I use it to money launder - I lose 10-20% in the value swings - but that means I get 80% of the money for free out the other end of the NFT Ape I sold.

Yes, I buy drugs with monero all the time. Quick, anonymous, and low transaction fees.

If I need to move money between countries, it certainly is by far the easiest. Traveling in India trying to get my friend money has been an awful headache. With cryptocurrency, it's quite simple

Have you looked into Hawala systems? Unofficial, trust-based money transfer agents can transfer money with a phone call. Have been doing it for decades in India, for sure, since before computers were common. Still works, and no need to risk volatile crypto coins or trust exchanges.

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/h/hawala.asp

I actually might try this soon. I need to send my sister $20 in Canada. How can I make it super easy for my sister to receive the money?

I am. As a medium of exchange (buying things, sending people money), I only use USDC which is pinned to the US Dollar.

For sending money to friends in other countries, it is so much cheaper, faster, and more reliable than the traditional money-transfer options I had before.

For buying things around town, I have a debit card that draws from my USDC wallet. Currently, it's less convenient than my credit card, because I have to keep that account full enough to be used, and if I need to fill it up in the moment, it takes about five minutes to jump through all the hoops necessary to not incur any fees. But, as an early adopter I don't mind. Fixing that UX isn't the kind of thing that requires a major technological breakthrough.

USDC operates on multiple layer-1 blockchains, for example Algorand. When transferring USDC between Algorand wallets, the transaction takes a few seconds and costs a small fraction of a cent. Compare that to the shit show that is Western Union, or Small World Money Transfer, or wiring money between non-cooperative banks.

I also own ALGO coins. I could use these as a medium of exchange as well, but I don't, and it would make less sense to do so. Instead I think of these as stocks. Their value fluctuates with the market, and they allow me to vote in Algorand governance voting sessions. If I wanted to liquidate these assets, I would wait until the price went up and then convert them to USD or USDC. I wouldn't spend them with a debit card any more than I would spend stocks with a debit card.

Of course there is an additional use of ALGO's as a medium of exchange - transaction fees for executing smart contract transactions. I haven't found any compelling dApps yet, but in theory this will become another primary use case.

It's better than trading pre-paid phone credit plans!

Have you ever paid for a sandwich with pre-paid phone credit? In places where it's used, it's surprisingly usable.

Yes! But, you do get some bonuses with cryptocurrencies. Access to credit, ability to build an account history, etc. At the very least cryptocurrencies are a superset to M-Pesa etc. Plus some other geo-political perks like not being centralised around Chinese technologies (M-Pesa might not be, but its competitors are & underlying mobile tech is predominately Chinese).

I've gotten paid anonymously in Monero for writing some quick code.

It seems pretty clear that is what they are saying based on their choice of words.

Yes: (1) Drugs and (2) certain countries where fiat is unstable.

Like El Salvador!

.....who uses the USD.

it's really great at that compared to competing products