3d ago

Creative Title

Not really a meme meme, but i felt like i had to :s

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i wonder if this is the shitgibbons in charge trying to drive up bitcoin prices seeing as how they just publicly bought a bunch of bitcoin.
i know the payment processors have always been prudes but they are really doubling down and its only going to drive folks to crypto.
edit: I don't think it's a good idea either but talk to anyone outside lemmy and ask if they understand the environmental impact of crypto and AI and they have no clue.
- Bitcoin is really bad for using as currency, due to the fact that there is a permanent, public ledger of all transactions. Why would you want anyone you pay to be able to see and trace every transaction you've ever made? Pay rent in bitcoin, now your landlord can calculate your spending and who you do transactions with. And yes, there are services that aggregate and obfuscate transactions in order to make them less traceable, but now you've just reinvented the same centralized payment processor system that the whole thing is supposed to be replacing... so... what's the point?
  Cash is good for using as currency.
  
  so... what's the point?
  The point isn't anonymity, but independence and autonomy. It's hard to shut down and hard to tax. The banks/governments can't freeze your bitcoins, nor can they simply print more or regulate the value otherwise.
  
  The banks/governments can't freeze your bitcoins, nor can they simply print more or regulate the value otherwise.
  You're just listing reasons why bitcoin sucks lol. Oh no!!! Flight risk criminals and terrorists had their accounts frozen!!! Oh no, ReGuLaTiOn BaD!!! Grow up.
  Finite currencies (like gold/silver/bitcoin) are deflationary currencies and are genuinely absolutely terrible for an economy. That's why we don't use gold anymore.
  
  "Flight risk criminals and terrorists had their accounts frozen!!!"
  Yes, those criminals, for example, LGBT people who conservatives believe are pornographic simply for existing. God forbid LGBT artists want to have a way of earning a living. Crypto is relied on by a lot of marginalized groups. It's used by artists who make perfectly legal art, but whose content conservatives object to. Crypto is used by many queer content creators as they face being cut off from payment processing systems, as again, conservatives consider queer people pornographic simply for existing. Crypto is used by sex workers, often people with few other employment options. Oh, and crypto is used by trans people to get access to healthcare that is quickly being criminalized.
  How insane do you have to be, in 2025 Trump's America, to fall back on the idea that anything criminal is bad. Republicans are trying to criminalize the existence of entire swathes of the population. And those people face being cut off from the banking system entirely, if folks like you, who blindly consider legality=morality, have their way.
  
  Ah yes, that's why the Trump administration is one of the biggest proponents of crypto, right?? 🙄 did you even try?
  
  How are those related? It is possible for some conservatives to want to purge LGBT voices from the internet at the same time other conservatives want to advance crypto. These are not mutually exclusive goals.
  
  It does however look really bad that such a massive criminal organization (trump and co) are pushing for it so hard.
  All of this before getting into just how insanely wasteful and terrible for the world that crypto is.
  Sorry that it helps a few artists, but the cost for everyone else is significantly higher to embrace what crypto is.
  
  It wasn't my intention to come off as supporting it. I was simply giving the objective reasons for its creation. I see it as a tool that can be useful in some situations, but can be problematic in others.
  
  Finite currencies (like gold/silver/bitcoin) are deflationary currencies and are genuinely absolutely terrible for an economy.
  Myth. Deflation is just negative inflation, and that's been fine.
  
  It's a fact.
  Deflation is just negative inflation
  Yep, that's a major problem. The total pool of currency needs to be able to grow with the economy. Take a first year econ course before speaking
  
  It's a myth.
  The total pool of currency needs to be able to grow with the economy.
  Go on, back up that statement with references from your first year econ course notes.
  Under your model, how was the economy able to grow before 1976?
  
  Under your model, how was the economy able to grow before 1976?
  Gold can be mined.
  
  Ah. So the rate of gold extraction exactly matches the expansion of the economy.
  Oh, it doesn't.
  Try again.
  
  Hurray! You've correctly identified the problem! Congratulations.
  
  So we agree you've proved your statement that "The total pool of currency needs to be able to grow with the economy" is false?
  Excellent. Glad I could help.
  
  Just ban it worldwide and have the police arrest anyone running a node
  
  oh wow, it's that easy? we should do it with other things like piracy, human trafficking, tax evasion, insider trading, bribery, cyberattacks and environmental violations as well. oh wait, we did? it didn't stop it? i'm shocked. /s
  
  Tax evasion is legal several places.
  
  So monero?
  
  You can use a p2p service, like Lightning with onion routing.
  
  You can make intermediate wallets to obfuscate transfers, like throwaways, so the wallet that pays your rent is different from the one ordering a dragon dildo and it's hard to say if it's the same person, but it's a hassle and you'll get extra transaction fees.
  
  It's trivial to trace the funding of these "throwaways" to link them together... unless this entire system is supposed to just rely on using a standard bank account to fund them, which.... circling back to "so what's the point?" you could pay from that account directly to get the same benefits. Using bitcoin is completely redundant in that scenario
  
  Obfuscation is not security.
  
  Amazing username
  
  yeah, just grants you plausible deniability
  
  Cash is good for using as currency.
  But so insanely annoying to handle and carry with you.
  
  That's a bad argument. Visa, MasterCard, etc. know who you're transacting with anyway. That is functionally equivalent to just paying from a Coinbase Bitcoin wallet. On the public ledger, it'll only show a transaction from a Coinbase wallet. No one would know it's you other than Coinbase and the porn provider
  Woth crypto you could at least send it to your wallet, throw it through Tornado Cash, then put it in another wallet, making it extremely difficult to track
  In general though, if the government wants to know who made a digital transaction, they'll be able to find out. Doesn't matter if you use a credit card or crypto
  What makes Bitcoin bad as a currency is the slow, expensive transaction times
- I'm cool with not trying the money that isn't money but instead is an environmental disaster wrapped in explosive deflation.
  
  Looks like Bitcoin does indeed suck, but Etherium and one called Avalanche(?) Are more environmentally friendly.
  
  Oh cool. Minor environmental disasters wrapped in explosive deflation.
  
  It takes one wind turbine to run all of Ethereum.
  Deflation is not relevant for a transaction.
  
  Deflation is not relevant for a transaction
  What are you trying to say with this? Cause I'm stuck between the very literal and wildly confusing.
  I will say, regardless of your further explanation, that deflation makes transactions less likely to happen, which is the whole point of a currency to begin with. Would you rather pay a debt to a friend off with dollars or a cryptocoin? Cause my money is that most people would say the dollars since the crypto could grow, whereas the dollar is always shrinking. A speculative asset is not something most people would give away like they would money.
  
  If you are storing money in a certain currency then inflation is a problem.
  If you owe money in a certain currency then deflation is a problem.
  If you are quickly moving money from one currency to another then making an instant one off payment, the time span is too small for either inflation or deflation to have an impact.
  The price of the service can be quoted as fixed in USD and adjusted in real time on the crypto side.
  
  Cool. So why would I ever want that? Why would I willingly buy a crypto to pay for a transaction when doing so is always detrimental to me over the person who I am paying? I'll spend more than the amount of debt I have (thanks to various fees) in order to give the person I'm buying from an asset that's more likely to gain value than lose. Instead of a dollar, a thing made to do the actual job of a currency that everyone already has and accepts.
  
  Cool. So why would I ever want that?
  So that anyone can buy what they want from whoever they want. So that payment processors cannot hold or be held by certain groups for ransom.
  You know, the whole point of this thread.
  
  Okay, so. First comment made this argument, to which I fired back that I'm not interested because:
  Crypto is not a currency Is an environmental disaster Has massive deflation
  And since this thread has begun we've changed that to:
  Is not a currency (you ceded this when you said that transactions would be in USD, just with the crypto as the value carrier) Are mostly environmental disasters Has massive deflation (you ceded this again with your transactional argument)
  Damn, your powers of persuasion are beyond my comprehension. /s
  Seriously, the fuck are we doing here? You just wanna talk about nothing? I rather think daisies are pretty. What're your thoughts?
  
  Crypto is not a currency Is an environmental disaster Has massive deflation
  My first response delt with this. Only bitcoin is an environmental disaster. Deflation is only relevant if you hold a currency long term. Irrelevant for payment processing.
  Seriously, the fuck are we doing here?
  We are discussing how to counter the monopoly stranglehold of payment processors. Crypto is a possible solution that is viable today.
- If this really does drive people to crypto then I hope it goes to monero or a fork of it. Try blocking or tracking transactions then.
- I’ll pass on the tree burning coins
- VISA and MasterCard get to build the digital dollar so they don't care how any of it is manipulated so long as their position as middlemen is secure.
- Probably simpler than all that, at least in the US. The Puritans get something like so passed. Fine. Now who in their right mind is going to stand up and say STOP. Imagine the political smear campaign. And it will all be "for the children".

180 comments