Ah yes, the "technology". Any day now. Won't know what hit them. Around the corner really, alongside cold fusion and the chewing gum that replaces toothbrushes.
The same criticism applies, a global distributed consensus is fundamentally flawed as a payment system, and the current ad-hoc organically grown mess of different centralised payment systems interoperating is somehow still more suited to processing payments quickly and reliably than ‘crypto’.
Fast transfers, trusted partners, regulation, audits, identity verification, fraud prevention, backing, sound money. All these things are important and valuable, and while our current system is really flawed in some ways (in particular the control of politicians over money supply and the monetisation of debt), cryptocurrencies do not offer a solution to the most pressing problems and introduce too many of their own.
How are credit cards not the most terrible thing ever? Some random number with an expiry date and an additional number is the key to your wealth (subject to a lot of terms and conditions)? I would rather go with a cryptography based solution, where all the terms and conditions are open source code, all day
Yeah, like online shopping. Remember that fad? Luckily the .com crash showed us that the critics were right and nobody ever got rich from that dumb idea again.
I’m certain I’ve seen examples akin to “people want to touch and see the products before they’ll consider buying them”.
I think the difference with crypto is that over time as more people look under the veil the number of naysayers grow, whereas with online shopping the naysayers have gone extinct (maybe RMS uses only cash or something).
Last night I stumbled across a group freestyle rapping and hung out for a bit. At one point one of the rappers talked about putting money into AMC and how it was a bumpy rollercoaster of a ride.
It really put a face on the other side of a lot of these cryptos and meme stocks. It’s entirely possible the fellow was a savvy investor (he certainly could freestyle very well) however judging by how his posture went from exuberant and confident to deflated as soon as he mentioned AMC in his own freestyle I’m fairly confident he bought in at the top.
And it certainly didn’t surprise me that at my local stomping grounds I’d be hearing the dismayed crewing of the fleeced.