[sweetbitter]

> The entire purpose of cryptocurrencies are to avoid those things, so while you technically could have them with a cryptocurrency, you would end up with no good reason to have a cryptocurrency at all.

I will substitute a word from your post that will help you understand this easier:

"The entire purpose of cash is to avoid those things, so while you technically could have them with cash, you would end up with no good reason to have cash at all."

Cryptocurrency is not antithetical to banks just like cash and gold are not. It is a digital version of cash, not credit.

[strogonoff]

Cryptocurrencies are nothing like cash for one important reason: they are not subject to physical constraints.

You cannot easily scam millions of people around the world out of their hard-earned cash in a couple of days. You cannot easily move millions of dollars in cash without conspicuously hauling objects around and/or engaging many people to help with that. You can reverse a cash transaction immediately by grabbing the person and calling the police. You cannot maintain anonymity when dealing in cash without giving strong cues to bystanders and counterparties and risking being recorded on video. It is not the purpose of cash to avoid any of those “downsides”; but it clearly is a feature of cryptocurrencies.

Cryptocurrencies are a qualitatively new thing humanity has never had to deal with ever, no matter how insistent are cryptocurrency aficionados’ in calling it merely “a digital version of cash”. This serves their wallets, by suspending deserved wariness and encouraging unsophisticated people to invest into a financial pyramid, but not truthful description of reality.

[sweetbitter]

> Cryptocurrencies are a qualitatively new thing humanity has never had to deal with ever, no matter how insistent are cryptocurrency aficionados’ in calling it merely “a digital version of cash”. This serves their wallets, by suspending deserved wariness and encouraging unsophisticated people to invest into a financial pyramid, but not truthful description of reality.

Holding no cryptocurrency myself (I don't need to buy anything with it atm :D) I would hardly call myself an 'aficionado'. But you must understand that to compare does not mean to equate. All I was saying is that cryptographic currencies have some of the properties that cash has, but that they also have the ease of transport and storage afforded to us by credit.

I don't see the issue with being able to transport cash across the 'net. Governments can still regulate businesses, banks, so if you go and buy a car and your government wants to know to tax it, the business selling you the car can just report this income. If a bank held your asset for you, they could just be subject to similar regulations as when they hold other assets for you. Once you stop treating it like credit or like some amorphous blob that cannot be regulated, this stuff gets pretty simple to understand.

[strogonoff]

> I don't see the issue with being able to transport cash across the 'net.

The very idea of “physically unconstrained cash” is relatively new to humanity so there are some unknown unknowns, but even then I think the issues are obvious by now.

The necessity to handle a physical object limits the scale of potential upsides (help relatives, etc.) and downsides (scam people, etc.) of cash—and it might have transpired that, with that necessity removed, the downsides and exploits are much more sought after and outweigh potential upsides.

[sneak]

I believe that every single sentence in your second paragraph is factually incorrect. I know of all of the things you say aren’t possible with cash are, for a fact, possible and common.

[strogonoff]

You live in a different world, I guess. In this universe you need duffel bags to move a moderate amount of cash, vans or trucks a large amount, because physics. Ah, and those duffel bags and vans 1) are conspicuous and obvious on CCTVs, 2) require people to handle, and 3) can’t teleport across oceans.

(This is just one sentence you claimed incorrect; I don’t see the the point on going through the rest because maybe I’m missing something but they seem similarly obvious to me personally.)

[amalcon]

This sort of rhetoric is suboptimal. It only seems persuasive because you consider cryptocurrency to be analogous in purpose to cash, but the person you're trying to convince likely does not believe this. If they did, then they likely would already see purposes of cryptocurrency other than avoiding regulation, via the analogy.

If you're going to argue through analogy, you ideally need to ensure agreement with the analogy. Since asynchronous discussions make this difficult, we often need to settle for motivating the analogy instead. Simply assuming it is usually not persuasive.

[sweetbitter]

Thanks for the advice. I use synchronous media like chat protocols much more often, and was blind to this- and yep, it does seem like the primary objection to that argument was born out of a flawed understanding of the analogy.

[cortesoft]

The entire purpose of cash is NOT to avoid a central authority... in fact, all cash has a central authority in the form of the government who issues the currency.