LOL. It’s totally fine to miss out on the latest wave in Ponzi innovation.

The “rest of the world” is certainly not on board with crypto. China and India are blocking large parts of it. EU has new legislation in the pipeline. Even the Bahamas don’t seem quite as excited about crypto as they used to be…

Yeah yeah, I've heard this before (internet anyone?). EU does have new legislation which is great, it's something the US should have. China has been some activities but promoted others, and India has a corrupt banking system where you have to bribe officials to even get a license for anything, so not sure why you think that's a good example.

There are also many other European, Middle Eastern, African, and South American countries embracing and promoting crypto as a new payment system for various reasons.

The fact that you think it's just a ponzi shows how close minded you are and tbh not worth "debating" with.

Also the irony here I think for you specifically is Finland is one of the most crypto friendly countries in the EU lmao

I don’t see anyone in Finland paying for coffee with crypto. Or paying their employees. Or paying their mortgage. Or raising money for their company. You know, any of the many things that happen every day in the actual financial system; the things that make an actual economy work and produce wealth and wellbeing.

So what does crypto actually do, if it’s not used for anything productive even in the most crypto-friendly countries? The best that its proponents can offer seems to be “one day it could do X” and variations on “it will work when everybody does it right”, a position oddly similar to true believers in Communism.

Many years ago I used to be quite positive about crypto. Smart contracts sounded clever and useful. The more I looked at the technology and the people involved, the more obvious it became that it’s fundamentally deficient and controlled by scammers. Crypto has had many, many chances to prove itself, and as far as I’m concerned, it failed at everything and doesn’t deserve yet another chance.

How so? The KYC/AML attitude and invasive banks seem to make it basically impossible to function a business. Can't even use a cryptocurrency ATM without identifying yourself through a Finnish bank account and being a long-term resident, making them useless for travelers. Localbitcoins was originally one of the biggest services and it was destroyed by Finnish regulations: a "local" p2p trading service that hilariously banned people from even using cash because of the hostile Finnish environment

Nobody is on board with crypto. And while governments can't shut it down, they can strongly discourage people from putting money into it, by simply enforcing existing regulations, which is what I think governments will start to do now.

>by definition you can't shut down things like Bitcoin)

Tomorrow, the US government could declare that no US company can do business with Bitcoin or enable someone to do business. Effectively declare sanctions (similar to North Korea) against the entire ecosystem.

King Biden can do this without due process?

The courts have traditionally been very deferential to national security-based arguments. Whether you agree or not (I’m mixed), that’s the situation on the ground.

The Supreme Court has gotten way more libertarian recently.

Famously, the US banned alcohol and drugs and some states even banned homosexuality. In none of those cases did it work out as intended. The only meaningful outcome was the destruction of individual liberties. Hmm, maybe that was the real goal all along.

> the rest of the world is pretty much on board with crypto and making pretty big advancements.

https://www.reuters.com/technology/visa-mastercard-pause-cry... "Visa, Mastercard pause crypto push in wake of industry meltdown"

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/01/28/faceboo... "The social media giant’s shuttering of the Diem project "

https://www.coindesk.com/web3/2023/03/13/meta-will-end-suppo... "Web3 Meta Will End Support for NFTs on Instagram, Facebook"

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/10/13/el-salvadors-bitcoin-holding... "El Salvador has lost around $60 million on its bitcoin bet one year into a nationwide crypto experiment. The use of bitcoin in El Salvador appears to be low amid the market volatility."

Want more?

I too can cherry pick:

https://www.coindesk.com/web3/2023/03/24/amazons-nft-plans-t...

https://www.cryptonewsz.com/what-the-recent-news-of-xrp-mean...

https://gagarin.news/news/blockchain-games-dominate-the-mark...

https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2023/03/24/el-salvador-presi...

https://fortune.com/crypto/2022/12/19/evolution-crypto-web3-...

Alright, let's see, what's the easiest to engage with in this , games.

https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/blockchain-...

> The global Blockchain Gaming Market size in terms of revenue was estimated to be worth USD 4.6 billion in 2022

https://www.statista.com/outlook/dmo/digital-media/video-gam...

> Revenue in the Video Games segment is projected to reach US$372.00bn in 2023.

So that's about one percent of the market.

What you've cherry picked are wishful thinking articles about how everything will just be amazing and great in crypto land. Some day. You just wait.

The GP's citation of Visa and Mastercard are cherry-picking? What companies would be more relevant?

The source for those claims is "people, who asked not to be named". Could be literally anyone.

Meanwhile in the same article:

> That does not change [Visa]'s crypto strategy and focus, however, the spokesperson added.

and:

> A spokesperson for Mastercard said: "Our efforts continue to focus on the underlying blockchain technology and how that can be applied to help address current pain points and build more efficient systems."

Isn't it crazy how different those quotes are from the headline? I'd love to know who read those official company statements and then decided to write the headline with the claim from an anonymous nobody instead.

Also: https://twitter.com/cuysheffield/status/1630600556187099137

The OP’s original comment referred to the rest of the world, which I read as those outside the US. My understanding is that Visa and Mastercard are American companies with footprints outside the US yes, but they are still US companies.

You are making shit up. No one has adopted crypto in any economically productive manner. Only point of crypto trash is to sell more crypto garbage. It’s all one big disgusting circle of incest.

Comments like yours, reflecting the IQ of crypto shills, sound like they’re generated by some LLM. Assert big claims about what crypto is doing, draw strawman arguments comparing crypto to past technologies, but provide us with no concrete evidence.

What world are you living in my friend? I can speak for India, definitely. Crypto is treated like gambling, it has been brought under anti money laundering laws. The biggest sporting league in the country has banned any crypto association and advertising.

It is just a decentralised ponzi. The sooner it fades away from mainstream discourse, the better. It will live on in the fringes of the internet for habitual gamblers to continue to bet on.