But as a solution for the institutional failures it still is not a replacement and obviously the solution in Venezuela needs to be repairing the system.
Same with Sci-Hub in this case. The Bitcoin donations alleviate financial pressure somewhat, but of course the lawsuits and IP-infringement will still haunt everyone involved.
From that premise that the probem is universal, the deduction that the solution is also not just a temporary fix seems like the only reasonably conclusiont to me.
I'm not completely sure whether you're arguing that the bitcoin hype will pass once we've sorted out a few problems, or just that it'd be a nicer world if that could ever be the case; but either way, I don't think cryptocurrencies should be a last resort but instead become the norm. Offense is the best defense, after all.
In fact people like leaders so much that exposed to a capricious and cruel world they'll invent imaginary and often cruel ones just to give the world a sense of order. Think the old testament God or lizard people conspiracy theories.
Given we're going to huge groups of people running around following leaders I think our best effort is spent trying to make the selection of those leaders pick non-evil people who run vaguely meritocratic and fair systems. Rather than trying to engineer ideal de-centralized systems _which will also have to be robust against the mob following their evil leaders.
Obviously this is a false dichotomy and we can do both, but please don't give up on good leadership, people need it and there's plenty of examples of it exiting.
What I don't understand is why people don't then just use one of the literally thousands of other currencies -- most of which handle small transactions just fine.
For small transfers I use DogeCoin and the fee is 0.2 cents.
If anything, the crash last March has proven that BTC is not a safe asset and not immune from a global financial meltdown. Other way around - its very sensitive to it actually.
In the old days, the very point of a savings account is that it keeps the value stable, and pays interest on top. The more long term you save, the higher the interest. Compounded.
The point you seems to be missing, that the system cannot be repaired in a day and people need to eat, while they doing the repair.
I suspect donations are used mostly to keep the lights on.
I don't doubt for a small handful of people who got their hands on some BTC they individually are better off. That doesn't change the fact it's not a reasonable solution at scale.
I don't think one can call PayPal an institution. As for an ability to transact - I don't see why shouldn't we replace institutions that prevent us from transacting.
Failing business models of Elsevier and likes are a problem of their shareholders. I, personally, want them crushed.
Reasonable solutions at the margins tend to be adapted in some major way by the masses in time, like bottleneck microstates can end up driving steady state long term behaviors of systems in glassy dynamics… technical solutions to make lawsuits and IP-infrignment have no teeth are being adopted more everyday but not as fast as some would like.
Digital money is awesome, it being taken over by so many carpetbaggers is not.
I’m looking forward to bitcoin having a stable value for a few years, any value.
Keep in mind that the price moves also attract attention, and act as a sort of advertisement of its existence. It wouldn't get any mainstream coverage without the price moves.
lol what? It went from $7000 to $10500 to $4000 to $10400... Blame it on covid if you want but the whole year has been this violent zigzag
Good or bad; whatever works... It's a nice extra on top of my day job.
Consider USD/EUR. In 2015 it was 0.9, and currently it's 0.89. It's peak and low was 0.96 and 0.8. That a 10% bandwidth around a stable average.
Like the US can stop PayPal from providing financial services, they can too stop banks from storing USD collateral to such parties.
Also I don't agree with your "tracked better than that" claim: DAI/USD has a 15% drop and increase in a few months, about the same as USD/EUR in 5 years.
Certainly much more than USD/EUR: https://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=EUR&to=USD&view=1Y
Although, most of my holdings are now BTC & XMR.
XMR or Monero, is the best cryptocurrency IMO.
Ledger is totally opaque. Actually works like cash.
Hopeful about ETH tokens rising in value soon? ETH 2.0 is coming later this year, which may shake things up one way or another.
Buying lotto tickets is irrational as well, but the winners are happy. Some speculators end up ok.
As much value has been lost by bitcoin as created (ie, someone bought at $20k and lost at $10k, etc).
I’m glad you made a ton of cash, I hope you can retire. But this volatility is really bad for currency.
Have now bought a house each for pretty much all my close friends and family members.
For example, the current ATH was nearly $20k, and the current price is $9k. If you were unlucky enough to buy at ATH, you are down to 40%. Thats still not that bad situation - for example with stocks it is easy to find bets where you lose 90%.
It will still be "that" lottery.
In its current form every major crypto has been "promoted" as "be the first one to get onto my crypto bandwagon and this will make you rich".
And that will also make sure something like this BBC programme - Missing Crypto Queen - keeps on repeating.
But what actually happened is good old fashioned dollarization. U.S. dollar banknotes flooded into the country. As for digital payments, Venezuelans have repurposed Zelle, the U.S-based person-to-person payments option, to make digital U.S. dollar payments.
But this is a niche usage. What locals really want are dollars. Something like 50-60% of all Venezuelan transactions are now being conducted with U.S. paper money and Zelle.
[0] https://www.archyde.com/wells-fargo-eliminates-access-to-zel...
Very.
Operation chokepoint essentially blackballed every single one of those Industries, and some credit unions tried to get a Charter from the Federal Reserve, and were essentially 'choked in the crib' when they attempted to.
Look up the story of 4 corners credit union, $100ks were wasted trying to appease the regulators to help members of the Cannabis Industry. Some eventually got other banks to participate, but it was still, and likely always will be what I always referred to as 'bank account whack-a-mole' where several accounts are shut down and have 2-3 to serve as backups when they eventually get shutdown.
This happened to a local dispensary owner, whose son is actually a Lightening Network developer and was able to route around it. Adoption was less than ideal, but it proved a point that the tech is mature enough to take on financial censorship if/when the will exists.
The federal government does not enforce the law sufficiently to motivate its repeal, so we are stuck in limbo, where the mass of individuals are complacent, and they externalize the costs on the suppliers and retailers.
I'm well aware of what that entails in a legal sense, I worked in the Industry as both a former Farmer as well as a Fintech Founder; the thing is, Cannabis is a term that encompasses Industrial Hemp as well as MJ and the former is actually 50 State legal as of 2018 with the Farm Bill in the US.
And still many Banks refuse to deal with Hemp farmers or producers of its value added products (CBD/CBG/CBN etc...) and still treat it as if its MJ for reasons only known to them as many large retailers like 24 Hour fitness, Sprouts, and even some Safeways and many Gas stations have CBD products on hand. It could be a scale thing, where losing that large of a customer with immense volume is worth it, whereas a small retailer is not and carries too much risk.
Also, consider that the legal status still doesn't mean the banking Industry will accept them with open arms, Canada still has the same issues they always had when it came to financial services and banking where MJ has been legalized Nationwide.
Bitcoin volume in Venezuela today is a rounding error. But most of the country is using physical USD to transact.
Crypto still has not solved two key problems, volatility and usability. Most people are not technical. Most people are also not OK putting their savings in something that can easily lose half its value in a month.
Cell coverage is widely available in third-world countries, and smartphones are increasingly widespread.
So, not all that much privilege anymore.
Your anecdote doesn't invalidate my statement. 2G/3G coverage isn't even highly available in most third world country. How do you know your homeless guy had a data plan? You don't.
Yes, I know Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies aren't being used by everyone. Yes, I'm aware of the risks and the costs. But it's still a huge boon as crypto allowed me to transact at all when it was physically unfeasible to do so.
I've said it before and I'll keep saying it until such reality changes: most people who disregard cryptocurrency as just a fad can afford to think that way. Their needs are served by traditional banking, and that's fine! But it's not the reality for an important amount of people who are unbanked for whatever reason: their past, their actions (whether moral things considered illegal and thus they're prosecuted, or legal things that society consider immoral and thus they're censored) or even just a geographical accident.