And everyone harmed by the rather sizable ecosystem of outright crime that takes advantage of cryptocurrency.
You don't really believe this, do you?
They aren't:
https://cointelegraph.com/news/some-salvadorans-claim-funds-...
but you can not fix a broken thing with another, even more broken thing (which is this greedy cryptomania)
it is broken government that is the problem and it causes far more ills than monetary inflation
what needs fixing is government. you cannot have a stable meaningful life, society, economy without a semi-decent government that is accountable, democratic and somewhat competent
if the financial system still needs fixing after you fix government it would probably be a marginal patch and not starting from zero
Please understand that people like me who live in third world countries have third world problems, worrying about the climate change is sometimes not in the top of our priorities when we don't even now if we'll have 50, 100 or 30% of anual inflation. And I find unfair how sometimes we are told and scolded by the first world when they didn't get there via green policies, really.
But please take at heart my previous comment. Climate change may sound like an elite concern but it is not. It is actually representative of our deepest global problems.
The reason that the so-called "third world" still has third world problems is that political and economic systems everywhere ignore environmental and social conditions, focus on resource extraction, enriching a few elites etc.
Some form of digital technology would surely help us solve those very difficult problems or at least make them less painful and unsustainable, but cryptocurrencies is nowhere close to do so. It is simplistic, economically more than naive, has the wrong builtin assumptions about society (complete lack of trust) etc.
In any case, good night and good luck
This actually better reflects the way man is, where society works when most people are relatively honest and a minority of criminals and sadistic politicians, bankers, police, tax authorities should be distrusted.
I'm all for people using crypto to use a little less A/C, heat, or drive less to balance it out if those in a warm (or cool) comfy house are a bit upset about it. Probably shouldn't be compelled though unless you're gonna create a Watt Police.
Yes, and landmines make blood donation more profitable, but that doesn't make them a net moral good.
It's not though. It's broadly a combination of ignorance of how the present system actually works, tinfoil hat economics and anarcocapitalist libertarian ideology.
It replaces one set of corruption (accountable to the people) with a whole new set of corruption. Money laundering, crime, wash trading, tape painting, spoof orders - an Inspector Gadget run shadow bank in the Bahamas printing ersatz dollars - the whole shebang. Out with the old criminals technically accountable, in with new criminals definitely unaccountable. This is strictly worse by all metrics. And that's before we even broach how terrible deflationary money actually is in practice.
> The only people hurt by this false perception (bitcoin incentives clean energy production and makes renewables more profitable) are people who don't buy bitcoin. And it's their loss.
If you build a bunch of green energy then waste it all, you haven't incentivized anything. You've just wasted a bunch of green energy - without that benefit accruing to the actual grid. Any time the price goes up so does the budget for waste. It's everyone's loss.
> What would you say to someone in el salvador who's happy accepting bitcoin because they no longer have to trek to ATM's and risk getting mugged?
I would say if they're happy with digital money they can open a Wise Multicurrency account.
But they're not happy accepting bitcoin. [1, 2] They're being forced by an authoritarian dictator to accept it, at gunpoint.
[1] https://www.reuters.com/technology/majority-salvadorans-do-n...
Not only that, is another way for us to save money in cash since we have an extremely limited to other currencies (we have 50% annual inflation so saving in our national currency isn't an option)
Tell me, where are you from? Do you have free access to other currencies where you live? Because I don't, and where I live we have 50% inflation (even 100% for groceries). It's not taxes when we don't get anything in return and we can't even save in the currency we are paid.
I'd like to see how you live here for a year.
Why?
>The value that supposedly backs your local currency simply does not exist
Tell me something I don't know...
>Is it not fairer that everyone gets 50%?
What? Why? Why should anyone working for abroad let the government decide how much money they get from their hours spent working?
Again though, why not USDC?
But yes, is another way many freelancers are paid here, it's not just bitcoin and ETH, many use stablecoins.
I only find kinda selfish the comfortable position to be against ALL cryptocurrencies (which don't do such a damage to the climate like bitcoin.) while living in the first world, even those
All the more reason why cryptocurrencies might be useful to blue collar people.
You think you have used less energy than the average El Salvadorian who uses BTC? It's really entertaining to see the watt-police coming out when many of these same people have A/C or heat turned up in their house way beyond the maximum survivable bands of the temperature range.
What kind of data would change your mind?
To quote Bitfinex right before they fired up the Tether printer:
BTC could tank to below 1k if we don't act quickly
[1] https://cryptonews.com/news/how-merlin-lost-patience-trying-...
Not evident what that has to do with the Tether printer?
And btw, do you have any links on the hedge fund connection, and Alameda and Cumberland?
Shortly after that exchange, they realized they could just take the money out of the Tether bank account, and use it to satisfy their withdrawal requests. I speculate this is the moment they realized that they did not have to actually back their USDT, and turned on the printer.
> Of course, prolonged bouts of that would've reduced trust in crypto and exchanges, reasonably so.
I think that is a completely reasonable alternative explanation.
> And btw, do you have any links on the hedge fund connection, and Alameda and Cumberland?
Check this out. Protos did the legwork to figure out where all the USDT issuances were going. Of $96B in outbound distributions to market makers, $36B went to Alameda and $24B went to Cumberland. That's almost 70% of all distributions ever made to large accounts.
[1] https://protos.com/tether-papers-crypto-stablecoin-usdt-inve...
Iirc the btc/eth market caps are more than the amount of "printed" USD throughout the pandemic.
Does tether printed act the same on inflation as USD printed?
“Making renewables profitable” is the same talking point as “utilising excess power” as I see it, or at least a minor variation of it.
From my perspective, it's a peaceful revolution against a corrupt global status quo.
The only people hurt by this false perception (bitcoin makes renewables more profitable by acting as a buyer when nobody else will) are people who don't buy bitcoin. And it's their loss.
What would you say to someone in el salvador who's happy accepting bitcoin because they no longer have to trek to ATM's and risk getting mugged?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVVZXUFItZY