Bitcoin 'Rarely' Used for Legal Transactions, on 'Road To Irrelevance', Say ECBa...
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Bitcoin 'Rarely' Used for Legal Transactions, on 'Road To Irrelevance', Say ECBank Officials
European Central Bank officials argued on Wednesday that bitcoin is "rarely used for legal transactions," is fuelled by speculation and the recent erosion in its value indicates that it is on the "road to irrelevance," in a series of stringent criticism (bereft of strong data points) of the cryptocurrency industry as they urged regulators to not lend legitimacy to digital tokens in the name of innovation. From a report: The value of bitcoin recently finding stability at around $20,000 was "an artificially induced last gasp before the road to irrelevance â" and this was already foreseeable before FTX went bust and sent the bitcoin price to well down below $16,000," wrote Ulrich Bindseil and Jurgen Schaaf on ECB's blog. The central bankers argue that bitcoin's conceptual design and "technological shortcomings" make it "questionable" as a means of payment. "Real bitcoin transactions are cumbersome, slow and expensive. Bitcoin has never been used to any significant extent for legal real-world transactions," they wrote. Bitcoin also "does not generate cash flow (like real estate) or dividends (like equities), cannot be used productively (like commodities) or provide social benefits (like gold). The market valuation of bitcoin is therefore based purely on speculation," they wrote.
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It's about time governments wake up to this colossal waste of time and resources. Satoshi Nakamoto will go down in history as the man who did the most damage to economic and environmental policy right at a time where we needed sanity from both.
For all the things people can criticise as being objectively bad inventions, at least many of them do have a practical purpose, unlike crypto currency.
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The world economy would collapse without it?
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Still angry you didn't find someone else who likes tulips as much as you do?
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Like a pizza?
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Yeah but I'd never pay that much for pizza.
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Fiat currency works, has strong ties to real value (in fact basically all of the world economy), can be transferred nearly instantaneously and nearly for free, is accepted basically everywhere and typically also has a quasi-anonymous form known as "cash". Next dumb question?
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Fiat Currency works at the barrel of a gun. You have no choice but to accept it. I can make ANYTHING work under those circumstances.
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"Fiat Currency works at the barrel of a gun. You have no choice but to accept it. "
Did you intend that as an argument against it?
While true, it is true. Fiat has a monopoly on the force that is used to back it. Crypto, without such a force, does not have that backing. And crypto is very unlikely to ever get it.
You might be upset that fiat has that monopoly by proxy, but you can be upset all you want, it's not going to change anything.
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Right, so instead we should regress to where a company can pay you in Company Coin, which can only be used at Company stores, where the Company can set whatever price they like for goods and services, and attach any fees they like. Oh, and your Company Coin can go from being useable for things to absolutely worthless overnight based on bad decisions made by some dipshit executive in a different Company (see: FTX).
Because that's what you're asking for when you don't want fiat currency "working at the barrel
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I don't know where you are but I live in a democracy. It's a tenuous democracy but it's still a democracy. Now it doesn't help but a bunch of people who don't understand how the economy works keep fucking things up by putting lunatics in charge here in America. But to be blunt they're not going to be around forever and the younger generation is much better educated and is gradually fixing their problems.
Now in a place like Russia where you have an actual dictatorship I think you have a point. Because yo-
I really see no evidence of this. They were the first to embrace BTC to begin with. When crypto dies they will probably insist on YouTube coins or something. Or a currency based on how many watermelons they can drop from scaffolding next to their house. Or how many consecutive farts they can squeeze out on camera while humming Lady Gaga's 'Paparazzi' song. If you put you faith in Gen Z you might as well take a triple dose of fentanyl, drink a pint of vodka, and go swimming in a pool. The only thing they s
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Every government forbids forgery, and thus controls the currency "gunpoint". Forgery is too problematic without such force, even cryptocurrency which might be used claimed fraudulently or with stolen tokens.
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You live in a democratically elected representative republic.
You do not live in a democracy.
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No, they used the term correctly. https://www.dictionary.com/bro... [dictionary.com]
Maybe you think it's still the 19th century or whatever and are using the an old definition?
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You live with your head up your ass, moron.
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No you can't. Try banning the sale of alcohol [wikipedia.org] and see how that goes.
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Prohibition would have worked just fine if every offender caught would have been shot dead.
The parents point is represented by the tip of a sword in your throat presenting you with the delusion of choice.
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What you say is true, but also not an argument in favor of bitcoin, which is not backed up even by guns.
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Oh please. We have "fiat currency" because of the instability of specialty currencies. I suggest you reason Cloak of Anarchy by Larry Niven to start. Libertarianism is fine for Republicans who don't want to be Republicans when the party does something blindingly stupid and/or embarrassing. Not that it's special, Democratic Party members do the same thing when their party is dumb. However it does not work, and will never work. Were we somehow magically able to make Libertarianism work, we'd be able to make
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Please don't mix up the bat shit crazy Libertarian Party platform with small elle libertarians who just want a smaller less intrusive government.
The Libertarian Party has no relation to libertarians.
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https://www.statista.com/stati... [statista.com]
It certainly works for the government to continue debasing the currency by printing ever more money, slashing both your income and money savings. The best way to deal with Fiat is to spend it at soon as possible, leading to our over-consumerist capitalist throwaway society, or to invest it into assets.
But assets are risky. A house can be struck by natural disasters and needs maintenance. Items can be stolen or decay over time. Bitcoin is indestructible and can be transferre -
Fiat currency isn't perfect, but the alternatives have bigger downsides. If we used a gold standard, then the Earth would be mined like hell to get as much gold as possible, and the world would waste a lot of resources on mining. Plus, other nations have more gold deposits. It would empower despots, not unlike ME oil. It would also be harder to manage the "money" supply to counter the business cycle (booms and busts). Keynesian stimuluses work, if done right (such as paying down debt during good-times).
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If fiat currency is so horrible, then why are crypto currencies pegged to it? If you believe that Bitcoin, Ether, or WTFcoin is the future then you shouldn't care what the dollar or euro value is. Unless of course your plan is to get rich quick by trading out the pretty much useless crypto (NFTs anyone?) for fiat. Oh wait, that is the primary use of crypto.
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I'll give you two:
1. Literally everyone accepts fiat currency in exchange for goods and services. Only crypto-bros and the deluded "web3" set accept crypto, and make you pay transaction fees for the pleasure. I mean, I love paying an extra 50% for a $3 coffee in gas fees, don't you?
2.Governments back fiat currency made up out of thin air with legal regulations and laws, so it's far more stable than "currency" made up out of thin air and backed by frauds like SBF circle-jerking each other with their indiv
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There are businesses that do not accept flat currency in order to avoid law enforcement, especially taxes, laws against bribery, ransoms, and laws forbidding trafficking in narcotics, slaves, and stolen goods. Those transactions have been tracked, and successfully prosecuted, at numerous crypto exchanges. There don't seem to be any long-term stable exchanges.
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They accept fiat currency. Just not electronic. You can still buy your street drugs in cash. I'm sure your North African slavers will take USD. In cash. I doubt they'll accept Bitcoin for your slave/wife.
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Right.
A institution that is in charge of a currency talks 'bad' about a competitor currency. What do you expect?
An irony is that not only central banks all around the world are rushing to create the digital counterpart of the currency they claim to protect because the current financial system is actually slow and full of intermediaries taking a cut for just being in the middle. So maybe the ECB has actually learnt something from such irrelevant idea.
On another note... how much is gold used for real tra-
Whataboutism alert! Who said anything about gold?
When I make a "normal" payment, it appears in the account of my counterpart within seconds.
Sure, when I try to wire a billion rubles to an Afghani warlord, that might take some more time, but maybe those intermediaries are there for more reasons than to simply take a cut.
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When you make a normal payment, you get a provisional amount in your bank account which may take between 7 and 90 days to settle. In the mean time, you're basically working off credit extended to you by the bank. If anyone involved in the chain of transactions goes bankrupt or reverts the transaction, you've become immediately liable for the difference and the bank will start charging you interest and fees.
And yes, if somehow you've become suspected of being involved with that Afghani warlord, or hell, protest the government too much in Canada, China, EU and other dictatorships or forget to tell the IRS someone paid you $600, they will confiscate all your assets indefinitely.
In that sense, BitCoin is a lot faster and guaranteed, no fees, no government.
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As users of illegal transactions have discovered, though the FBI is finding that they now know how to track transactions. The rest of us watch Bitcoin's value change drastically in ups and downs over short periods of time and don't really want to put their savings in such a "currency". Doing whatever you want doesn't work well. Doing whatever you want within certain boundaries does.
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Bitcoin has fees on every transaction. And no government isn't a good thing. The ability to roll back transactions in the case of fraud, theft, etc at a minimum is a good thing. As for a lot faster- it can take hours for a Bitcoin transaction to settle. How long it takes depends on how much you pay in fees. Cash, credit cards, etc are far faster. Bitcoin loses on all those fronts, as do all other cryptocurrencies.
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It only works like that in Mickey Mouse monetary systems. In most European countries, the very moment money lands in your account by way of a normal transfer, it is on your balance, nothing provisional about it. The transaction cannot be cancelled or reversed. If the sender goes bankrupt before your bank and his can settle, it's your bank's problem, not yours. (It is possible to reverse direct debit transfers though)
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No fees? Ever actually tried to move crypto from one wallet to another? Fees. Strangely, I can move money around all I like between different banks and different accounts with no fees at all.
And with crypto, I don't even need to be involved with an Afghani warlord to have my shit frozen indefinitely. All it takes is for some crypto fraudster to get rugpulled and as the dominos fall, thousands of accounts lose their ability to do anything with their crypto for no reason that has anything to do with the a
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I don't know how you expect anyone to take you seriously outside of far right morons lumping the EU and Canada in with China as "dictatorships".
Of course (as already pointed out to you by others) your understanding of that word is as thorough as your understanding of modern banking but that's par for the course for those on political extremes.
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Yep, pretty much. The only purpose of Bitcoin is money laundering and speculation. It does not generate any value, but it destroys value. All every clear. The comment "(bereft of strong data points)" just shows lack of understanding or bias on the part of whoever wrote it. The "strong data points" are out in the open for everybody top see that cares to look.
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Since very early on, BTC value has always been tied to fiat currency. Nobody was buying BTC to use it to spend as BTC.. every retailer I've known has converted it to USD or whatever as soon as it was received.
e.g. there is no ecosystem, just an additional layer
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I'd argue that Thomas Midgley Jr. did more damage than Satoshi Nakamoto.
Midgley invented leaded petrol and CFCs.
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Norman Borlaug championed the synthetic fertilizers and pesticides that are in part* responsible for destruction of croplands, turning them into an inert dirt medium devoid of micronutrients only suitable for outdoor hydroponics using more synthetics.
* The other part is the farmers using them
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