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> We should just settle on a single internet currency that's fast, interoperable and not a market for speculation. With respect to crypto, a "single currency"

by noch 2y ago

> We should just settle on a single internet currency that's fast, interoperable and not a market for speculation. With respect to crypto, a "single currency" shouldn't be a prerequisite because, with a $3T mcap, crypto has plenty of liquidity across centralized and decentralized exchanges to allow anyone to convert between any currencies they have on-chain. (Uniswap for instance has $1B - $6B volume transacted daily.) Declaring a single currency would also be antithetical to free market competition for currencies. > interoperable If "interoperable" means you can use the currency anywhere, then I think liquidity for currency conversion is sufficient. That said, we already have dollar (USD) stablecoins[^0] on all major L1, L2, rollup blockchains. Because they are pegged to the U.S. dollar, they also meet your requirement that the currency not be speculative (Strictly speaking, the U.S. dollar is inflationary and therefore is subject to speculation, but perhaps I'm being pedantic.). > fast Rollups[^3] provide fast transactions. These use various cryptographic protocols to verifiably and quickly batch and compress user operations on-chain. > deep integration of modern banking changes "Deep integration of modern banking" sounds good but modern banking creates a choke point[^1] where users can be targeted and denied services. Ultimately we would want to be able to stay on-chain for all payments and not need off-ramps which leave users open to debanking[^2] or surveillance. Crypto is permissionless and, with little effort from the user, censorship resistant. --- [^0]: https://castleisland.vc/writing/stablecoins-the-emerging-market-story/ https://castleisland.vc/writing/stablecoins-the-emerging-mar... "Stablecoins – tokenized representations of fiat currencies circulating on blockchains 1 – are unambiguously the “killer app” of crypto so far. There are over $160 billion worth of stablecoins in circulation today, up from single digit billions as recently as 2020. Over 20 million addresses make a stablecoin transaction on public blockchains every month. And in the first half of 2024, stablecoins settled (according to our adjusted estimates) over $2.6 trillion dollars worth of value. Stablecoins offer considerable advantages relative to existing payment systems, including native programmability, strong auditability properties, fast settlement, the ability to self-custody, and native interoperability" [^1]: https://www.piratewires.com/p/2023-banking-crisis https://www.piratewires.com/p/2023-banking-crisis "Beginning in 2013, Choke Point was a scheme which sought to marginalize specific industries operating legally — not through lawmaking, but by applying pressure via the banking sector." [^2]: https://x.com/nic__carter/status/1862950205252874552 https://x.com/nic__carter/status/1862950205252874552 "[T]he FDIC and other financial regulators had secretly imposed a 15 percent cap on deposits at banks for crypto-related firms." [^3]: https://l2beat.com/scaling/summary https://l2beat.com/scaling/summary

freeone3000 2y ago
Every transfer costs money. Every swap costs money. I now have to choose which L2 provider to trust implicitly, with no recourse on failure. And at the end of it, I still have internet points, instead of something that can pay rent or buy food.
- noch 2y ago
  > Every transfer costs money. Yes, all real world payments, from credit cards, to bank transfers have transaction fees. Depending on where you are in the world, even cash payments can include taxes per transaction. > Every swap costs money. Yes, currency conversion in real life includes fees. > I now have to choose which L2 provider to trust implicitly, with no recourse on failure. No, the whole point of a rollup is that your transactions are posted to L1 in a provable manner. Optimistic rollups and ZK rollups all allow you to transact without having to trust the L2. (There are caveats for those L2s that are in various stages of implementation and that's all public information.) > And at the end of it, I still have internet points, instead of something that can pay rent or buy food. The question was how to pay the publisher of a web page and this is a technology forum. So we discuss technological solutions. Paying rent and buying food is a solved problem.
  - freeone3000 2y ago
    Look, if there’s no reasonable way to transfer in bitcoin and transfer out USD there’s no point to any of it. Mtgox is closed, binance is closed, quadriga is closed, and kraken isn’t looking terribly good either. Stripe stopped accepting, visa stopped accepting, it’s … coinbase?
    - noch 2y ago
      > Look, if there’s no reasonable way to transfer in bitcoin and transfer out USD there’s no point to any of it. In reality, there are billions of Dollars, Euros, Pounds, AUD, and other currencies moving in and out of crypto daily via on/off-ramps. Bitcoin and Ether ETFs exist and are well capitalized and widely used. You claim "Binance is closed" yet I'm quite sure I used it this week. I also use Kraken quite happily to send money to my bank account. Coinbase of course is thriving. If you transact in size, simply hold USDC[^1] and open an account with Circle[^2]. > Stripe stopped accepting Your information is outdated: https://docs.stripe.com/crypto/onramp https://docs.stripe.com/crypto/onramp > Mtgox is closed Have you used or looked into crypto since MtGox? It's been quite some time since that affair. You'd probably be surprised to find how much utility there is if that was the last time you actually investigated crypto. There are also P2P options like Paxful, Telegram, or Binance P2P if you prefer. Anyway, if you're fixated with the old guard of finance then any advancement in technology will necessarily have to meet incumbent institutions requirements, with all the problems I listed earlier in the thread. With a bit of effort, you could instead imagine an entirely digital internet economy with so-called crypto points. Even that alone would be step forward and a mere generation of users away from your landlord, a crypto user, accepting them as payment. Reality, however is such that right now you can fund a debit card with crypto and buy coffee with no problems. [^0] --- [^0]: https://gnosispay.com/ https://gnosispay.com/, https://www.coinbase.com/card https://www.coinbase.com/card [^1]: https://www.usdc.com/providers https://www.usdc.com/providers [^2]: https://www.circle.com/usdc https://www.circle.com/usdc

by noch 2y ago

freeone3000 2y ago

Every transfer costs money. Every swap costs money. I now have to choose which L2 provider to trust implicitly, with no recourse on failure. And at the end of it, I still have internet points, instead of something that can pay rent or buy food.

noch 2y ago
> Every transfer costs money. Yes, all real world payments, from credit cards, to bank transfers have transaction fees. Depending on where you are in the world, even cash payments can include taxes per transaction. > Every swap costs money. Yes, currency conversion in real life includes fees. > I now have to choose which L2 provider to trust implicitly, with no recourse on failure. No, the whole point of a rollup is that your transactions are posted to L1 in a provable manner. Optimistic rollups and ZK rollups all allow you to transact without having to trust the L2. (There are caveats for those L2s that are in various stages of implementation and that's all public information.) > And at the end of it, I still have internet points, instead of something that can pay rent or buy food. The question was how to pay the publisher of a web page and this is a technology forum. So we discuss technological solutions. Paying rent and buying food is a solved problem.
- freeone3000 2y ago
  Look, if there’s no reasonable way to transfer in bitcoin and transfer out USD there’s no point to any of it. Mtgox is closed, binance is closed, quadriga is closed, and kraken isn’t looking terribly good either. Stripe stopped accepting, visa stopped accepting, it’s … coinbase?
  - noch 2y ago
    > Look, if there’s no reasonable way to transfer in bitcoin and transfer out USD there’s no point to any of it. In reality, there are billions of Dollars, Euros, Pounds, AUD, and other currencies moving in and out of crypto daily via on/off-ramps. Bitcoin and Ether ETFs exist and are well capitalized and widely used. You claim "Binance is closed" yet I'm quite sure I used it this week. I also use Kraken quite happily to send money to my bank account. Coinbase of course is thriving. If you transact in size, simply hold USDC[^1] and open an account with Circle[^2]. > Stripe stopped accepting Your information is outdated: https://docs.stripe.com/crypto/onramp https://docs.stripe.com/crypto/onramp > Mtgox is closed Have you used or looked into crypto since MtGox? It's been quite some time since that affair. You'd probably be surprised to find how much utility there is if that was the last time you actually investigated crypto. There are also P2P options like Paxful, Telegram, or Binance P2P if you prefer. Anyway, if you're fixated with the old guard of finance then any advancement in technology will necessarily have to meet incumbent institutions requirements, with all the problems I listed earlier in the thread. With a bit of effort, you could instead imagine an entirely digital internet economy with so-called crypto points. Even that alone would be step forward and a mere generation of users away from your landlord, a crypto user, accepting them as payment. Reality, however is such that right now you can fund a debit card with crypto and buy coffee with no problems. [^0] --- [^0]: https://gnosispay.com/ https://gnosispay.com/, https://www.coinbase.com/card https://www.coinbase.com/card [^1]: https://www.usdc.com/providers https://www.usdc.com/providers [^2]: https://www.circle.com/usdc https://www.circle.com/usdc