[MrSkyNet]

The complexity of crypto is probably the biggest.

The second biggest is the missing need: Most people don't have any advantage of using crypto. They go to work, get a salary, buy/sell things and thats it.

If you don't need to buy something illegal or really believe that there is still a soviety left to take some crypto in worst case scenario, fiat is great.

[twosdai]

I have this pet theory that the idea of decentralized currency is a bit ahead of its time, and the best consumer use case is for frequent travelers since you could more easily sidestep foreign exchange issues, and hassles.

There's a bunch of backend and b2b use cases to be explored but those also take time.

All this assumes the volatility issue is solved.

[organsnyder]

> frequent travelers since you could more easily sidestep foreign exchange issues

I don't travel internationally very frequently, but whenever I do my credit card handles currency exchange for me automatically. Perhaps I'm not getting the best exchange rate, but the difference is minimal enough that looking into alternatives isn't worth the hassle.

[howeyc]

Also doesn't need to be decentralized or an existing crypto currency to solve those issues.

For example, central banks are exploring smart contracts for international payments. https://www.bis.org/press/p240403.htm

[s-phi-nl]

A paragraph from the previous essay by the OP comes to mind:

> Less sardonically, there is a lesson here: systems which intermediate between cultures are useful. Intermediating between cultures is a thing the world urgently needs and is extremely prepared to pay for.

https://www.bitsaboutmoney.com/archive/financial-systems-tak...

I don't think decentralized currency will actually solve the issues travelers have with this, at least without reproducing much of the infrastructure already in place for traditional currencies.

[BizarroLand]

Ahead of its time. Not a bad call.

In a quasicapitalist utopia, crypto would be a very convenient way to enable the government to set a stock value for a universal cryptocredit and make that credit its default method of value transfer.

They could do something like pin the value to 1 credit = 1 hour of unskilled menial labor, and strictly control the supply.

With appropriate software monitoring and a lack of other methods of direct wealth transfer, it would make it impossible to not properly pay your taxes and vastly more difficult to exchange wealth without government oversight, and make money crimes vastly more difficult, from hiring criminals to do crimes to purchasing drugs and weapons for illicit purposes.

It's the perfect system for a dictatorship as well.

[missedthecue]

Crypto is complex but I don't think very many people could explain how Visa's merchant payment network functions. It just does, and no one has to think about it.

[MrSkyNet]

Yes and thats not the case for crypto. For crypto you need to choose a cryptocoin, need to understand what a wallet is, best case install a secure wallet from the internet etc.

You don't need to know how visa works as long as you know how to register for a cc and know how to put that card into a device when paying.

[margalabargala]

Amother huge piece is that it (Bitcoin and most other major cryptos) is by design a deflationary money system.

Why would you spend crypto when you could get more for it if you wait a week?

You wouldn't.

And people don't.

[max51]

>Why would you spend crypto when you could get more for it if you wait a week?

that never stopped capitalist from spending their money even if they make profit from their investment. If your logic was true, no one who has access to investment opportunities (eg. the stock market) would ever spend any money.

[margalabargala]

> If your logic was true...

I think you're taking a stronger interpretation than what I wrote.

I'm not saying no one ever spent any crypto.

I'm saying that because it was deflationary, people tended to spend less than otherwise. This was so bad with bitcoin that it failed to be usable as a currency.

If my logic were true, then when interest rates were higher and people could make more money doing nothing, then people with access to investment opportunities would tend to spend less money.

Which is exactly what we are currently seeing.