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I have a very negative view of cryptocurrencies generally but I cannot imagine the anxiety and stress those in cryptocurrencies must feel: - "Not your keys, no

I have a very negative view of cryptocurrencies generally but I cannot imagine the anxiety and stress those in cryptocurrencies must feel: - "Not your keys, not your coins" very frequently turns into "your keys, some scammers coins". Or "your keys, not your coins and no ones coins" when you lose access to a wallet by losing the private key, seed phrase, etc. Look around forums, subreddits, twitter, etc... These people expend tremendous amounts of time and energy just trying not to lose everything forever. - Your other option is hosting them with custodians that have frequently proven to be anywhere from incompetent/reckless to outright criminals. Time and time again individuals who are significantly more technical and astute than the general population STILL fall victims to both of these scenarios and many, many more. Almost 15 years after the launch of bitcoin and at least tens of billions of dollars invested in development in the space there is still nowhere on the horizon any of this is ready for anything approaching mass adoption. Other than the basic human trait of greed and gambling, get rich quick schemes, criminal and nefarious purposes, etc I have no idea how any of this is still a "thing".

everfree 3y ago
> Other than the basic human trait of greed and gambling, get rich quick schemes, criminal and nefarious purposes, etc I have no idea how any of this is still a "thing". I think you asked and answered your own question. It's still "a thing" because people still speculate on it. In particular, people gamble on it being more of "a thing" in the future.
1970-01-01 3y ago
>Almost 15 years after the launch of bitcoin and at least tens of billions of dollars invested in development in the space there is still nowhere on the horizon any of this is ready for anything approaching mass adoption. You hit the nail on the head. Nobody can directly buy water, milk, fuel, transportation, or anything necessary with bitcoin. Its only legitimate use is an exotic and volatile investment vehicle for millionaires to play with.
- ivanmontillam 3y ago
  In Venezuela USDT is widely accepted; though not legal tender people use it freely, as a replacement for fiat USD when the cash is short indeed. And yes, I'm talking about using it on the grocery store.
  - kkielhofner 3y ago
    More adoption in countries with unstable economies still isn’t mass adoption speaking globally.
    - ivanmontillam 3y ago
      Right, because there is not any need for the other countries for that technology. Does that mean stablecoins should be discontinued because it's not mass adopted at all? even if it's useful for a minority? I disagree
- 13of40 3y ago
  Not trying to claim any expertise in the matter, but couldn't you say the same for gold? Any of us would love to have a box of it, but you can't do squat with it at the grocery store or the gas station.
  - polygamous_bat 3y ago
    I would love to come across a free box of gold, or a private key holding a large sum in bitcoin, or anything similar. HOWEVER, that is not because I would like to keep holding onto it -- just to convert it to cash and then convert that cash proportionally to cash/short term/long term investments.
    - c22 3y ago
      I'd probably hold it as is. I wouldn't ever consider converting some of my hard-earned cash into bitcoin or physical gold, but for a no-cost investment I'll take the diversification.
louwrentius 3y ago
[flagged]
kylebenzle 3y ago
This sounds like a straw man argument. It is simple to store and secure your cryptocurrency in a cold wallet. 1) Buy a Ledger* for $80 2) Make new 24 word passphrase and memorize it. 3) Copy your deposit address. 4) Reset the Ledger. Hot wallets are harder and should never be more that 1-10% of your holdings. Most are safe using a combination of lit exchanges, like Coinbase and a phone wallet for their spending money. You are GREATLY exaggerating the compelxity. * https://shop.ledger.com/products/ledger-nano-s-plus/ruby-red https://shop.ledger.com/products/ledger-nano-s-plus/ruby-red
- jgalt212 3y ago
  > 2) Make new 24 word passphrase and memorize it. What are you rain man?
- thih9 3y ago
  Perhaps it’s not complex. Still, it’s not easy. It’s hard to know what approach to pick, or even which source to trust, especially when you’re starting. And it’s extra hard to continuously manage and improve your security; even moving coins to cold storage.
  - lxgr 3y ago
    I'm pretty sure (at least I really hope) that GP was kidding. Single-shot memorizing 24 words is utterly out of the question for almost everybody.
    - thih9 3y ago
      It’s doable, e.g. you could take the names of twelve months in two languages; maybe even backwards and interspersed. Still, the challenge is to live with that long term. E.g. to not write it down. Or to write it down in a sufficiently cryptic way. But not too cryptic because you still need to remember it. Also you shouldn’t reuse this system. And every now and then you should check that it continues to work as you expect. And…
      - 3y ago
atdrummond 3y ago
90% of my monthly spending is with BTC - but I agree crypto and Bitcoin has mostly been an abject failure.
AnthonyMouse 3y ago
These "problems" are only relevant to speculators. A normal person is not going to have $870K in cryptocurrency. Even a rich person is not unless they're speculating because they would otherwise hold their wealth as some kind of ordinary investment. You might lose your cryptocurrency wallet with $50 in it, but you could just as well lose your traditional wallet with $50 cash in it. The biggest impediment to adoption is actually regulatory. Vendors would love to accept a payment method with the transaction fees of Bitcoin Cash instead of the transaction fees of Visa and MasterCard. But not if it's ten thousand times more tax paperwork. Which competing payment methods might have had something to do with.
- kkielhofner 3y ago
  > Vendors would love to accept a payment method with the transaction fees of Bitcoin Cash instead of the transaction fees of Visa and MasterCard. Vendors love to accept what their customers pay them with. Bitcoiners, etc still regularly post Twitter and forum posts when they find some random mom and pop store somewhere that actually takes BTC. Literally on the frontpage of the reddit bitcoin sub right now: https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/16k82kk/bitcoin_accepted_at_county_childrens_fair/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/16k82kk/bitcoin_ac... YES! So much adoption it's still a novelty worth putting on the internet! If customers were asking to pay with BTC they would figure out a way to take it. Except customers don't so they don't because other than a tiny number of crypto zealots this space isn't anything other than something you gamble with.
  - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
    Customers don't because the IRS is ridiculous, presumably on purpose. If you sell cryptocurrency for more than you paid for it you have a capital gain. Okay, sure, if you made a million dollars then you owe taxes on a million dollars. But things like this commonly have exemptions for small transactions. If you pay for a $2 cup of coffee and had a capital gain of $0.03 for which you might owe less than one half of one cent in tax, it's obviously inefficient to require reporting for this. And it tends to even out because nobody is going to report a $0.03 capital loss either. So it makes sense to exempt transactions below some threshold. But for this they apparently don't. Which is hard to explain outside of malice. And then people say "well nobody wants to use it."

everfree 3y ago

> Other than the basic human trait of greed and gambling, get rich quick schemes, criminal and nefarious purposes, etc I have no idea how any of this is still a "thing". I think you asked and answered your own question. It's still "a thing" because people still speculate on it. In particular, people gamble on it being more of "a thing" in the future.

1970-01-01 3y ago

>Almost 15 years after the launch of bitcoin and at least tens of billions of dollars invested in development in the space there is still nowhere on the horizon any of this is ready for anything approaching mass adoption. You hit the nail on the head. Nobody can directly buy water, milk, fuel, transportation, or anything necessary with bitcoin. Its only legitimate use is an exotic and volatile investment vehicle for millionaires to play with.

ivanmontillam 3y ago
In Venezuela USDT is widely accepted; though not legal tender people use it freely, as a replacement for fiat USD when the cash is short indeed. And yes, I'm talking about using it on the grocery store.
- kkielhofner 3y ago
  More adoption in countries with unstable economies still isn’t mass adoption speaking globally.
  - ivanmontillam 3y ago
    Right, because there is not any need for the other countries for that technology. Does that mean stablecoins should be discontinued because it's not mass adopted at all? even if it's useful for a minority? I disagree
13of40 3y ago
Not trying to claim any expertise in the matter, but couldn't you say the same for gold? Any of us would love to have a box of it, but you can't do squat with it at the grocery store or the gas station.
- polygamous_bat 3y ago
  I would love to come across a free box of gold, or a private key holding a large sum in bitcoin, or anything similar. HOWEVER, that is not because I would like to keep holding onto it -- just to convert it to cash and then convert that cash proportionally to cash/short term/long term investments.
  - c22 3y ago
    I'd probably hold it as is. I wouldn't ever consider converting some of my hard-earned cash into bitcoin or physical gold, but for a no-cost investment I'll take the diversification.

louwrentius 3y ago

[flagged]

kylebenzle 3y ago

This sounds like a straw man argument. It is simple to store and secure your cryptocurrency in a cold wallet. 1) Buy a Ledger* for $80 2) Make new 24 word passphrase and memorize it. 3) Copy your deposit address. 4) Reset the Ledger. Hot wallets are harder and should never be more that 1-10% of your holdings. Most are safe using a combination of lit exchanges, like Coinbase and a phone wallet for their spending money. You are GREATLY exaggerating the compelxity. * https://shop.ledger.com/products/ledger-nano-s-plus/ruby-red https://shop.ledger.com/products/ledger-nano-s-plus/ruby-red

jgalt212 3y ago
> 2) Make new 24 word passphrase and memorize it. What are you rain man?
thih9 3y ago
Perhaps it’s not complex. Still, it’s not easy. It’s hard to know what approach to pick, or even which source to trust, especially when you’re starting. And it’s extra hard to continuously manage and improve your security; even moving coins to cold storage.
- lxgr 3y ago
  I'm pretty sure (at least I really hope) that GP was kidding. Single-shot memorizing 24 words is utterly out of the question for almost everybody.
  - thih9 3y ago
    It’s doable, e.g. you could take the names of twelve months in two languages; maybe even backwards and interspersed. Still, the challenge is to live with that long term. E.g. to not write it down. Or to write it down in a sufficiently cryptic way. But not too cryptic because you still need to remember it. Also you shouldn’t reuse this system. And every now and then you should check that it continues to work as you expect. And…
    - 3y ago

atdrummond 3y ago

90% of my monthly spending is with BTC - but I agree crypto and Bitcoin has mostly been an abject failure.

AnthonyMouse 3y ago

These "problems" are only relevant to speculators. A normal person is not going to have $870K in cryptocurrency. Even a rich person is not unless they're speculating because they would otherwise hold their wealth as some kind of ordinary investment. You might lose your cryptocurrency wallet with $50 in it, but you could just as well lose your traditional wallet with $50 cash in it. The biggest impediment to adoption is actually regulatory. Vendors would love to accept a payment method with the transaction fees of Bitcoin Cash instead of the transaction fees of Visa and MasterCard. But not if it's ten thousand times more tax paperwork. Which competing payment methods might have had something to do with.

kkielhofner 3y ago
> Vendors would love to accept a payment method with the transaction fees of Bitcoin Cash instead of the transaction fees of Visa and MasterCard. Vendors love to accept what their customers pay them with. Bitcoiners, etc still regularly post Twitter and forum posts when they find some random mom and pop store somewhere that actually takes BTC. Literally on the frontpage of the reddit bitcoin sub right now: https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/16k82kk/bitcoin_accepted_at_county_childrens_fair/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/16k82kk/bitcoin_ac... YES! So much adoption it's still a novelty worth putting on the internet! If customers were asking to pay with BTC they would figure out a way to take it. Except customers don't so they don't because other than a tiny number of crypto zealots this space isn't anything other than something you gamble with.
- AnthonyMouse 3y ago
  Customers don't because the IRS is ridiculous, presumably on purpose. If you sell cryptocurrency for more than you paid for it you have a capital gain. Okay, sure, if you made a million dollars then you owe taxes on a million dollars. But things like this commonly have exemptions for small transactions. If you pay for a $2 cup of coffee and had a capital gain of $0.03 for which you might owe less than one half of one cent in tax, it's obviously inefficient to require reporting for this. And it tends to even out because nobody is going to report a $0.03 capital loss either. So it makes sense to exempt transactions below some threshold. But for this they apparently don't. Which is hard to explain outside of malice. And then people say "well nobody wants to use it."