Why not accept cryptocurrency for financial support?

[Moonchild]

Bitcoin has been legalized in El Salvador and a few other countries by the govt to use as legal tender

El Salvador's Bitcoin adoption isn't faring well, though. Nothing is transparent there either. There's no public record who manages the government wallets, how much was bought and sold, etc. so it's anyone's guess how much is still there after 2 years that isn't in citizen wallets (for as much as those aren't hacked yet). It's an experiment estimated at most with < 100 million $ equivalent in bitcoin in total, and it has lost more than 1/3rd of its value in the past 2 years according to a recent analysis.
Not sure I'd like to be in the gov'ts shoes trying to explain that to taxpayers who have footed the bill for them purchasing bitcoin... and, it seems to be in the hands of Bitfinex and Tether, that have both been banned from operating in the USA due to fraud? Ouch...

Yes they made waves when they tried. I was tentatively hopeful about that, but it's deflating rapidly.

Ironic that it still takes a govt to make it work as a medium of exchange even if they aren't controlling the wuantity.

Well, unless everyone in a country is incentivised to start using it as tender, as you said, it's a non-starter to begin with. You need a government to make that happen because individual citizens and the businesses they are buying from don't want to take the risk of dealing with a volatile coin. El Salvador's also had the advantage of using US dollars as their fiat and not their own independent currency -- I could have seen that spiralling out of control quickly if that was the case.

[jez9999]

Want it to be an actual currency? I shouldn't have to care what it's worth in dollars any more than I have to care what dollars are worth in euros or pound sterling or vice versa when all I'm doing is buying regular everyday stuff from the corner shop near my house.

=
The thing is, nobody wants to change this. The people creating crypto coins want it to be a volatile stock

You do realize the creators of currencies aren't actually in control of what other people value the currency at in dollars, don't you? The goal of some currencies like Monero really is for people to just use Monero and stop caring about the USD value. I'm not really referring to shitcoins that are created for a quick buck, and I didn't suggest accepting donations in such a currency.

Then, you run into the issue that crypto doesn't want regulation, because regulation and oversight is considered "evil". So, this will simply never change.

Damn straight. The governments of the West today are generally evil. I make no apologies for taking this stance. It's quite simple to avoid being shafted, really. Don't send money to people whom you don't have good reason to trust, and if necessary, use some kind of escrow service. There was a time when humanity didn't have a gigantic government-regulated financial system, and they had to find a way not to get scammed then. People today just seem to be stupidly gullbile.

The only way crypto could fulfil that role of a true exchange currency would be if it is created and regulated by a global organisation that does not have financial incentive/greed

You really like regulation, don't you? Guess we have to disagree there. I used to like the idea of regulation, and then I realized that literally every government under the current Western order who ever regulates anything significantly either is evil at the time of doing it, or an evil one later comes along and abuses it. So in principle it may be reasonable, in practice it never is.

[Moonchild]

You do realize the creators of currencies aren't actually in control of what other people value the currency at in dollars, don't you? The goal of some currencies like Monero really is for people to just use Monero and stop caring about the USD value.

* Dominated by two mining pools which account for > 50% of the hashing power
* An overwhelming majority (~70%) of code contributions since 2017 have come from one individual

"Trust me, bro"

[jez9999]

"Trust the government, bro"

[Kris_88]

"Trust the government, bro"

The financial system must be fair. For example, can you answer a simple question? Let's say you grew 1 bag of potatoes and sold them, you received 100 coins. You kept these coins for 10 years and then bought potatoes. How many potatoes can you buy for 100 coins? Same as before, 1 bag or maybe more or less?

[moonbat]

You do realize the creators of currencies aren't actually in control of what other people value the currency at in dollars, don't you? The goal of some currencies like Monero really is for people to just use Monero and stop caring about the USD valu

> Use crypto.
> Not my problem if no one actually uses it as a medium of exchange.

Nice
You do realize that MC has bills to pay, right? "No bro trust me bro, Monero is far better than euros bro, please let me pay my server hosting fees with this bro"

[Wrolf]

1 - I like the concept of crypto as a volatile resource. That way you can apply the same kind of thinking as with any volatile resource, if you choose to delve in crypto. Since there are so many, often not predictable, ups and downs with it, you could for instance:
- don't borrow money to buy crypto
- spread your risks (don't buy so much that you will have problems if you can't find a buyer when you need to; don't buy so much that you will have to sell at a catastrophal loss at the very moment that your crypto is in the middle of its seasonal, unpredictable bust (or, occasionally, its final bust). In fact, if you have this enormous urge to gamble at the table, you might gamble with crypto instead. At the same time, such an urge is in itself very risky, and merits applying for another kind of help.)
- think budget (remembering that "budget" is not a paper to lock up in a cupboard, it's a tool to work with continuously in relation to reality and the market. (Compare also the previous point))
- keep a constant eye on what happens (corporate intelligence). That might save you, occasionally.
- and finally, if your friend or collegue starts hard-selling his/her amount of crypto - don't buy! What does he or she know that you don't? (Hint: It's probably that the crypto is just starting its seasonal plummet.)

...and, post-finally: Make very sure that you know the real meaning of "buy cheap, sell high". Most people seem to think that buying cheap means you should buy when the resource is at its all time high, just waiting for the recoil, plummeting to disaster, while selling high is believed to be selling at the rock bottom lowest, thereby losing all your money. There is of course the special case that the resource is cheap because it's bad, just waiting to die. So you could loose money even when buying "for real" cheap. That's why "corporate intelligence" is good.

2 - Cash is already rapidly vanishing in several countries. In Sweden it's mostly because the customers and the businesses have made an unholy alliance that it's so practical to pay in other ways that they (not the state!) have ruled out cash. No matter whether it's a hair dresser's, a restaurant, a general store or the local buses, they have no machinery or fixtures to handle cash. Okay, there are still places where you can still pay in cash, but not many. It's gone so far that some people think you are somehow suspect if you want to pay cash. Perhaps you are a criminal.
If you visit Sweden, I suggest that you don't get a lot of swedish cash. Also, check beforehand if your credit card will work in Sweden.

[back2themoon]

I can see where jez9999 is coming from. I actually agree. Western governments AND banks are probably the most corrupt, criminal organisations now in circulation (with exceptions, obviously).

However, the alternatives (crypto) are too sparse and disorganised for mainstream, or near-mainstream. On a different scale, it feels a bit like Linux trying (?) to replace Windows. Always forthcoming, but never actually happening.

[Moonchild]

I can see where jez9999 is coming from.

I can too, but I don't agree with the extreme stance taken. Yes, there is corruption in governments to varying degrees because humans are greedy. No it isn't the disaster people assume/think it is -- why? Because of the simple fact that countries are not going belly-up. And that could only happen if it is on-the-level and functioning as it should. Once you get enough people reliant on/invested in a system of finance, you must have regulation in place because the stakeholders will demand it for their financial security.
Yes I do like regulation in finance. No, I don't like over-regulation. But regulation and basic safeguards are absolutely necessary, or you'll get things like this on a daily basis, just from the last week:

• 11 Dec: Yearn Finance accidentally swaps its entire Ip-yCRVv2 treasury -- Because there was not sufficient liquidity for such a large trade at the going price, the trade was ultimately fulfilled, but at a 63% loss. Before the trade, that quantity of tokens was priced at around $2.28 million; however, Yearn received only around $780,000 in stablecoins because of the slippage.
  (and it's very likely that the majority of that loss just vanished into the aether. one of the major things I found to be wrong with crypto. real money earned by people just gone. poof.)
• 12 Dec: Fraudsters steal more than $25 million in "AI-powered" crypto ponzi -- Two fraudsters capitalized on the hype around both cryptocurrency and artificial intelligence, advertising an "artificial intelligence automated trading bot" that they promised would earn large returns for their investors. ... In addition to pulling off the original scam, the fraudsters also came up with a fake investigative agency called the "Federal Crypto Reserve", where they directed victims who were seeking to recover their losses.
• 13 Dec: Australian victims lose estimated $1.3 billion to prolific scammers' HyperVerse project -- Many investors have reported losses thanks to a cryptocurrency investment scheme called HyperVerse, which operated in Australia from around 2018 to mid-2023. Several financial watchdogs issued warnings about the company, including the UK, Canada, Germany, and New Zealand. The Hungarian central bank warned in August 2022 that the HyperVerse project was a "suspected pyramid scheme... behind which there is no real economic activity... There is a significant chance that investors may permanently lose part or all of their invested capital."
  Estimates by Chainalysis suggest that victims have lost a combined $1.3 billion (with a B) to the scam thus far.
• 14 Dec: Supply chain attack on Ledger puts much of defi at risk -- A supply chain attack on the Ledger connector application has rippled throughout the world of decentralized apps, which widely use the software to enable people to connect their popular Ledger hardware wallets to perform transactions. Although hardware wallets are meant to be among the most secure ways to store crypto, they too are vulnerable to attacks when they are connected to perform transactions.
• 14 Dec: SafeMoon files for bankruptcy -- The company behind the SafeMoon cryptocurrency scam has filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy. ... Although SafeMoon claimed to have created a token that would "safely go to the moon", executives allegedly siphoned millions of dollars of investor funds to spend on personal expenses including luxury cars and real estate.

Yes, it spills out everywhere, even into supposedly super-secure hardware wallets. Hacks, grifts, ponzis, misappropriation and mis-spending of investor funds; all things that are regulated in governance. I'd rather choose the less risky option.

[back2themoon]

Because of the simple fact that countries are not going belly-up.

The one I'm in has. In every way possible.

[van p]

Because of the simple fact that countries are not going belly-up.

The one I'm in has. In every way possible.

Uh, wanna tell us what country that might be?

[Moonchild]

Uh, wanna tell us what country that might be?

I believe that would be Greece. And no, that's definitely not what I would call belly-up.

[van p]

Thanks, Moonchild. I recently heard Greece referred to as a country of cafes and coffee shops, in other words, not a country that actually produces anything (nice blue domes, though). Not good, but I agree, not belly-up.

[somdcomputerguy]

Off-topic:

..a country of cafes and coffee shops,

Coffee Quips