Thanks for your response.
People lose money lots of ways, You’re right. But the difference is whether there is actual value and use in the thing being offered. The US dollar has a use and national currencies as well. They are both a stable source of value (meaning you don’t have to worry about paying +3%, -7%, -12%, +16%, etc. in the next few minutes, hours, days or even for most things months and years). Gold has a very long history on its side that originated with its decorative, status and even its practical use. Bitcoin and Tulips are a different category and do indeed have something in common: They have no inherent use or value.
There is no shortage of means of conducting transactions securely and electronically. There is nothing convenient about transacting in Bitcoin. Apart from the fact that you cannot directly conveniently transact with much of anything except drugs, weapons, blood-resources and ransomware. And it is a good thing that these are difficult use cases.
I don’t know about you, but I can go to most places in the world and transact digitally and instantaneously. Only when the technology (from device to infrastructure) is not present or available (as it is in all cases with crypto), you can only transact with physical currency or barter. And this is something there is no alternative to. And least of all crypto.
You can read more detail on the subject of technical challenges for all crypto here on my Medium. It would be good to hear about any flaws in what I present. But the short of it is: There are now in the thousands of projects (and growing) that are trying to overcome the numerous practical shortcomings of crypto “as a currency” or scalable and stable exchange. Still, none exists. I once believed in the possibilities as you and, as a lifelong techie, went and tried to build such a platform. I and a couple others founded here in the USA and then relocated it to Shanghai, PRC which was the hottest place for DDLT. We succeeded in devising and implementing a scalable design, but to keep the “decentralization” promise was fairly patently impossible and is still for every project in existence. And, no, DFinity doesn’t solve these problems. See my article here on it.
As for digital money undercutting banks, there’s one acronym I hope you know of. If not, feel free to research: CBDC, central bank digital currency. The arrival of these will with near certainty end the crypto dreams.
And, lastly, “belief systems”. Crypto is 100% belief. There is nothing else behind it. No clean, democratic political system and econometrics, no guarantee that the technology will be invulnerable, no guarantee that any PBFT remains invulnerable and no guarantee that it will EVER be a stable source of value. And I have yet to hear a believer explain how that might change. See my article on DFinity.
I’d love to hear your responses to this. But I would also love to hear that you read through most of what I have written and see if you still believe. Cheers, J-
