[ilirium]

You have bizarre logic here. For example, in a topic discussed about GPUs, someone would say that it's not possible to run databases on GPUs, so GPUs don't have any chance of succeeding.

> How much do you trust your government with your money?

Do you trust crypto companies? Mt. Gox, FTX, Bybit…

Do you know that crypto companies must follow government rules, regulations, and laws? Russians were banned from using many crypto exchange platforms. China has strict rules for its citizens. You can buy and sell crypto in Brazil, but you must use only Brazilian reals.

Pix isn't global, but no one government person outside of Brazil can block this system.

MasterCard, Visa, Amex, and UnionPay work worldwide, but only a few countries regulate them, can block their usage, and can use data for tracking and statistics.

Pix is free to use, so no one needs to pay an additional "tax" to MasterCard and Visa (it's about 3%).

Google and Apple cannot say that if you want to pay, you must use only our devices.

> Now, try to use Pix outside of Brazil

Now, try to buy ice cream from street vendors using any crypto coins.

[nonethewiser]

> How much do you trust your government with your money? A system like Pix don't stand a chance to get a worldwide adoption

You mischaracterized that.

> You have bizarre logic here. For example, in a topic discussed about GPUs, someone would say that it's not possible to run databases on GPUs, so GPUs don't have any chance of succeeding.

He's saying it wont get adopted worldwide. Not that it wont succeed (which is a very ambiguous metric).

[DANmode]

They said cryptocurrencies don't stand a chance,

the conversation is supposed to be about cryptocurrency technology,

but you're talking about the gross financial companies that operate in cryptocurrency as if they ARE cryptocurrency.

Not just one feature of its existence.

Common conflation.

[immibis]

Now that I've recognized this pattern I see it everywhere: someone invents part of a solution, probably including some cool technology, then hails that as the solution and insists everyone else is wrong for not getting it.

The classic one is some FOSS people inventing a protocol where servers can talk to clients, and declaring a problem solved, when in actual fact, most people don't have a server. Mastodon is this, but so is XMPP.

HTTP took off because there were servers you could fetch things from with HTTP, not because it theoretically allowed you to fetch things from servers.

Paper euros aren't cool because I can "have money". They're cool because I can go to the grocery store and trade them for something to eat. My bank card isn't cool because I can "have money". It's cool because I can go and swipe it and not have to count paper euros. If you want cryptocurrency to be cool, you're going to have to get it integrated into grocery stores, which is, of course, impossible because it can only process 7 transactions per second. You also need a way to convert my paychecks into cryptocurrency, but this is basically solved with crypto exchanges now.

[lolinder]

> the conversation is supposed to be about cryptocurrency technology,

> but you're talking about the gross financial companies that operate in cryptocurrency as if they ARE cryptocurrency.

That's because the middlemen are inevitable and they work the way they do for a reason—governments won't let them work any other way.

Cryptocurrency is a technological solution for a human problem, and you can't analyze the impact of the technology divorced from the human reality without losing so much resolution as to make your analysis meaningless.

[DANmode]

...sure I can.

Because I've done the reading.

Which is ironically what's keeping us from adopting proper food, air, healthcare, and financial systems. Everyone doing the reading.

[lolinder]

This is the Hermione Granger approach to broomstick flying, and it doesn't work.

[DANmode]

Did you just hand-wave me from fiction? lol

Anyway, I think I meant "unironically", in retrospect.

[ilirium]

If we want to use technology in real world to solve real world issues, we need to consider all important non-technical things.

Nuclear Energy is great, but governments and international organizations want to control it because it is too dangerous. So, if we need to use Nuclear Energy, we must play by such rules.

Money is the same thing. Each government wants to control them, regardless of their form.

If someone wants cryptocurrencies to be widely adopted, there is no option but to give them to businesses and governments.

So, crypto would be regulated like usual money. Major blockchains have records for all transactions, which can be tracked and used by businesses and governments to implement more strict control over the whole world. Therefore, the more people use crypto, the less privacy they have.

The Internet and Web were designed to be anonymous, but cookies, IP addresses, data collection, ML/AI, IMEI, MAC, and the control of registration in ISPs and mobile operators have led us to a situation where the government and companies can easily track people. The same situation would be with crypto, which was designed to be anonymous but used in another way.

Don’t lie to yourself, bro.

[pembrook]

I would say your post has the logical flaws, not confronting any of the core criticism and instead misdirecting to other topics.

Creating efficient payment rails for its own currency is one of the most obvious roles for government imo. If the government provisions the currency, why would they not also provision the infrastructure (like the printing of the paper money).

That said, you’ve not offered a good rebuttal to any of OPs concerns, just repeated how good pix is within Brazil…right now with their current government.

Digital payments does present a uniquely frictionless route for tyrannical governments to assert power should they ever decide to weaponize it…unlike paper money which is harder to control.

Also, international payments is absolutely an issue with these systems. So you hate crypto due to its 2010s association with annoying Twitter bros. I get it.

But what are you offering instead as a solution to global money? Paying Wise stupid currency movement fees and waiting for them to close your account because you tried to buy a house for your family in the country you moved to?

[adanchristian]

>Digital payments does present a uniquely frictionless route for tyrannical governments to assert power should they ever decide to weaponize it…unlike paper money which is harder to control.

This is true, and there's already a proposed law to ban paper money in Brazil.

[lillecarl]

Digital payments also present a uniquely frictionless route for a functioning democratic government to tax goods and build a better society

[pembrook]

Yes, all governments are honest, non-corrupt, and never abuse power.

[lillecarl]

No, but abusing a payment system makes little sense. If people don't trust it they won't use it and then it serves no purpose. Incentives between government and people can have overlap

[ilirium]

I don't offer any solution for the problems you mentioned, and I don't think it is possible.

If we want to have global money and a global payment system, they would be controlled by governments, international organizations, God, Devil, Cthulhu, Spaghetti Monster...

There is no magical solution. We, as a society, need to establish competing social institutions, and try to control them, and try to force them to compete. There is no solver bullet.

Don’t lie to yourself, bro.

[MacsHeadroom]

Sounds like you're trying to solve a byzantine generals problem.