[delaaxe]

Whether or not the underlying storage mechanism uses a database is not the point.

The point is who can edit that database and under which rules (imagine that database holds a lot of your money and you live in an oppressive regime).

[dmitriid]

> imagine that database holds a lot of your money and you live in an oppressive regime

That opressive regime holds:

- your access to the internet (crypto requires continuous access to internet to function)

- your access to exchange offices because crypto is useless if it cannot be converted to fiat

So, what exactly have you solved?

[miracle2k]

> So, what exactly have you solved?

Ownership of your funds, which is the primary requirement from which all others stem. You will still have those when you regain access to the internet, or the ability to spend them.

The reality is that a government having the ability to confiscate the funds in your bank account, and attempting to restrict you and your neighbours peer to peer actions, personal mobility or internet access are totally different things. This sort black and white thinking provides lacks a valuable analysis of actual power structures. No one claims your crypto currency will protect you from a bullet.

[dragonwriter]

> > So, what exactly have you solved?

> Ownership of your funds

Nope, ownership is law. The problem you’ve mitigated (but not solved) is the ability to retain possession of your funds.

> The reality is that a government having the ability to confiscate the funds in your bank account, and attempting to restrict you and your neighbours peer to peer actions, personal mobility or internet access are totally different things.

They are motivated on rely on very much the same social conditions, they are not “totally different things”, and they are even less different the more it becomes necessary for the government to do the latter in order to achieve the effect of the former.

> No one claims your crypto currency will protect you from a bullet.

The capacity and willingness to use a bullet to effectuate their will for that end is what enables a government to drain your money from a bank; it may be masked and may not be immediately evident in the mechanics they use to do it in practice, because the time and repetition and institutionalization has routinized and streamlined the process. But, at root, its all the bullet.

[dmitriid]

> Ownership of your funds,

Which ends the moment that oppressive government makes you give up your keys.

> This sort black and white thinking provides lacks a valuable analysis of actual power structures.

The "blockchain is godsend for oppressive governments" is the sort of non-thinking that is currently unsurprising for most crypto enthusiasts pushing it while completely ignoring (or plain not knowing) the realities.

[Karunamon]

Point 2 is strictly false, crypto can be exchanged for goods or services on its own.

[dmitriid]

> Point 2 is strictly false, crypto can be exchanged for goods or services on its own.

In dreams, maybe. In reality there are vanishingly few goods or services that can be exchanged for crypto. For obvious reasons immediately obvious to anyone who could care to think about the supply chain for more than 30 seconds [2].

This is especially true for oppressive governments where the use of crypto is grounds for criminal persecution [1]

[1] E.g. https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-journalists-alexei...

[2] Let's say you buy bread from a shop. That shop has to pay salaries, rent, pay suppliers of flour, spice, herbs. Those suppliers have to pay their salaries and their suppliers. The owner of the place who rents out to the shop needs to pay for his stuff.

Almost no one in this chain accepts payments in crypto. So even if the shop accepts payments in crypto, they need to convert it to fiat. So the shop's question becomes: is it worth the hassle? in the absolute vast majority of cases the answer is "no".

[Karunamon]

https://99bitcoins.com/bitcoin/who-accepts/

Apparently, I must be dreaming this entire list. Now, to head off what will certainly be a response absolutely loaded with special pleading and/or strawmen, the claim was "crypto can be exchanged for goods and services on its own". Provided was a rather substantial, yet not exhaustive, list of merchants of various sizes which accept one kind of crypto in exchange for goods and services. QED.

[dmitriid]

> Apparently, I must be dreaming this entire list.

I'll say this again: "In reality there are vanishingly few goods or services that can be exchanged for crypto."

> Provided was a rather substantial, yet not exhaustive, list of merchants

So. What started with "money in oppressive regimes" became:

here's a list of companies in first-world countries many which at one point played with crypto, but now:

- don't accept crypto anymore due to its volatility or for other reasons (many links no longer work or don't list crypto as payment: Wikipedia, Microsoft etc.)

- actually accept payments in fiat provided by an external exchange because the need actual fiat (AT&T, everyone else who uses BitPay)

- don't accept crypto because it was a limited time marketing gimmick (KFC in Canada, and this is written directly in the list)

- don't exist as a company anymore if they existed at all (do not search, or open, Lumfile the cloud-based service at work)

This leaves us with, again, "vanishingly few goods or services that can be exchanged for crypto" because reality doesn't care for your dreams.

> QED.

QED indeed

[Karunamon]

An even cursory reading of the list does not disqualify all, or even most of them, so not sure what you're getting at. This is childish nit picking at this point, anyone who wants to actually spend bitcoin will have no trouble finding a place to do so.

[rswail]

There are some merchants in some places that accept crypto currencies in exchange for goods and services. So yes, saying that none do is "strictly" false.

The question though is are there any merchants that provide, on a wide basis, to numerous consumers, goods and services that are paid for by crypto.

Essentially the answer is no, because most merchant supply chains require fiat, governments require all taxes to be paid in fiat (that's why it exists).

So there is no "crypto" world where I can go live that entirely uses any crypto currency as its medium of exchange.

All of them require conversion to/from fiat, because that's what the world/governments/taxation/laws are based on for value exchanges.