If you want to go back a bit further in time, I'd like to point out someone else's comment that I thought was pretty spot on as well: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26238410
Hopefully that opens some discussion/thought points that we can focus on.
Update: thinking a bit further on your points. My personal concern isn't privacy, my concern is more with decentralization. I don't agree with other people telling me what I can and cannot do with my own funds. It is relatively simple things... If I travel to another country, being limited to carrying $10k cash on a plane, is absurd (why would I need to carry cash anyway?). If I'm in another country, getting access to my funds is often extremely difficult. These are the things that I'd like to see people work on.
Not trying to be glib, but have you tried an internationally recognized ATM card?
I travel extensively since 30+ years and never ever had a problem to get access to cash (and thus my funds).
That also goes for "exotic" places like Vietnam, Peru, Laos or Cambodia.
It is absurd to have to get some special card or bank account. It is absurd to be limited to a tiny amount of money, I certainly wouldn't have been able to pay rent that way.
Monero has a 24h buy/sell volume of only $110m. What do you think the global volume is for drug/nefarious trade?
Using crypto for "bad things" is a rounding error in the grand scheme of things.
I never said drugs were "bad things". Some of them are, but some of them aren't. I was genuinely pointing out that getting access to certain unfairly prohibited drugs was a positive benefit that some people get from cryptocurrency.
> Given that Mastercard just stopped allowing debit card usage at Cannabis stores (which makes sense, it is a source of fraud with cashbacks), it seems like there should be a way that people can buy things without having to take on risk by carrying cash into a store.
See, there's another illegal drug you might be able to buy with cryptocurrency! My point exactly.
It allows people to bypass laws and regulations around currency exchange. This can be a good thing -- bypassing repressive regimes, making it easier to send funds over national borders, etc. It can also be a bad thing -- evading consumer protections, reducing the ability of nations to manage their economies, etc.
My understanding is Monero is private. So you could also just buy it from a regular exchange. Maybe it has replaced the whole mail people cash thing. Never looked in to it or used it though.
I just fail to see crypto as anything but a scam - period. It's like physical gold and silver but worse at everything they do. How can one even derive value from a coin like bitcoin where the swings are often worse than the bolivar.