Can I buy a pizza with it or pay my bills with it? Can my employer pay me in it? Or is it just an “emperor’s new clothes” thing? I just don’t see the tangible value in it. Rhetorical questions, BTW, I know you can’t buy a pizza with it, at least outside of some edge cases that I’m not aware of.

I thought what made money money was everyone agreed it was valuable and was willing to exchange it for goods and services directly. I don’t see that with crypto.

  • toebert@piefed.socialEnglish
    0·
    13 days ago

    To be fair all it takes is for enough entities to exchange it between other assets. If you are in Europe, most stores won’t sell you anything for your USD unless you exchange it into euros (except some edge cases), so it does feel kinda similar in that sense except cryptos don’t really have a “home” country where they’re universally accepted (bar some nations whose own currency has so throughly failed they adopted it).

    There are some services which allow you to spend crypto by simply doing the exchange for you at the point of purchase into whatever currency the store uses (similar to visa/MasterCard/your bank doing this if you pay by card abroad).

    I’ll say ultimately though it doesn’t change a lot, the idea of crypto is great and there are some where the implementation actually yields something that could be a better money (truly yours, not controlled by a government or a company necessarily, low fees, near instant transactions), but in the end there are just too many of them and they rock the boat too much for the well established financial institutions that they’re just doomed IMO.

    However, the technology itself I expect will end up being used against us by the ruling class in the coming years (i.e crypto currencies controlled by the government where they can set whatever rules they want on it).

  • Seefra 1@lemmy.zip
    0·
    11 days ago

    Crypto is mostly useful for extralegal activities.

    You can technically donate for some services with it, but to acquire crypto you need to either KYC to some exchange which isn’t not only a massive pain, but there are very serious privacy implications with it. Or you can acquire it via other means which means you will be buying it at high prices.

    Also note that most cryptocurrencies aren’t anonymous, every transaction is public in the block chain and can be traced back to you.

    So if you really know what you’re doing you can use privacy coins as a tool to transfer money anonymously, but that’s pretty much it’s only real world application.

    Also, from what I understand (I’m no cryptographer) cryptocurrencies use public key cryptography so quantum computers may in the future break all cryptocurrencies and well deanonymise all previously anonymous privacy coins transactions stored in the blockchains.

  • kieron115@startrek.websiteEnglish
    0·
    13 days ago

    My understanding is this. Let’s say Valve accepted crypto payments. If they did, they wouldn’t need to go through middlemen payment processors like Visa and Mastercard that can use their influence to dictate what games can and can’t be published on Steam.

    But yeah the way it works in practice seems to make crypto a commodity, not a currency.

      • Skankhunt420@sh.itjust.works
        0·
        13 days ago

        Yupp and then recently had to deal with Visa and MasterCard swinging their dick around and forcing them into submission with what they could and could not have that was legal in their own store.

    • hitmyspot@aussie.zone
      0·
      13 days ago

      There is a fee for crypto transaction processing. The fee is the same irrespective of dollar value, so for small transactions, like buying a game, it is more than a cc middleman fee.

      Eventually, I think k this is where crypto can work. Something like the digital euro where the transactions are processed by a trusted entity, the European central bank, rather than your local bank through the visa or MasterCard system. If those fees can be low or eliminated, visa and MasterCard are dead.

  • percent@infosec.pub
    0·
    13 days ago

    Sometimes it’s expensive or difficult to send money between two countries, depending on which countries they are. But if you know how to send crypto, it’s the same process and price no matter where it’s going.

  • percent@infosec.pub
    0·
    12 days ago

    It’s useful for sending money internationally in situations that would be otherwise difficult

  • dhork@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    13 days ago

    I found crypto earlier than some. (not everyone – if I had more I wouldnt have to work anymore, haha!)

    IMHO, the main value proposition of crypto is permissionless peer-to-peer payments. If we both have crypto wallets, and you send me an address to make a payment to, I can send that without needing anyone’s approval first. I don’t need any bank to agree to have me as a customer first, or any government to approve why the transaction is taking place. All I need is a functioning payment network, and the original Bitcoin white paper solved how to provide that and preserve anonymity. (Really Pseudo-anonymity, but only the nerds care about the difference)

    As an academic experiment regarding permissionless payments, it is a resounding success. But, it turns out, Governments have laws regarding who can pay who, and about scamming people, regardless of the medium. So, just because Bitcoin enables permissionless payments doesn’t mean you can pay whomever you want, or makes scams somehow permissible.

    Furthermore, the rapid increase in crypto prices really doomed any chance at all for useful adoption. Because people don’t want to spend crypto anymore. They view it as a Store of Value, and who can blame them, given how it has risen from nothing to a > $2T market cap, even after the recent downturn? You used to be able to use crypto in regular transactions, but not anymore.

    • saimen@feddit.org
      0·
      12 days ago

      In short it enables strangers to make transactions without trust or the otherwise needed trusted middleman.

      • FaceDeer@fedia.io
        0·
        13 days ago

        There’s a bunch of different cryptocurrencies and a bunch of different government-backed fiat currencies, all with different ranges of stability. Even stuff like gold isn’t actually “stable”, the price varies. Pick whichever range of stability suits your needs. You could use a stabletoken that’s pegged to something else - US dollars are popular.

      • harrys_balzac@lemmy.dbzer0.com
        0·
        13 days ago

        You mean the same governments that manipulate their currency’s value?

        Or in the case of the USA, a government that is spending so much that they’re basically insolvent?

      • dhork@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        13 days ago

        You’re not wrong, but why is not having the backing of a government a bad thing?

        • Jako302@feddit.org
          0·
          13 days ago

          Because a currency without a stable backing is completely volatile. Sure the value of normal currencies fluctuate, but apart from a few hyperinflation edge cases that’s at most a few percent each month.

          Small cryptocurrencies fluctuate sometimes hundreds of percent each month and even the big coins can swing ±20% every few weeks. The only somewhat stable coins are the ones directly tied to real world currencies.

          Having a currency that fluctuates this heavily in value creates the exact same problems as the ever changing US tarrifs did. There simply is no wax to reliably price goods and services for more than a few days. You essentially have to barter each trade.

        • [deleted]@piefed.worldEnglish
          0·
          13 days ago

          A currency backed by a government has a very high chance of being able to be used at any time with a mostly stable value. Sure, if the government collapses it can become worthless, but on a worldwide scale that is far, far less likely and you will most likely know if it is headed that way ahead of time.

          Governments add a bit of stability for currency used as currency and not as speculation.

          • dhork@lemmy.worldEnglish
            0·
            13 days ago

            Tether is an interesting experiment here. They are traded as smart contract tokens on top of various blockchains. They don’t really have any intrinsic value, other than Tether LTD saying “every Tether is 100% backed by currency reserves”, and releasing unsatisfactory “audits” now and then. It’s main utility is that it provides foreign exchanges with a way to trade in something that is like Dollars without opening them up to the regulation that comes with trading actual dollars. It’s market cap is currently in excess of $180 B.

            But, USDT has been around, in one form or another, since 2015. And while other “innovative” crypto products have crashed and burned, Tether has been able to keep its peg and has never failed to meet redemptions. Furthermore, it doesn’t need to be a scam. It’s whole point is to always be worth one currency unit, so all they have to do is invest that currency in safe conventional investments and they can literally make billions of dollars with very little overhead. The most obvious answer is that they are not a scam.

            I still don’t really trust them, but I have used them on exchanges, always making sure to trade through Tether to something I can redeem on a US exchange for actual dollars. But, I have to acknowledge they have lasted longer the most crypto entities. I wish they would get a complete audit together, but at some point their reputation for having lasted so long needs to be worth something?

    • early_riser@lemmy.worldOP
      0·
      13 days ago

      I was on a forum in 2009-2010 when another member posted asking whether they should get into bitcoin. I found a video pitching it, can’t remember if the poster linked it or I googled bitcoin after reading their post. I said it sounded sketchy and advised against it.

      • LePoisson@lemmy.world
        0·
        13 days ago

        To be fair there’s a lot of crypto currency that was/still is a scam. Also I’d argue that BTC, and crypto in general, still is being treated as a security that’s backed by thin air. Ie: it’s a speculative asset that doesn’t actually have any value.

        There’s nothing really stopping BTC from crashing hard. It’s so wild to me how people treat it.

        I could have bought bitcoin too when it was worth pennies but there was no way to know which crypto the whales were going to bet on for the pump and dump. It’s a missed opportunity but rest assured there’s plenty of universes where Bitcoin amounted to nothing.

      • Atelopus-zeteki@fedia.io
        0·
        13 days ago

        And BTC went from approximately zero to approximately $100K over that time. What else are you advising against at this time? To be honest, I had read an article on cryptocurrency somewhere around '09, and thought, “wow, this is where currency is headed!” I asked a friend who was a nerdy computer programmer type, and he said it was like tulip mania in The Netherlands, so I didn’t invest. Sigh.

        From Investopedia: (https://www.investopedia.com/what-can-you-buy-with-bitcoin-5179592) - since I don’t know everything, and nobody else has said this…

        *Bitcoin launched in 2009, enabling transactions via crypto debit cards linked to Mastercard and Visa

        *Bitcoin can purchase products like electronics, luxury watches, and cars.

        *The SEC approved the first U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs in January 2024.

        *PayPal lets users buy, sell, and hold cryptocurrency in their accounts.

        *Cryptocurrency debit cards offer an easy way to use Bitcoin for purchases.

    • MerryJaneDoe@piefed.worldEnglish
      0·
      12 days ago

      the main value proposition of crypto is permissionless peer-to-peer payments.

      I think a lot of people, including myself, expected a more user-friendly experience. And what many of us realized is that a peer-to-peer payment system is a lot of work and risk for the user. Everything looks unpolished and sketchy. You don’t know if you’ve installed the right software. There’s no FDIC insuring the money, and the FBI is going to laugh if you say that you accidentally sent your life savings to the wrong crypto address.

      I guess what I’m saying is that I started to realize all the labor involved in secure fiat monetary systems. For me, as someone without a lot of money or any real reason to transfer my money electronically beyond paying bills, the effort just didn’t seem worth it.

      So, yeah, that’s the reason I just parked my cash in Coinbase and let it grow. The risk and the hassle of actually utilizing a peer-to-peer system didn’t seem to have much of a reward.

  • I_Has_A_Hat@lemmy.world
    0·
    12 days ago

    Is a question still rhetorical if you’re wrong? Because you absolutely can buy a pizza and pay bills with it, you’ve been able to for years. You can also get paid in it, you’ve been able to for years.

    Just because you choose not to, doesn’t mean you can’t.

  • dragnucs@lemmy.ml
    0·
    13 days ago

    There are a few services you van but online that accept crypto. Like hosting provider Vultr. Other things do accept bitcoin like non official student money transfer services.

    But all of this is not as wide spread. I did use it a couple of time for actually transferring money, and also buying a software plus support.

    Of of our clients (fashion) did setup Etherum payments for some physical products and their NFTs and actually got sales.

  • obelisk_complex@piefed.caEnglish
    0·
    13 days ago

    It’s great for sending money abroad. No bank, minimal fees. I use it for that all the time, to send friends gifts for weddings and birthdays and stuff.

    Yes, this requires everyone in the transaction to be on the network and know how to sell cryptocurrency; the question is whether it’s useful, not whether it’s useful with no caveats 😋