you keep using that word...
There are certain segments eg. travel where bitcoin/crypto has worked well for years.
When I talk with friends about BTC, it is about price because that is the interesting part. The fact that I used it to pay for something is just not interesting.
That's the business Coinbase is in.
Now, if you are using cryptocurrency for payments you don't need Coinbase.
PayPal, since you mention it, knows that cryptocurrency is going to make it's business model obsolete as soon as it is widely deployed. That is why they pretend to allow you to keep and use Bitcoin on their platform.
Dropping "currency of the future" does come with the challenge of coming up with a new supposed benefit, which is where "store of value" comes in. Problem is: there is no inherent value in bitcoin.
not really
Binance already has a credit card service that lets people use their cryptocurrency holdings to buy anything.
People dont have to talk about them as currencies because they just work
No different than cellular reception in an underground subway, you dont have to think about it anymore
Even these cryptos aren't being used as currencies per se. They're popular, sure, but they're popular because A) they allow traders to move funds between crypto 'investments' without converting to fiat (i.e. without triggering cap gains), and B) They allow investors to "avoid market volatility" (but in a manner far riskier than fiat, given that even DAI or USDT could go to zero tomorrow).
...but they're still not currencies. Nobody is buying a hamburger with DAI.
But they generally rely on individuals to report accurately. Obviously wage-earners arent used to that as their employers withhold money for taxes and report to the IRS so this crowd may find this new found freedom to be foreign and a chance to “get away with” something, but everyone else has lived in a world where they report their taxes voluntarily and accurately
Then again, I'm operating under the impression most people cheat on their taxes w.r.t cryptos
See "Q16. Will I recognize a gain or loss if I exchange my virtual currency for other property?" [1]:
A16. Yes. If you exchange virtual currency held as a capital asset for other property, including for goods or for another virtual currency, you will recognize a capital gain or loss. For more information on capital gains and capital losses, see Publication 544, Sales and Other Dispositions of Assets.
Trickier in the sense that it requires more attention than simply recording the execution price and fees of a BTC/USD trade.
Only more annoying when you have to use an AMM’s info site and the chart isnt very granular or go back far enough. Pancakeswap’s info site doesnt even work.
So yes best to keep track at that exact time of trade
You dont have a way of quantify if people are tax cheats (as what you described does not prevent capital gains liability), stores of value, or buying hamburgers
Well that's not really true, it was headline news when Tesla started accepting crypto payments (and then headline news when they stopped).
Stores accepting crypto still makes the news, it's not common and not something that "just works." But what you can do is at least semi-reliably convert between crypto & things that stores do accept using the various conversions you listed. But you still do have to convert from crypto to a traditional currency to use it as a currency.
Your fictional higher standard of currency would say that the euro is not a currency because my transferwise debit card converts it to dollars when I spend in the US
The peer to peer payment mechanism works and all crypto assets inherit that
I was paying on NewEgg using their BitPay method, which supports payment with only the following cryptocurrencies: Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Ethereum, Wrapped Bitcoin, Dogecoin, and 5 stablecoins (GUSD, USDC, PAX, DAI, and BUSD).
I have Bitcoin and could have paid directly with that, but I wanted to keep holding it and pay with Litecoin. So I converted that to USDC (for free, but I will have to pay taxes on the gains next year since every conversion or purchase is a taxable event in crypto in the US), and then sent that to Bitpay.
So yes, I still maintain I used USDC for its intended purpose.
I did, however, do what you said and liquidated some Ethereum to fiat several years ago (right at the previous bull run's top, by happenstance, got super lucky then) to pay for the downpayment on my home. I would have paid with it directly if I could but there was just no mechanism for it, at least not back then.