China declares cryptocurrency deals ‘illegal’

> Crypto can be spendable cash. You can buy a coffee or a bar of gold with it, even bullets. Sounds like it can be used as a currency to me. It only takes a willing counterparty.

All true, but the same also applies to chickens, screwdrivers, oranges, dogs, cats etc. Just because you can barter with something doesn’t make it a currency.

Currencies are better identified by their fungibility (which crypto has), their value stability (which crypto currently doesn’t), and their wide acceptance for use in everyday transaction (also not true of crypto in the vast majority of the world).

> It's only from the perspective of someone that thinks like a loser, always trying to find something wrong, that you can find zero uses where using crypto is more energy efficient than other financial options. And not all cryptos use the same energy or transaction cost as others.

I’ll remind you of the guidelines, as you’ve clearly forgotten them.

> Be kind. Don't be snarky. Have curious conversation; don't cross-examine. Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community.

Ad hominem attacks undermine your arguments and suggest that you don’t actually have very strong argument, instead you’re forced to attack the character of the person your discussing with, due to an inability to attack their argument. Try harder.

I used be a fan of crypto, did plenty of trading, bought plenty of pizza etc with it. When to meetups, evangelised crypto to friends and family. Back then it looked realistic that crypto could be a genuine currency, and the concept of DAG was incredibly.

Unfortunately crypto has descended into little more than get rich quick schemes that take advantage of naïve investors, or produce profit by externalising all of the negative consequences of crypto mining (such as CO2 emissions). Forcing the rest of us to bear that long term cost, for a grifters short term profit.

I admit there are coins out there that potential address these issues, and still possibly have a future as a genuinely useful currency. One not manipulated by a small number of extremely large coin holders. But unfortunately that doesn’t change the damage caused by other coins.

> For an example of transaction efficiency, I can buy a bar of gold from some established bullion vendors in litecoin much cheaper than with a visa card due to lower transaction risks for the merchant and lower transaction fees. If you can't wait multiple days for an ACH transaction and have to buy precious metals online, crypto is actually the cheapest way in the US.

This is just an example of how slow and backwards the US financial system is. Most other countries have far quicker and cheaper payment rails. Here in the U.K. I can send an instant Faster Payment for free from my bank account, and the money moves faster than the app UI (I get a push notification from the receiving bank, before the UI in my banks app has had time to display the confirmation). The whole of Europe has similar payment systems that also work cross border.

The money moves so fast that when trading crypto the slowest part of buying or selling was always the confirmations. The fiat part was instant.

>Ad hominem attacks undermine your arguments and suggest that you don’t actually have very strong argument, instead you’re forced to attack the character of the person your discussing with, due to an inability to attack their argument. Try harder.

I did attack your arguments, including many other points and I never called you a loser. Quit being so defensive. I said those who continually look for ways to make something not work, rather than finding the ways they do, think like losers. And I back that 100%! The only of the two of us who had made an ad hominem against the other is you, by saying I have an "inability to attack their (your) argument." Thanks hypocrite!

>Unfortunately crypto has descended into little more than get rich quick schemes that take advantage of naïve investors, or produce profit by externalising all of the negative consequences of crypto mining (such as CO2 emissions). Forcing the rest of us to bear that long term cost, for a grifters short term profit.

I'm not a fan of stable coins, but how many people you reckon are buying DAI or USDT with the idea of striking it rich? I hear this sad sad false diatribe over and over, completely ignoring that crypto-currencies are currencies and not investment, with people getting mad that crypto is not an investment that is going to provide returns for naive "investors." And then they go on to attack crypto for not living up to being an investment!

>I used be a fan of crypto, did plenty of trading, bought plenty of pizza etc with it. When to meetups, evangelised crypto to friends and family. Back then it looked realistic that crypto could be a genuine currency, and the concept of DAG was incredibly.

So you were a dogmatist for, and then apparently now a dogmatist against. Try being a neutral pragmatist that doesn't believe crypto is an investment utility but rather one possible financial engine that allows electronic transactions without KYC or centralized authority.

Probably around 80% of wealth is stored as real estate of which 60% is probably is stored as the relative proximity of people. So capital control is as simple as forbidding land from walking away and foreign countries not accepting migration of a billion people. basically a solved problem.

> Any scheme that pays early “investors” with money from new investors will eventually collapse leaving masses who feel they were cheated.

This statement is obviously false, as there are people born daily.

> information .. buried in code .. some consider that fraud

It doesn't matter that people consider it fraud. It is not fraud neither by definition, nor it is fraud "in spirit of law" (burying it in code does not have the necessary intention to deceive).

You can twist the definition of fraud as much as you want in your mind, but if you do that - you are just a part of ignorant mob with pitchforks.

1) Central banks aren’t regulated by the media.

2) The expansion of the money supply is not necessarily inflationary.

3) Inflation is very different from taxation: if you hold cash you’re supposed to circulate it, either by spending it or by investing it. Inflation disincentivizes cash-hoarding, and also deflated the value of any debt you might have.