I definitely understand your view on crypto, and I hate to be an apologist, but here’s a view you may not have considered:
I think mainstream society has gotten far too comfortable with the lack of privacy in our everyday lives, and this extends to finance. A company has no business tracking the data about my purchases, let alone selling it. The government doesn’t need to know everything I spend money on either.
As with most topics relating to privacy, it’s not that I worry about what I have to hide. I worry about your intention with that information. As one example, if I were needing to buy Plan B for an emergency contraceptive, there is a not insignificant portion of our government and the general population that frowns on that, and could paint me as a target in the future if it was known.
The problem is that crypto is not untraceable like it’s fans want to push. There have been multiple instances of it being tracked back and traced, by private individuals and law enforcement. It’s just debit card processing with extra steps and massive drain on resources.
Monero exists and is constantly being improved in that regard. And even traceability aside, you’re forgetting one massive usecase: unlike debit cards, its usage cannot be denied or restricted.
I am in full agreement with your view on privacy, but I don’t think that cryptocurrency is a solution. People far more eloquent than I have already fully described why elsewhere, so I’d just like to thank you for your civil response.
I fully agree, I just think the solution is cash. Use cash for normal payments. Buy a house with 20s even. Ok maybe not that, but for groceries or when you would use Venmo yeah do it
I agree cash is the right idea, for now, but can you say for sure cash payment will be possible forever, or even the next 50 years? Wouldn’t it be better to blunder around with new ideas while cash is still a good fallback? Not saying I like crypto, and the cost on resources and the environment sucks bad, but I can at least appreciate them trying something. Now we just need to come up with sustainable options…
I get that cash seems a pretty durable idea, and it’s lasted for hundreds of years, but it did so before the massive societal turn towards technology we’ve made in the last 30 years.
Crypto is cash for digital world. The only existing analog I can think of is sending cash by mail, which is obviously slow and not guaranteed to.npt be stolen or confiscated on its way.
Yes, but evading LEOs is good and buying drugs online in a free and open marketplace is my sacred, moral and god-given right than no glowie should infringe upon
I fully agree. I just also think crypto is terrible for that use case. If you’d be caught for using Venmo for drugs they can catch you using crypto. It might be harder, but that whole public immutable ledger means all they have to do is tie accounts to names. Which coincidentally you need to do to cash out or cash in.
Which coincidentally you need to do to cash out or cash in.
Yes, and no. You do need to cash in at some point, but you don’t have to do it thru a public exchange. People do sell physical wallets for hard cash. And even if you do use an exchange, when I last looked into crypto the common currency for drugs (monero) was obtainable on exchanges that didn’t have KYC rules. Outside of exchanges, you can also transmit currency directly to other parties, and once you use tumblers and other anonymous platforms, tracking becomes extremely difficult. It’s not impossible, but it becomes troublesome enough that unless you’re a big fish/crime lord/whatever, the FBI/interpol/whoever isn’t going to be bothered wasting resources.
Public immutable ledger as a means of tracing is not an issue XMR has because it’s all anonymous.
But even if LEOs wanted to tie all that to names then they’d have to use either bank records (easily avoided - don’t buy anything from a bank or licensed exchange and not P2P with bank cards or anything else tied to them i.e. use PayPal under a fake name if you were grandfathered in before all the KYC shit) or they’d have to tie it to shipment addresses for stuff off DNMs which they could, if they bust a vendor, but it doesn’t mean jack shit in a court of law - Who ordered a kg of amph to my household? Lord only knows.
AI has uses that aren’t about covering your tracks or evading law enforcement. Edit: bring on the downvotes, cryptobros.
I definitely understand your view on crypto, and I hate to be an apologist, but here’s a view you may not have considered:
I think mainstream society has gotten far too comfortable with the lack of privacy in our everyday lives, and this extends to finance. A company has no business tracking the data about my purchases, let alone selling it. The government doesn’t need to know everything I spend money on either.
As with most topics relating to privacy, it’s not that I worry about what I have to hide. I worry about your intention with that information. As one example, if I were needing to buy Plan B for an emergency contraceptive, there is a not insignificant portion of our government and the general population that frowns on that, and could paint me as a target in the future if it was known.
The problem is that crypto is not untraceable like it’s fans want to push. There have been multiple instances of it being tracked back and traced, by private individuals and law enforcement. It’s just debit card processing with extra steps and massive drain on resources.
Monero exists and is constantly being improved in that regard. And even traceability aside, you’re forgetting one massive usecase: unlike debit cards, its usage cannot be denied or restricted.
I am in full agreement with your view on privacy, but I don’t think that cryptocurrency is a solution. People far more eloquent than I have already fully described why elsewhere, so I’d just like to thank you for your civil response.
I fully agree, I just think the solution is cash. Use cash for normal payments. Buy a house with 20s even. Ok maybe not that, but for groceries or when you would use Venmo yeah do it
I agree cash is the right idea, for now, but can you say for sure cash payment will be possible forever, or even the next 50 years? Wouldn’t it be better to blunder around with new ideas while cash is still a good fallback? Not saying I like crypto, and the cost on resources and the environment sucks bad, but I can at least appreciate them trying something. Now we just need to come up with sustainable options…
I get that cash seems a pretty durable idea, and it’s lasted for hundreds of years, but it did so before the massive societal turn towards technology we’ve made in the last 30 years.
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Crypto is cash for digital world. The only existing analog I can think of is sending cash by mail, which is obviously slow and not guaranteed to.npt be stolen or confiscated on its way.
Not mine. Classic Murica problem, I suppose?
Yes, but evading LEOs is good and buying drugs online in a free and open marketplace is my sacred, moral and god-given right than no glowie should infringe upon
I fully agree. I just also think crypto is terrible for that use case. If you’d be caught for using Venmo for drugs they can catch you using crypto. It might be harder, but that whole public immutable ledger means all they have to do is tie accounts to names. Which coincidentally you need to do to cash out or cash in.
Yes, and no. You do need to cash in at some point, but you don’t have to do it thru a public exchange. People do sell physical wallets for hard cash. And even if you do use an exchange, when I last looked into crypto the common currency for drugs (monero) was obtainable on exchanges that didn’t have KYC rules. Outside of exchanges, you can also transmit currency directly to other parties, and once you use tumblers and other anonymous platforms, tracking becomes extremely difficult. It’s not impossible, but it becomes troublesome enough that unless you’re a big fish/crime lord/whatever, the FBI/interpol/whoever isn’t going to be bothered wasting resources.
Using Venmo anonymously is much harder than XMR or even BTC, and probably illegal too.
Public immutable ledger as a means of tracing is not an issue XMR has because it’s all anonymous.
But even if LEOs wanted to tie all that to names then they’d have to use either bank records (easily avoided - don’t buy anything from a bank or licensed exchange and not P2P with bank cards or anything else tied to them i.e. use PayPal under a fake name if you were grandfathered in before all the KYC shit) or they’d have to tie it to shipment addresses for stuff off DNMs which they could, if they bust a vendor, but it doesn’t mean jack shit in a court of law - Who ordered a kg of amph to my household? Lord only knows.