[35amxn35]

Crypto is doing perfectly fine :)

For anyone wondering, the purpose of crypto is not to be a store of value, but to be a currency. If you don't want to speculate on its price you buy BTC that day, you transfer that BTC to purchase whatever good you want. The seller can do the same, converting his BTC to something else or for cash as soon as he makes a sale.

To clarify:

1) It is a lot better if Bitcoin is used by a relative minority of people and flies under the radar. In places where it's really needed it's penetration will be a lot higher. We see that in Venezuela and in many places in Latin America with high inflation.

2) Centralized exchanges using a centralized digital coin with no backing != crypto

3) Most crypto != crypto. Bitcoin surely is.

4) Speculating on its price is an unintended side-effect.

5) The purpose of crypto is to remove the middleman.

6) The SBF saga has nothing to do with crypto.

I hope that explains some of it.

[rajup]

> For anyone wondering, the purpose of crypto is not to be a store of value, but to be a currency.

I have zero skin in the game and I couldn’t care less if btc goes to zero or 1 million. But btc seems to be terrible even as a currency with terrible transaction processing times and overheads.

[polio]

It's worse than fiat, but that isn't an alternative if you're a North Korean hacker, a ransomware artist, or an international drug dealer. Crypto does well at facilitating these use cases.

[35amxn35]

It's true. It's also helpful when you live in an authoritarian/corrupt country. Same as cash.

The day cash is banned, it's completely over.

[imtringued]

If cash is banned and a central bank gets the funny idea of setting the short term negative interest rate to -5% permanently, then corruption would disappear because the return on money obtained via corruption is no longer guaranteed to be positive unless it helps the economy more than the initial corruption damaged it. A few years later cash with demurrage fees would be implemented.

[35amxn35]

You're right, but that's the cost of decentralization. No way around it.

[fellellor]

This is all right. But bitcoin or any other cryptocoin is a shitty currency because of their volatility. If all BTC users lived in crypto island and fiat speculation over crypto was some curious ritual that only non islanders indulged in, without affecting the balance or transfer of the coins then crypto would stand a chance of becoming a currency in crypto island. In the real world there is no chance of this happening. Mainly because BTC and almost every other crypto are closed systems and don't incorporate ways to interact with other systems (even other blockchains). Their's is an all or nothing world, and it will inevitably be nothing.

Satoshi only solved one part of the puzzle with bitcoin. But the problem is much larger and crypto-land is beset with untalented frauds.

[boc]

To further clarify:

1) When you buy things to survive/thrive with crypto, you also owe taxes to the government

2) Crypto isn’t legal tender for paying your taxes in the United States (or almost any other country)

3) You (or your counter-party) have to use an exchange of some type to obtain USD and pay your taxes

4) If you don’t pay your taxes the government will seize your assets and do it for you

5) If you resist the government will use violence to incarcerate you

I hope that explains some of it.

[35amxn35]

Sounds like you have no idea of what you're talking about.

Crypto for cash, peer-to-peer, without an exchange. I personally know lots of people doing it, every single day. No way to map one BTC wallet to an individual. Those unpaid taxes do not exist.

[MerelyMortal]

You personally know lots of people violating the law by not paying taxes.

Just because the government doesn't know about the exchange does not relieve the parties of their legal obligations.

Whether or not a person believes they should pay those taxes are immaterial to the fact that they are owed.

[35amxn35]

I don't condone it, but you could technically kill a person and as long as you don't get caught, you're free to do it.

Kind of a "Don't quote laws to men with swords" situation

[boc]

Sounds like you didn’t read what I wrote. You can trade crypto P2P blindfolded in underground basements to your heart’s delight, but Uncle Sam will demand his cut eventually once you use that wealth for anything material in the real world.

I bid you best of luck with the IRS. Those unpaid taxes do indeed exist and I’d suggest you talk to a lawyer if what you wrote is what you truly believe.

[fellellor]

Sounds like a bunch of nimby a-holes. Sure they can trade their homegrown chicken and moonshine for crypto among each other. What's the big deal?

[35amxn35]

>Uncle Sam will demand his cut eventually once you use that wealth for anything material in the real world.

I don't know. It really comes down to what Alice and Bob agree to in the exchange, that's the beauty of it. Purchasing property using property is kind of pushing it

[boc]

That's not how it works lmao. You can't just trade your house for $0 to your friend and agree that there's no tax to be assessed. The government has its own opinion on the fair market value that they use.

Otherwise EVERYTHING would be "valued" at $0 right before it's sold and then people would "gift" the sale amount to dodge taxes. The IRS isn't dumb.

[35amxn35]

It's absolutely how it works. The fact that you live in an authoritarian country that requires a threshold of $600 to report payments is unnatural. It's like saying that the CCP has its own opinion on whether you should be able to go out of your house at any given time, or if you should be locked in for X more weeks due to "covid" or any other bullshit excuse. Or, that Canada govt has its own opinion on whether your bank account should be freezed based on what protests you attend to, and so on.

Here's the thing: abstractions (or "man-made horrors horrors beyond your comprehension") are feeble. With a big enough catastrophe, natural or not, the IRS along with any US intitution will cease to exist.