableweb 4y ago
> Then all the crypto ICO pump and dumpers with frog avatars came and it was over. If cryptocurrency doesn't survive being misused for stuff like that and gets dragged down because of it, then it deserves it. But it seems to be ticking along even despite of that, just like the US Dollar, so the future seems unclear still.
- largepeepee 4y ago
  BTC had always been a means of avoiding regulations, and that's fine imo, because let's be frank... US regulations are on par with the CCP in execution with stupid rules like double taxation and mandated rules for foreign banks not in their jurisdiction. But they control the loud speakers and have much stronger global enforcement, ie they are the biggest gangsters around so they set the rules.
  - noduerme 4y ago
    The double taxation thing really is a bitch. Not to mention, giving up one's US citizenship triggers the equivalent of an estate tax as if you died. Still, it's a democracy and some people voted for those things; it also doesn't explicitly force people to stop speaking their native language or abandon their religion, or throw people in prison for waving a sign in the street. So I keep my US passport and pay my taxes. The US is one of the few countries in the world where people do collectively have power to make drastic and enduring changes to the system without needing to start a cycle of violence to accomplish their aims.
    - largepeepee 4y ago
      >where people do collectively have power to make drastic and enduring changes to the system without needing to start a cycle of violence to accomplish their aims. Tell that to me again after the financial system, immense legal corruption and healthcare has been fixed. These are all problems known for decades beyond some people's lifespans and consecutive presidents haven't been able to fix it...hell many go again their election promises with lame duck excuses. If I had to compare both shitty superpowers, China would be "can't change the party but you can change the policy", while the US would be "you can change the party, but not the policy" Both are dystopian in their own ways, difference being China is an obvert dystopia, while the US is covert one drugging their populace to numb discontent etc.
      - noduerme 4y ago
        I don't want to get into some kind of political debate that could be determined to be a "flame" thing - I'm on probation over here. But don't you think the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) was a pretty major stick in the eye of the insurance-industrial-complex? Sure, it's nothing remotely approaching the kind of social medicine available in France or New Zealand, but it was provably the result of large numbers of people voting for change against the prevailing moneyed structure that was in place. Policy doesn't necessarily swing 180º with every new administration; that's probably for the best. Isn't this an example of policy being shifted democratically? I hesitate to get into the pull-out from Afghanistan or the judicial decision to rescind Roe v Wade; those are both things I strongly, vociferously disagree with. But they're both examples of public pressure changing policy (for better or worse) through the application of democratic processes available to all citizens.
        largepeepee 4y ago
        It always boils down to who are you comparing it too? Cheering those minuscule changes are akin to praising the CCP for beingat open to change with them ending there zero-covid policy. At the end of the day these policies are slow and usually ineffective - all of your examples included.
    - 4y ago
noduerme 4y ago
Excellent comment. If you'd like my long term view.. crypto does have value. I've said this since 2009 or so. Its value is the difference of its transaction fees versus middle parties like credit card companies, plus whatever local currency restrictions are in place which it can circumvent. Take that total and divide it by the number of Bitcoins in the world, that's the maximum logical non-hyped potential value of Bitcoin. It's only worth what it's valuable for as a means of exchange. Its relative value happens to be much more under extreme local circumstances which crop up in various parts of the world. But I do think it serves an otherwise ignored niche. All those ICO people came much later...
- X6S1x6Okd1st 4y ago
  Yeah my early thoughts around crypto were that it's so nice to have another floor on how expensive it is to transfer value between two parties. Other than ETH L1 transfers are generally sub 10 cents
  - noduerme 4y ago
    That was totally the original value, I thought. That and being able to take it for blackjack and poker without trusting the holding to LibertyCoin or some shady bullshit outfit like that.
joyfylbanana 4y ago
The acceptance of bitcoin payments at the grassroots level is still happening. With the Lightning Network, it's quite viable these days. I've been following https://btcmap.org/map https://btcmap.org/map off and on, and new merchants and sites seem to be slowly popping up. Interestingly, there seem to be tourist hotspots in some countries where Bitcoin is more widely accepted. It would be a fun idea to visit these places and try to pay for everything with bitcoin only.
bolanyo 4y ago
It wasn't just ICO pump and dumpers that got rid of this utility. The people coordinating Bitcoin made an explicit technical decision to focus on it being a store-of-value, which made it too expensive to use as a means-of-exchange. Smaller transactions like the ones you described became too slow and expensive to be viable anymore, because of these decisions.
- rchaud 4y ago
  > which made it too expensive to use as a means-of-exchange. But wouldn't this have happened over time anyway as transaction size and network volume increased? The exponential increases in electricity usage to mine BTC would have to be paid for somehow?
  - px43 4y ago
    Not at all. For example Ethereum and Monero etc have floating blocksizes that will adjust due to market demand. The fee market can get pricey for a while, but it quickly adapts to new volume. In the early days Satoshi begrudgingly put in a 1mb block size limit to prevent DOS, and later through some underhanded political BS, that limit was basically made permanent. Also you seem to think that network usage is related to some way to electricity usage. Even today, a single person with a laptop could be the only miner, and the network would still run just fine. The current block reward on Bitcoin is 900 coins per day, so the upper bound on electricity usage is however much power 900 BTC will get you. That number gets cut in half every 4 years, so generally, the max electricity expenditure is actually going down, except that the price of BTC is currently going up faster than the rewards are going down. Energy usage is directly correlated to price, not utility. There is a loose connection between utility and price, but since utility got capped in 2015 or so, the price has continued to go up, so that connection is pretty tenuous.
    - noduerme 4y ago
      > through some underhanded political BS There is this weird assumption that Bitcoin was "managed" or that political forces were at work. It was simply a war between some developers and others. Not to you specifically, but in this thread: I find it troubling, this new reflex of ascribing to dark conspiracies what are banal historical facts. The growth of the blocksize was inevitable once it took off; now we have lots of shitcoins, and a few that are stores of value and some that are means of exchange. Lots of hucksters showed up, but no one planned anything. (And looking at the state of things now, it clearly shows). https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/aug/17/bitcoin-xt-alternative-cryptocurrency-chief-scientist https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/aug/17/bitcoin-x... never ascribe to conspiracy what can be ascribed to stupidity.
pjc50 4y ago
Something I've been wondering about with regard to CBDCs; if you're in a Western country with low inflation and good banks there seems like little point. But what if it were an explicit goal to make a CBDC usable in other countries? Export US price stability to Argentina.
- rchaud 4y ago
  > if you're in a Western country with low inflation and good banks there seems like little point. Not at all. Some EU countries aside, most western countries do not have a good inter-bank payment system and are still dependent on Mastercard, Visa and Paypal to handle merchant transaction settlements. Local currency cash is the only thing a state has control over. As use of cash declines, it becomes important to have a centrally-administered digital cash alternative, just like paper cash.
  - dmurray 4y ago
    > Local currency cash is the only thing a state has control over. The state has control over its banks. You can't generally get a Mastercard or Visa card that isn't issued by a bank doing business in your jurisdiction. How tightly the state holds the reins of the bank depends, but usually they're among the most regulated of the nominally private institutions we have.
    - rchaud 4y ago
      Cash usually doesn't carry any fees, whereas electronic transactions incur large enough fees to make small transactions burdensome for small businesses. Payments are an important enough area IMO for countries to implement interoperable standards, rather than wait for the private sector, all competing among themselves, to offer one.
- gus_massa 4y ago
  It's call "Dollarization". We called it "Convertibility". In Brazil it was the "Real Plan". It has tried in many other countries. Each one is slightly different, so if you have a lot of popcorn you can try to read each one and understand the differences https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Currency_substitution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Currency_substitution The main problem is that the government has a deficit of 5%. All the solutions to fix the deficit are unpopular, so they prefer to keep emitting money. (Now they are trying a few unpopular fixes, but not too much, just to keep the inflation not too high.) If you switch to 100% external currency, after a few month the government will have no money. They can pay you a part of the salary of $1000 with the external currency, after a few months they will have to pay $900 in external currency and $100 in IOU. Later pay $800 in external currency and $200 in IOU. ... [1] The problem is that people will be unhappy with the increase of IOU. So it's easier to pay the full $1000 in IOU, and ensure that you can exchange the $1000 IOU to $1000 in external currency. OK, now it's $999 of external currency. Never mind, $998. What about $997? ... [1] Actually, we tried something like it too! In the 1990 each province had a local money and they paid the local employees a part in the national money and a part in the local money, or perhaps all in the local money. Initially it was fine, but after some months you got a haircut of 30% if you need to send money to another province or buy fuel or some other items not produced localy.

by zorked 4y ago

capableweb 4y ago

> Then all the crypto ICO pump and dumpers with frog avatars came and it was over. If cryptocurrency doesn't survive being misused for stuff like that and gets dragged down because of it, then it deserves it. But it seems to be ticking along even despite of that, just like the US Dollar, so the future seems unclear still.

largepeepee 4y ago
BTC had always been a means of avoiding regulations, and that's fine imo, because let's be frank... US regulations are on par with the CCP in execution with stupid rules like double taxation and mandated rules for foreign banks not in their jurisdiction. But they control the loud speakers and have much stronger global enforcement, ie they are the biggest gangsters around so they set the rules.
- noduerme 4y ago
  The double taxation thing really is a bitch. Not to mention, giving up one's US citizenship triggers the equivalent of an estate tax as if you died. Still, it's a democracy and some people voted for those things; it also doesn't explicitly force people to stop speaking their native language or abandon their religion, or throw people in prison for waving a sign in the street. So I keep my US passport and pay my taxes. The US is one of the few countries in the world where people do collectively have power to make drastic and enduring changes to the system without needing to start a cycle of violence to accomplish their aims.
  - largepeepee 4y ago
    >where people do collectively have power to make drastic and enduring changes to the system without needing to start a cycle of violence to accomplish their aims. Tell that to me again after the financial system, immense legal corruption and healthcare has been fixed. These are all problems known for decades beyond some people's lifespans and consecutive presidents haven't been able to fix it...hell many go again their election promises with lame duck excuses. If I had to compare both shitty superpowers, China would be "can't change the party but you can change the policy", while the US would be "you can change the party, but not the policy" Both are dystopian in their own ways, difference being China is an obvert dystopia, while the US is covert one drugging their populace to numb discontent etc.
    - noduerme 4y ago
      I don't want to get into some kind of political debate that could be determined to be a "flame" thing - I'm on probation over here. But don't you think the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) was a pretty major stick in the eye of the insurance-industrial-complex? Sure, it's nothing remotely approaching the kind of social medicine available in France or New Zealand, but it was provably the result of large numbers of people voting for change against the prevailing moneyed structure that was in place. Policy doesn't necessarily swing 180º with every new administration; that's probably for the best. Isn't this an example of policy being shifted democratically? I hesitate to get into the pull-out from Afghanistan or the judicial decision to rescind Roe v Wade; those are both things I strongly, vociferously disagree with. But they're both examples of public pressure changing policy (for better or worse) through the application of democratic processes available to all citizens.
      - largepeepee 4y ago
        It always boils down to who are you comparing it too? Cheering those minuscule changes are akin to praising the CCP for beingat open to change with them ending there zero-covid policy. At the end of the day these policies are slow and usually ineffective - all of your examples included.
  - 4y ago

noduerme 4y ago

Excellent comment. If you'd like my long term view.. crypto does have value. I've said this since 2009 or so. Its value is the difference of its transaction fees versus middle parties like credit card companies, plus whatever local currency restrictions are in place which it can circumvent. Take that total and divide it by the number of Bitcoins in the world, that's the maximum logical non-hyped potential value of Bitcoin. It's only worth what it's valuable for as a means of exchange. Its relative value happens to be much more under extreme local circumstances which crop up in various parts of the world. But I do think it serves an otherwise ignored niche. All those ICO people came much later...

X6S1x6Okd1st 4y ago
Yeah my early thoughts around crypto were that it's so nice to have another floor on how expensive it is to transfer value between two parties. Other than ETH L1 transfers are generally sub 10 cents
- noduerme 4y ago
  That was totally the original value, I thought. That and being able to take it for blackjack and poker without trusting the holding to LibertyCoin or some shady bullshit outfit like that.

joyfylbanana 4y ago

The acceptance of bitcoin payments at the grassroots level is still happening. With the Lightning Network, it's quite viable these days. I've been following https://btcmap.org/map https://btcmap.org/map off and on, and new merchants and sites seem to be slowly popping up. Interestingly, there seem to be tourist hotspots in some countries where Bitcoin is more widely accepted. It would be a fun idea to visit these places and try to pay for everything with bitcoin only.

bolanyo 4y ago

It wasn't just ICO pump and dumpers that got rid of this utility. The people coordinating Bitcoin made an explicit technical decision to focus on it being a store-of-value, which made it too expensive to use as a means-of-exchange. Smaller transactions like the ones you described became too slow and expensive to be viable anymore, because of these decisions.

rchaud 4y ago
> which made it too expensive to use as a means-of-exchange. But wouldn't this have happened over time anyway as transaction size and network volume increased? The exponential increases in electricity usage to mine BTC would have to be paid for somehow?
- px43 4y ago
  Not at all. For example Ethereum and Monero etc have floating blocksizes that will adjust due to market demand. The fee market can get pricey for a while, but it quickly adapts to new volume. In the early days Satoshi begrudgingly put in a 1mb block size limit to prevent DOS, and later through some underhanded political BS, that limit was basically made permanent. Also you seem to think that network usage is related to some way to electricity usage. Even today, a single person with a laptop could be the only miner, and the network would still run just fine. The current block reward on Bitcoin is 900 coins per day, so the upper bound on electricity usage is however much power 900 BTC will get you. That number gets cut in half every 4 years, so generally, the max electricity expenditure is actually going down, except that the price of BTC is currently going up faster than the rewards are going down. Energy usage is directly correlated to price, not utility. There is a loose connection between utility and price, but since utility got capped in 2015 or so, the price has continued to go up, so that connection is pretty tenuous.
  - noduerme 4y ago
    > through some underhanded political BS There is this weird assumption that Bitcoin was "managed" or that political forces were at work. It was simply a war between some developers and others. Not to you specifically, but in this thread: I find it troubling, this new reflex of ascribing to dark conspiracies what are banal historical facts. The growth of the blocksize was inevitable once it took off; now we have lots of shitcoins, and a few that are stores of value and some that are means of exchange. Lots of hucksters showed up, but no one planned anything. (And looking at the state of things now, it clearly shows). https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/aug/17/bitcoin-xt-alternative-cryptocurrency-chief-scientist https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/aug/17/bitcoin-x... never ascribe to conspiracy what can be ascribed to stupidity.

pjc50 4y ago

Something I've been wondering about with regard to CBDCs; if you're in a Western country with low inflation and good banks there seems like little point. But what if it were an explicit goal to make a CBDC usable in other countries? Export US price stability to Argentina.

rchaud 4y ago
> if you're in a Western country with low inflation and good banks there seems like little point. Not at all. Some EU countries aside, most western countries do not have a good inter-bank payment system and are still dependent on Mastercard, Visa and Paypal to handle merchant transaction settlements. Local currency cash is the only thing a state has control over. As use of cash declines, it becomes important to have a centrally-administered digital cash alternative, just like paper cash.
- dmurray 4y ago
  > Local currency cash is the only thing a state has control over. The state has control over its banks. You can't generally get a Mastercard or Visa card that isn't issued by a bank doing business in your jurisdiction. How tightly the state holds the reins of the bank depends, but usually they're among the most regulated of the nominally private institutions we have.
  - rchaud 4y ago
    Cash usually doesn't carry any fees, whereas electronic transactions incur large enough fees to make small transactions burdensome for small businesses. Payments are an important enough area IMO for countries to implement interoperable standards, rather than wait for the private sector, all competing among themselves, to offer one.
gus_massa 4y ago
It's call "Dollarization". We called it "Convertibility". In Brazil it was the "Real Plan". It has tried in many other countries. Each one is slightly different, so if you have a lot of popcorn you can try to read each one and understand the differences https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Currency_substitution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Currency_substitution The main problem is that the government has a deficit of 5%. All the solutions to fix the deficit are unpopular, so they prefer to keep emitting money. (Now they are trying a few unpopular fixes, but not too much, just to keep the inflation not too high.) If you switch to 100% external currency, after a few month the government will have no money. They can pay you a part of the salary of $1000 with the external currency, after a few months they will have to pay $900 in external currency and $100 in IOU. Later pay $800 in external currency and $200 in IOU. ... [1] The problem is that people will be unhappy with the increase of IOU. So it's easier to pay the full $1000 in IOU, and ensure that you can exchange the $1000 IOU to $1000 in external currency. OK, now it's $999 of external currency. Never mind, $998. What about $997? ... [1] Actually, we tried something like it too! In the 1990 each province had a local money and they paid the local employees a part in the national money and a part in the local money, or perhaps all in the local money. Initially it was fine, but after some months you got a haircut of 30% if you need to send money to another province or buy fuel or some other items not produced localy.