this post was submitted on 20 May 2024
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People generally don’t trade currencies as commodities or treat them as investments. When the same people promising crypto is totally a currency actually start treating it like a stable currency to exchange for goods and services and not an investment or commodity to be traded, I might revisit it. For now, the evangelists refuse to walk the walk.
A metric shit ton of people use currencies as investments. Forex trading is pretty big and been around a long time.
I said generally. Your parents who get paid in local currency for their job are not trading in foreign currencies. The fact that rich people can find ways to squeeze more money out of just about anything isn’t a win for cryptocurrencies.
The main test is to give cryptocurrency to my grandparents and they should be able to figure that out and do their grocery shopping. I pity the people having to explain how to use cryptocurrency to my grandparents at the cash register.
Kind of the same idea as explaining how tap your card/phone or credit cards work though.
Not really. "Take your card out of your wallet, and instead of putting it in the machine and typing your pin, you just tap it against the screen"
Vs "well, ok. I set up a wallet for you. No it's not a real wallet, it's on your computer. Anyway, your wallet has this huge long code that you can't remember, so keep it safe, because if you lose it you lose all your money, ok? Right, well before you buy anything, you'll need to register with an exchange, there are a number of exchanges, like XYZ, so sign up with one of those, then — wait what do you mean you don't know how? Just give them your email and whatever else they need.... you don't know your email address? Christ on a bike. Ok we'll sort that out soon — anyway, back to the exchange... go onto their site and trade your cryptocurrency (the weird money in your wallet... no not your real wallet, grandad, your computer wallet), now you need to wait a while for the transaction to happen and you to receive your money. Now you can go to the shop and pay by card. Amazing, isn't it? And it'll only get better when everywhere accepts [coin], I'm sure that'll happen any day now!"
"Bank pays seller on your behalf and then you pay the bank" vs however the fuck you want to explain the clusterfuck of crypto
My parents do this regularly. There are many Latino American families who regularly exchange USD to PESO and vise versa.
You have obviously have not heard of forex and the vast quantity of money that flows through it on a daily basis if you think currencies are not traded as commodities, nor have you heard of places like Argentina or Turkey apparently if you don't know currencies are treated as investments.
There are many many scams in cryptoworld but there is no need to throw out the baby with the bath water as it were. Crypto can and is being used as valid alternative to fractional reserve issued currency; the thriving and resilient darknet proves it so.
I don't think that's how the typical guy/gal you'd bump into on the street uses their bank balance.