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With the death of cash, privacy faces a deeply uncertain future

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Re: With the death of cash, privacy faces a deeply uncertain future

#41
post #39

Cash isn't dead. Even in a pandemic, there's a lot of stores that still accept it. This article seems more like clickbait FUD for pumping cryptocurrency.

This actually got me thinking.... What if someone utilized GPT-3 to write incoherent garbage that can pass off in front of Quant firm's sentiment analyzers as trending topics? If one were invested enough, one could certainly pump all sorts of stocks too.

Re: With the death of cash, privacy faces a deeply uncertain future

#42

This is the real killer app of cryptocurrency. Monero is a decentralized, untraceable digital cash that preserves privacy. All the arguments against cryptocurrency can also be applied to cash, but that doesn’t take away their main value proposition, which is a mathematically secure way to send payments while protecting the sender’s privacy.

>Monero is a [...] untraceable digital cash that preserves privacy

Not exactly. A single transaction might be untraceable but over repeated transactions it's possible to deanonymize people with a high degree of confidence. See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9s3EbSKDA3o the good part starts at 10 minutes.

Re: With the death of cash, privacy faces a deeply uncertain future

#43
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a monero contributor, I can say one problem differentiating it still from the capabilities of cash is the inability to give Monero to someone who doesn't already have a wallet. there's trust involved in every solution we know of so far.

I get what you're saying of course, but as a fun counterpoint, I gave my brother $50 worth of Monero for Christmas and he has absolutely no idea how cryptocurrencies work, had never heard of Monero. I simply wrote out instructions on a piece of paper, the seed, basic opsec, and there you go. He probably put it in his drawer and forgot about it. But he'll remember and learn how it works real quick if I ever tell him i…

That doesn't sound like a cash replacement to me, it sounds like an investment vehicle. The reason cash is cash is that there's no inherent benefit to sitting on it. No one is going to be able to trade 10 $5 bills they put in the drawer this year for 5 $100 bills in a year or two, and we all understand that and operate on that shared understanding. If there's a hope and a real chance that I could get rich by just sitting on a cryptocurrency, I'll have to weigh its divestment against holding it. And the people or entities that have the biggest counterweight to investment are likely to be those who get some additional benefit besides its monetary value that they'd have to pay mightily for with cash anyway, like anonymity for practical rather than political reasons.

Re: With the death of cash, privacy faces a deeply uncertain future

#44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And 20 years ago, neo-cons embracing dystopian government control to make sure muslims didn't use cash. It's all control. But instead of seeing it as right vs. left, its better framed as authoritarians (historic and modern left [1], Silicon Valley, FBI) vs. people who value their freedom and privacy either because its innate to their being, or because their particular group is kept under a watchful eye (gays in the 8…

Christian people are kept under a watchful eye in the US today? All 200 million of them?

Yes, along with everyone else, the NSA exists.

Re: With the death of cash, privacy faces a deeply uncertain future

#45

Has anyone found a use for cash outside financing criminal operations? Transactions are slower than sending money electronically, the paper is subject to decay, and if your cash gets stolen you have no recourse to getting it back. The fact that a hundred dollar bill is worth a hundred real dollars is insanity and proof that its value is a speculative bubble that’s being driven by anarchist fanatics and criminals.

Legitimately surprised at sibling comments missing the subtext here. s/cash/cryptocurrency of parent post and you have word for word the standard complaint against cryptocurrency, which I believe is the point @camjohnson26 is trying to make.

Calling out the subtext would probably lead to completely different responses. The truth is most people don’t understand money or the very real reasons why cash and digital currency are important.

Thankfully some brilliant souls pointed out you can buy things with cash. The comments about donating to political parties are especially ironic. Hacker News is great for technological information but way off base when it comes to finance and economics.

Re: With the death of cash, privacy faces a deeply uncertain future

#46

Has anyone found a use for cash outside financing criminal operations? Transactions are slower than sending money electronically, the paper is subject to decay, and if your cash gets stolen you have no recourse to getting it back. The fact that a hundred dollar bill is worth a hundred real dollars is insanity and proof that its value is a speculative bubble that’s being driven by anarchist fanatics and criminals.

Apparently the /s is actually required here.

It’s pretty sad.

Re: With the death of cash, privacy faces a deeply uncertain future

#48
post #39

Cash isn't dead. Even in a pandemic, there's a lot of stores that still accept it. This article seems more like clickbait FUD for pumping cryptocurrency.

Philadelphia recently passed a law outright requiring stores to accept cash; they viewed requiring a bank account and credit card to be an accessibility problem for homeless residents. A couple of fast-food places I (pre-pandemic) used to frequent switched from requiring credit cards to accepting both afterwards, which was kind of nice.

There is reason in general to be concerned about the lack of good, private digital payment systems, but there are still plenty of cities where a pro-cash sentiment is strong, or at least a pro-"cash should be an option" sentiment. And I suspect (but can't confirm) that rural areas might also bias towards more cash transactions as well.

The general trend away from cash is something to pay attention to, but depending on where you live, it may not be an emergency right now.

Re: With the death of cash, privacy faces a deeply uncertain future

#50
post #42

This is the real killer app of cryptocurrency. Monero is a decentralized, untraceable digital cash that preserves privacy. All the arguments against cryptocurrency can also be applied to cash, but that doesn’t take away their main value proposition, which is a mathematically secure way to send payments while protecting the sender’s privacy.

>Monero is a [...] untraceable digital cash that preserves privacy Not exactly. A single transaction might be untraceable but over repeated transactions it's possible to deanonymize people with a high degree of confidence. See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9s3EbSKDA3o the good part starts at 10 minutes.

See the Monero team's response here: https://www.getmonero.org/2018/03/29/response-to-an-empirica...

Full original paper here: https://content.sciendo.com/view/journals/popets/2018/3/arti...

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