You discount the entire category of users who don't "hold" any cryptocurrency at all, but use it as a medium of transfer - buying as much as they need and then transmitting it elsewhere.

As much as they need for what? Aside of ransom payments and drugs, you don't need to buy cryptocurrency, ordinary fiat money works just fine as a medium of transfer.

> As much as they need for what?

Tesla's, until quite recently. It's also fantastic for tipping people online without all the grossness of Patreon or Medium. Easier than making a wire transfer (my bank sucks). I tend to use it everywhere I used PayPal, minus the places where it isn't supported.

This is a very privileged, first-world perspective on things. You probably have a checking account, and a debit card. If you only have cash, and want to send money to (for example) family in another country, it gets very expensive, very fast.

Exchanging cash for cryptocurrency without a bank inbetween is a pain in the ass, but its a hell of a lot cheaper than, for example, Western Union.

>This is a very privileged, first-world perspective on things. You probably have a checking account, and a debit card. If you only have cash, and want to send money to (for example) family in another country, it gets very expensive, very fast.

I live in Mexico, I don't know if we're first world or not. We're kind of in between. We have bank accounts and debit cards here too. In the past when I wanted to send cash to the US or vice versa, I've used Western Union for the convenience - the local corner store (which in Mexico will be Oxxo or 711) has western union. When my family here in MX needs money, I just transfer it to their bank account via my bank's app.

I think many people in the US overestimate how privileged they are compared to most of the rest of the world, to be honest. I lived in the US when I was young but left because life felt easier here in MX.

Sorry for this kind of ambling response, I don't really disagree with anything you said, your perspective just piqued my interest :)

Why not just use TransferWise? Wiring money can get expensive, I agree, but there are many P2P currency exchange platforms out there these days that cost next to nothing.

I pay for vpn with crypto, the provider doesnt even have my email. How do you do that with ordinary fiat money?

> How do you do that with ordinary fiat money

By sending an envelope with cash. Services often offer that option. No E-mail or name disclosure required.

A few advantages: Your payment isn't traceable for all eternity for the whole world to see. The amount I pay isn't suddenly worth 10% more or less the next day. Better for the environment.

That might be fine up to a point, but at a certain number it becomes a really bad idea to mail cash.

It's not much different from the current fiat monetary regime. Those closest to the money spigot benefit the most... cryptocurrency opens it up to individuals rather than limiting it to governments.

One big difference is that governments usually set the real returns on their fiat to -2% which is low enough to prevent it from being hoarded too much and crowding out the private markets for productive investment.

I've always wondered why people say crypto isn't a "fiat currency." It only has value because some people say it does. And it doesn't have an Army, Navy, and Air Force to defend it, like the U.S. Dollar has.

Presumably the fiat part comes from the power to create legal tender laws or the power to collect taxes denominated in a currency, or both. Cryptocurrencies don't have either of those powers.

That is, a fiat currency's value isn't based only on objective or subjective/speculative value, but also, to an extent, on the issuing state's power to require people to use or accept it in certain transactions.

The dollar only has value because you are forced to pay the government with it to pay taxes or else you go to prison/get beat to death for protesting. The nice thing about crypto is the absence of a mafia threatening my life if I refuse to use it :)

It's part of the cult-like mind game that underlies cryptocurrency communities.

The in-group must signal its faith by using certain words in the opposite sense of their usual meaning. Bitcoin is following the Scientology playbook here.

Are you implying it could be attacked? Isn't decentralization in general, maybe not in case of BTC, a key factor that would put it into a societal hive-mind and out of physical realms of army's influence?

Technically it's a fiat currency because people trust the code base and by extension they trust the development team.