Then they will ask why nobody wants to use their payment cards
Then they will ask why nobody wants to use their payment cards
297 comments
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Sure, lets replace a regulated scam with an unregulated scam, that will solve things /s
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I really like Taler
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Neither side makes good points except about how the ither sucks. There arent any.
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Last time I checked, BTC transaction fees were prohibitively high to pay for 80$ AAAA games with them, and WAY too high to pay for a 5 USD single-developer itch.io game.
I haven't looked at other Crypto in a while. I made some money off BTC, but I think it is wildly overvalued for a long time, and I've been disappointed in how un-currency-like other alternatives were, even those that have been around long enough that they are unlikely to be rug-pulls.
That said, if you need to get paid and Visa/MC won't let you use them, I'm not going to attack you (too hard) for accepting Crypto. They are bad systems, but we live in Captialism, so you gotta get paid. They might be the least-worse system that is global and isn't Visa/MC. I'm unlikely to buy your product that way, tho; I'm more likely to pirate than I am to participate in cryptocurrency again.
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If you do not know a lot about "crypto" then I would say the main thing to understand is that there is Bitcoin (not owned by any single entity) and then there is everything else. Other "coins" are owned by corporations that can make decisions about it and change it to some extent. These are extremely risky.
Bitcoin (btc) does have risk but much less. It is not owned by any company or person or country. It is like the internet, only exists because tens of thousands of internet providers(miners for Bitcoin) around the world make it possible. Bitcoin has, in its codebase, a limitation that any change must be agreed upon by 95% of these providers(miners). This way security patches and bug fixes can be added because everyone agrees those are good. Other harmful changes would never reach 95% agreement therefor could never be implemented. There is a limit of 21 million Bitcoin and this number can never increase unless 95% agree to it... which they never would. This is in stark contrast to normal money which is constantly printed(at random rates depending on who happens to be in control at that moment) so that the supply increases making its value drop.
Scamming happens with cryptos, Bitcoin, euros, dollars,yuan... and always will.
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there is Bitcoin (not owned by any single entity) and then there is everything else. Other “coins” are owned by corporations that can make decisions about it and change it to some extent. These are extremely risky.
What? Just ridiculous misinformation. Every coin but BTC is owned by corporations? Huh?
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True, controlled by corporations or individuals except a few. XRP is an example of a coin that could be drastically changed and the coin owners would be left in the cold.
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What about Ethereum? I always thought Bitcoin was something to avoid since it's proof-of-work.
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Monero should be used. It's the only really private/secure coin, although I think it's proof of work too.
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yeah, to me bitcoin is rather a interesting pioneeing project which now is obsolete. there are a ton of decentralized DLTs that re not bitcoin and not even a blockchain in some cases (like Holochain for example)
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Etherium, Solana...etc are the next level of more risky networks. They have distributed upgrade/change protocols as well but are not as decentralized as bitcoin. As for how efficient a coin is, I am not comparing that metric as efficiently does not correlate to risk. This post was just referring to risk.
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Yes let’s definitely side with the scam that’s been around for two decades and its only practical use is to rug pull chumps yes this is good advice
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Credit card companies should be nonprofits under democratic control.
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Isn't this a right wing meme about centrists, but with the text changed?
The Bitcoin side wouldn't catch you, because that interferes with the user's choice to hit the ground.
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Perhaps the original is right-wing, though this happens a lot (e.g. the "change my mind" guy). This meme seems anti-collective shout, so I'd place it left wing.
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The one is used by the mafia, the other is the mafia. Which one are you siding with?
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The mafia, they seem to have all the money.
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This doesn't even make any sense. Just use cash if you hate cards. Most places actually will love you for this.
Fuck crypto.
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Doesn't work for online stuff. This is probably referencing how steam was recently forced to can a bunch of its porn games to appease payment processors.
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Congratulations, you have the same ideas than Bitcoin's creator. And he created Bitcoin just for that to also happen online
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Crypto is to peacocking men what MLMs is to american housemoms.
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Crypto remains a pyramid scheme masquerading as a resistance against tyranny
Ironically you know what ACTUALLY protects from powergrabs by payment processors? A fully centralised, government backed form of digital cash that is fully equivalent to paper money.
Ask a Brazilian about pix. Super low fees (often feeling non existant). And transactions can't be invalidated on the whims of a corporate board. For something to not be buyable by pix it has to be illegal, thus having to go through every layer of checks and balances a democracy has.
The problem with visa and their ilk is that finance has been privatised. Too much power in the hands of corporations that have deftly dodged regulation that would keep them neutral and honest. Thinking privatising things further and turning everyone into a fully unregulated petty digital landlord is gonna solve anything rather than make it worse is foolhardy.
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you know what ACTUALLY protects from powergrabs by payment processors? A fully centralised, government backed form of digital cash that is fully equivalent to paper money.
Only if the government is democratic, many governments seems to be autocratizing these days, which wouldn't help when they start enacting puritan policies and refuse payment transfers. Not to mention, even some democracies banned porn (South Korea, for example).
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You're not wrong
But keeping a government democratic and under check is a lot easier than trying to do the same to a series of corporations with anonymous investors calling the shots. Every corporation is in and of itself a dictatorship, dangerously close to an old noble clan, and we pretend we don't see it because it's been hypernormalised.
I'd much rather take my chances with a government, that can in fact respond to the will of the people from time to time, than with a corporation that only ever responds to money with exactly no exceptions ever.
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Adding a few more points to fully kill crypto as a "freedom currency"
- Generating crypto requires capital; people with computers and access to energy will instantly get the ability to outgenerate any other crypto participant
- Energy-centric currency just empowers the same rich lobbies; oil and gaz lobbies are delighted to see that there's an uptick in energy demand
- People with right material (read, capital) can track you, but low chance to track anyone doing crime at a national level (due to odds of them having a competent IT (baring the Hegseth drunkards out there))
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What keeps people from looking at point 1 and not totally stopping there, you think? The game is statistically unwinnable and the more rubes play, the bigger the leech gets.
I looked into crypto seriously several years ago when a friend got interested. I had to inform them it was still a casino where Have's print the cash and make the rules, specifically so the currency returns to them with interest off someone else's(our) brow. ie, same scam as wall street stonks. Just reiterating Point 1.
Pretty pointless unless there is an anti-fascist buying collective or something. Remember when reddit saved gamestop for a few years and, uh, very suddenly a lot of common investment apps 'stopped working' that week?
As soon as you get a hand in their game, they'll show you right away you were meant to die slaving for them, not participating in decisionmaking (money AND politics).
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Also because the entire thing is backed financially by energy wasted, crypto has actually been slowing down the adoption of cheaper, safer renewable energy.
People spend x dollars on generating crypto, they expect to sell it for x+profit
Ergo if energy became cheaper, crypto would devalue and we can't have that.
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"Difficulty adjustment" minimizes profits. You get a much higher return on the stock market than you do holding dollars.
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I have an ignorant question: is gaz a French-Canadian spelling? I always thought it was Russian.
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As far as I know monero didn't really have that issue, of being a pyarmid scheme, while also being privacy-respecting way more than Bitcoin.
Which is also why it's starting to get banned in Europe. As far as I know, most brokers don't even sell it.
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Lmao, crypto tech bros coming out of the woodwork trying to get popularity for their bag holder's game...
Also pretending that shit hasn't been bought up by wall street
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What? They have like 5%. You should revisit your stance
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This is a heated topic it seems, to crypto or not to crypto.
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The main reason I don't care for bitcoin is I have to count a bunch zeros after the decimal point, before reaching a useful number. $1 = 0.000006128921 btc? Really? Screw those zeroes. Bitcoin is inefficient in so many ways.
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Monkey brain no like small numbers. Monkey brain like big numbers.
But for real, Bitcoin was the first decentalized currency to solve the Byzantine Generals Problem. Its worth something because its transparent, unmutable, and the original digital currency. It was birthed via grassroot origins in depths of the housing crash. It calls out the Federal Reserve (and any other human institution that seeks to expand their money supply).
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If you're paying for small good (25-50$) you usually pay in "Satoshis" 0.00000001 BTC. If you convert it to dollars, 10 satoshis is 1 cent.
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Case in point
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I still haven't come across anywhere, or any reason, to buy goods with BTC. I look for things I need, not ways to spend. I have these beautiful apps showing me clearly how to buy bitcoin, but no one is giving me any reason to do it. What am I supposed to do with a satoshi? Groceries? Nope. Furniture? Nope. Housing? Nope. A T-shirt with some BTC logo on it? 🤨
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And twenty bucks to the Chinese miners as a “transaction free”.
Lightning network, taproot, all that shit, just paper over the fact that Bitcoin cannot, by design, handle enough transaction volume to become a general purpose currency without reinventing a lot of mostly centralized payment infrastructure.
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If that's the biggest complaint you have about it, it's probably not that bad.
I don't mind Bitcoin itself, but I do hate the ads and NFTs and pump and dump scams, obviously
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Bitcoin is its own worst enemy. It's deflationary, speculative, and largely interacted with by centralized entities. Those things means its unlikely to be successful as an actual currency; even one it hopes to be.
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It was far less valuable when it first started becoming trendy. 1 BTC for a pizza, or whatever. Now it's turned into a hyperinflation wheelbarrow kind of situation.
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Exact opposite of hyperinflation
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1 BTC for a pizza, or whatever
10 000 BTC for 1 pizza...
hyperinflation
Deflation . This is literally what happens to any volute that cannot be printed indefinitely. The situation is complicated by the fact that many wallets are simply lost and bitcoins will never be recovered from them.
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They should bring in subunits like an MMO. 1 bitcoin (118905USD) = 100 bitsilver 1 bitsilver (1189.05USD) = 100 bitcopper 1 bitcopper = 11.89USD
It doesn't even make any different to the number of bitcoin used, its just a more user friendly way of displaying it for small purchases.
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This already exists. 1 bitcoin = 1,000 mBTC = 100,000,000 satoshi. The exchange rate as of writing is about 846 satoshis = 1 USD or 982 satoshis = 1 EUR. The current usage is thusly:
- Transaction fees on the main network are measured in sats/B (satoshis per [virtual] byte [of transaction size]).
- Transactions on the Lightning Network, a lower-fee instant payment network that runs on top of the ordinary Bitcoin network, are all denominated in respect to satoshis. So a payment on the Lightning Network is traditionally regarded as, for example, 50,000 satoshis rather than 0.5 mBTC or 0.0005 BTC. And the fee on that payment is usually in the range of 50-100 satoshis.
- Goods sold on the Lightning Network are typically priced in satoshis.
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Transfer failed.
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They already do that with SI prefixes.
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It's one of the least bad things about it, and if not for approximately twelve thousand bad things about it, would be easily fixable.
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Yeah, but one is extra bad for our enviroment while being a scam.
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I am NOT a crypto fan, but not all cryptocurrencies are bad for the environment. Ethereum is proof of stake.
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That's what i thought, too. I would never believed if someone telled me some years ago that there will be another scam (ai) that wastes even more power.
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totally agree re bitcoin, and also am very sceptical of crypto as a mass-adopted currency in general
however there are plenty of networks that don’t use proof of work to validate their chains, and they aren’t bad for the environment to nearly the same degree
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Over 52% of the bitcoin network is renewable energy and growing. Y’all need to update your info, damn
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Yes, but that still means that the other half is fossil fuel.
Bitcoin mining's distribution makes it difficult for researchers to identify the location of miners and electricity use. It is therefore difficult to translate energy consumption into carbon emissions. As of 2025, a non-peer-reviewed study by the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance (CCAF) estimated that bitcoin consumed 138 TWh (500 PJ) annually, representing 0.5% of the world's electricity consumption and resulting in annual greenhouse gas emissions of 39.8 Mt CO2, representing 0.08% of global emissions and comparable to Slovakia's emissions.
I think people should really reconsider using PoW cryptocurrencies. Ethereum was able to reduce their energy consumption by 99.95% by switching to PoS and it's still doing fine. IMO Bitcoin is outdated technology that is just used as a pyramid scheme due to its name recognition.
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It should also be noted, that using more power isn't fine just because it's renewable. It's still worse for the environment, and especially not until it's 100%
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I honestly never understood how Lemmy, a privacy and decentralisation focused community, is so vehemently anti-crypto. It's worse than genAI. Every time it is mentioned, everyone goes "crypto is a scam". I don't think I've ever seen any good faith discussion around it, just "scam", "pyramid scheme", and "only criminals use it".
Let's get something out of the way immediately: shitcoins are a literal pyramid scheme and a scam. Anyone can make their own cryptocurrency in an evening, and anyone who throws money at them is either a fool or a gambler.
But I really don't understand what people mean when they say Bitcoin, or Ethereum, or Monero are a scam. Sure they can be used to scam you, just like Amazon gift cards can. Maybe it's about the price volatility, but the price of all 3 mentioned before is up on a day, week, month, 6 months, year, and 5 year scale. It's volatile, but is not a scam. If you bought and sold at two random points in time, it's more likely you made a profit than "got scammed". You know what actually is a scam? Credit scores, overdraft fees, having to pay to check your balance, and so many other fucked up practices in the US banking system.
"Criminals use them" is just the worst fucking argument, especially in a space like this. Are PGP, VPNs and TOR for criminals too? Do you think getting rid of crypto would stop crime?
And yes, proof of work fucking sucks. The energy consumption of Bitcoin mining is a problem. I am not a cryptobro who spends all his time making trades and is here to tell you that crypto is the salvation. They are far from being "good" for everyday use. I just wanted to point out how it seems that critical thought gets shut down at the sight of those 6 letters, and I hope someone can explain to me what they find so terrible about crypto (aside from environmental concerns and shitcoins)
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The entire concept is fundamentally flawed
You are basing a economy with real economic stakes on something that is massively unstable and very resource intensive.
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I think the Lemmy userbase is too small and its easy for a few vocal voices to dominate the conversation.
There are often contradicting points that the Lemmy hivemind holds.
Like Lemmy wants to abolish the police but also wants to empower the police to take away people's guns??? (Talking about the US btw)
Lemmy loves their doublethink
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Bitcoin is a pyramid scheme because it only keeps its value as long as people are constantly buying it. If no one wants to buy it, the value of any amount of bitcoin is zero. This is why people who have bitcoin are trying to convince anyone else to keep buying.
Your local government-backed currency does not have this problem, because you get paid with it, you pay taxes with it and vendors in your country have to accept it.
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Bitcoin is a pyramid scheme because it only keeps its value as long as people are constantly buying it. If no one wants to buy it, the value of any amount of bitcoin is zero. This is why people who have bitcoin are trying to convince anyone else to keep buying.
any currency is initially a bank's promissory notes, and then a promise to exchange the paper for some kind of labor. As a person who has experienced at least one default in his life and whose entire toilet is covered with USSR money, I can say that in this regard, no currency is different from bitcoin.
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Lemmy is quite left-leaning, and the impetus behind creating Bitcoin was right-wing Austrian school economics. Now, it's being pushed by literal fascists.
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You forgot shoes! Criminals use shoes, too! So everyone wearing shoes must be a criminal. Either that, or they were scammed into wearing shoes.
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I think it's because, at least in the case of bitcoin, it has no practical real world use other than hoarding like beanie babies, and therefore no real value. As a currency it's entirely useless.
I have a bit more sympathy for ETH, maybe someday DeFi will produce something truly useful enough to justify the money in crypto, but it hasn't so far.
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Have you noticed that people who work in tech tend to be less excited about cool new flashy tech developments than the average person?
It's similar to how people who have worked in fast food aren't quite as keen on eating out than the average person.
Same as watching your co-worker who hasn't washed his hands after his last shit collect the pieces of a burger that dropped on the dirty floor to sell them to a customer isn't exactly appetizing, knowing what goes on behind the scenes with tech developments doesn't really get you on board for that either.
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I think it's because we get excited super early, and by the time it goes mainstream we're tired of seeing it shoved into every place it doesn't belong
And it's probably still not being used for what we looked forward to about it
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After a few cycles people start to realize blah blah blah explanation is really just when is the price going up. We've all heard it all by now. It starts feeling like being sold on a timeshare. We aren't new clients to try to sell this topic too
We already know all the explaination and blockchain crap. We know the spiel and sat through it all through multiple cycles. It's at this point like trying to sell a car to a car salesperson using tactics they already know.
So that's the lack of enthusiasm. We are less likely to be new to this.
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I was excited for Bitcoin but the more I learned and the more the public used it, the more I hated it.
EDIT: FOLLOWING PARAGRAPH IS A BADLY PHRASE EXPLANATION, PLEASE READ MY COMMENT BELOW TO UNDERSTAND MY POINT
Bitcoins timestamp only supports dates up to 2106 because they decided on an UNSIGNED value. You don't need negative values... You know when the network starts, that is 0. Without network, no Bitcoin.
That is how bad it is engineered.
And we are not even talking proof of work or whatever. Crypto is a scam because the creators made it very obvious that they didn't really care about the project and the community is just gambling.
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Crypto is still a scam.
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Both sides are bad
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Yep. Just because one side is bad, it doesn't mean the other is any good.
Cryptocurrency is still dependent of a pyramid scheme and criminals-enabling. Credit card companies are still a private owned government branch with no concern for human rights and criminals-enabling.
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Criminals-enabling is what they call VPNs, E2EE encrypted communication etc.
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Cryptocurrency is still dependent of a pyramid scheme and criminals-enabling.
As we all know, Visa and MasterCard have never been used by criminals. As soon as a criminal touches a card, the card turns into ash.
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more and more good people are being called criminals
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Ugh, the "both sides" argument again... /s
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This. Corporate shit weasels or supporting human trafficking.
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Benefits of centralization: Someone can counteract harmful interactions.
Drawbacks of centralization: Someone can decide legitimate interactions are harmful.
It does suck when the “harmful interaction management system” goes haywire. But I’m not sure it sucks enough that I’d rather simply not have one.
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I used to be one of the people firmly on the "someone can decide legitimate interactions are harmful, thus they should not ever exist" side of the argument, and I think this is certainly a good way of putting it.
For a lot of people heavily into crypto, they see the drawbacks of the existing system, but instead of pushing for reform and legal changes, they try technological abolition of the entire mechanism altogether, without then realizing the tradeoffs that brings (e.g. how a lot of people will go "it's instant! Sellers don't have to worry about chargebacks! Nobody can take away your money from you!" yet don't think about how that also means a scammer taking your money is a permanent loss you can never reverse. (or if they do think about it, will argue that risk can be reduced to a point it is less harmful than the alternative, centralized companies)
I don't deny crypto can be useful sometimes, or even be more beneficial when the centralized companies do eventually do something bad and people need an alternative payment mechanism, but I think a lot of people into crypto overestimate how beneficial it truly is compared to the tradeoffs.
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About the "nobody can take your money" part.
Etherium Classic exists because somebody hacked an extremely valuable wallet and funneled 13% of all eth into their wallet. The people who control the mining pools, (rich assholes) wanted that transaction reversed, so they hard forked. Classic is the main fork that didn't reverse that transaction. It's much less popular, despite being run by people who are demonstrably more principled.
Paraphrased from Dan Olson's video "line goes up" about crypto's history and affect on the world. Spoiler: it's a scam, and a tool for the wealthy to get even richer. Computing power can be bought with dollars.
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Yeah. They do such a good job of stopping nazis and csam.
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I trust completely in the central bank to fight fascism. It is necessary. The central bank fights for the laborer, not the capitalist. The central bank fights for freedom, not authoritarianism. The central bank ensures democracy, not an oligarchy. Without a central bank, our entire society would be doomed to fall to fascism. A centralized currency is a major facet between a free society and one with a corrupt dictator surrounded by crooked cronies where the wealthy have all the power and the common man is reduced to crumbs.
The central bank is divine and good.
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Yeah it's a personal level of comfort sort of thing. Some people value one side of the equation while some people value the other side. Strong case for vendors accepting both cards and crypto instead of just one.
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you can prevent getting scammed with crypto by using something like escrow
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Oh honey...
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Doesn't protect against:
- Social engineering
- Contract code vulnerabilities
- Untrustworthy/Compromised controlling stakes in that escrow, whether they be people or autonomous systems
- False reversal claims made against the escrow
It has the same possible issues for your financial sovereignty as a regular, centralized financial institution, plus technical issues with the way the underlying infrastructure is built.
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also gnu taler should be next to bitcoin (ik not as widespread)
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It's not quite the same as a traditional cryptocurrency but I look forward to seeing the results of the EU trial
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Part of me wonders if this is all a play to boost crypto values by the execs in these industries.
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Devil's advocate, it's a play to get crypto banned cause it's only used for illegal/disapproved activities.
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Feasible but it's a long con. Although big corporations can play these games i guess
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Yeah, I'm going to buy my games with bitcoin now.
Oh shit, the fee is higher than the price of the game, can I use Litecoin ?
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Cumrocket is the way!
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Thanks for the tip, I'm putting all my life savings into it then.
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This exists too ::: spoiler spoiler https://coinstats.app/coins/8fZL148nnC168RAVCZh4PkjvMZmxMEfMLDhoziWVPnqf_solana/ :::
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Lightning network exists too
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Litecoin is cool.
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the fee might be higher at some points but you're just blabbering. check mempool.space and actually look at what fees are at rn + consider that there are many chains and l2s that can be used for payment. B)
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A dollar in fees is a dollar more than with fiat for the person paying. That and do you expect enough normal people to learn about L2s and chains to make it worthwhile for Valve or whoever to implement support for anything besides the main chains of 2-3 major cryptos and stablecoins on ethereum main?
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It's modern commerce. Participating in it at all associates you with shady characters. It's unavoidable.
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Honestly, what's the point of a credit card? Why don't people mostly use debit cards? It gets just directly wire transferred from your account. No sort of junk fees or monthly subscription needed. Genuine Question.
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If someone steals your debit card, they can directly take money out of your account. With credit cards, there's a buffer between the product and the bank account, and it makes it easier to stop fraud
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I've had my debit card information stolen before. My bank knew before I did, cancelled the fraudulent charges, and refunded my money without any action on my part. Doesn't seem like a credit card would have been any advantage in my [admittedly anecdotal] case.
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This problem could be solved.
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It's not fraud, it's interest.
If you use a debit card and can't cover a transaction, it just doesn't go through. If you have a credit card then the bank pays and now you owe them, and they'll charge you extra for that privilege.
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But is it really worth all of the junk that you have to accept? I like the credit scoring, the monthly subscription, and, if you miss the date for paying back, the absurdly high fees. Well, yes, with the debit card you have, technically speaking, the risk of someone being able to make about 100€ worth of RFID payments, and then the code is needed again for the next 100€ RFID payments. For everything else that doesn't involve RFID, the code is needed always.
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Debit cards typically have PIN numbers.
I know these can be defeated in various ways, but its not usually as simple as, just steal someone's card.
Also, you can just go to your bank or credit union, call them, report online or w/e: Hey, my card got stolen, these txns are fraud.
Might not be as streamlined or as fast as a payment challenge with a credit card, but its not that much worse.
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You get points. I pay a fee on only one of my cards, the one that gives me 6% back on groceries. I make decent money using that card.
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Tons of cards have zero fees. Some offer rewards and benefits at no real cost. I have for nearly a decade used a card with 1% back on purchases and 1% back on payments. Running all my usual spending through that and then just paying it off has net me a lot of money in that time that I just use for statement credit.
It's easy to dispute charges should I ever need to. Rare since I'm cautious anyways, but the extra layer before my actual bank account is nice.
It has also built up a hell of a credit rating for me as well.
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You can get 2% cards with no fees now as well. 2% on everything.
Paid cards go up to 6%, or possibly higher.
You can game this system if you don't have debt on them.
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I am usually cautious with claims of free money. There is no free money for working class people. So, who's paying it in that case and for what reason? I reckon the company who is running the platform does it, such that they can get market share to coerce sellers into using their product.
Or am I seeing this wrong?
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I live off a credit card, my money sits inside an offset account against my home loan the interest charged on that is calculated every 30 days at the end of the month so the more cash I have in there the less interest I pay on my mortgage.
The credit card is free with no fees or interest provided I pay it off on time with that date being every 30 days from the 15th of the month.
Thus at the end of the month when interest is calculated on my home loan I have more cash in my account then I would if I had of spent 2k that month on bills etc.
The other benefit is I earn points that the bank will exchange for cash with me so it's kinda like free money.
For context I'm Australian with an Australian bank.
This set up is great if you're disciplined for anyone due to the points etc however if you screw up spend beyond your means etc you will incur interest and that's not good.
I make sure to never spend more then I actually have and it has worked wonders for me.
In the past 10 years I've probably been made about 7k back in points value.
Cash flights etc all for spending exactly as I do.
I should note the card is provided to me as part of my home loan package hence it has no fees attached as I pay an upfront cost for the "home loan wealth package"
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i’ll add an extra to this on the cashback etc
credit card companies charge stores processing fees, and then give consumers cash backs to encourage them to spend using their cards
stores add credit card processing into their cost of doing business… you’re charged that in the cost of things you purchase
if you pay with a credit card, you get some of that back. if you don’t pay with a credit card, you’re still charged the fees - you just don’t get any of the benefits
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My debit card is a master card.
They still need to go through a payment processor, using a debit instead of credit card isn't really the solution to the current problems.
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Because I have to. A lot of platforms literally don't support debit cards.
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I buy stuff for work with my personal card and I've made probably thousands of dollars from the cash back. Even on my regular cards I get a couple hundred back off of stuff I normally buy.
There's other benefits too like using points to buy plane tickets, fancy lobbies in the airport with free food, etc.
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Because many people don’t actually have the money on hand. Some do but me and many others are spending money we don’t have yet. It’s a negative feedback loop of debt because capitalism sucks
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Because people are reliant on debt because wages haven't kept pace with expected standards of living.
Of for more ago well off people some cards offer perks like cash back or air miles and it's free if you pay it off in full each month.
Also, in my country at least, you get more protection if you have an issue with the goods you've bought. https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/reclaim/section75-protect-your-purchases/
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I’ve just got rid of my credit card after 10 years in NA. Yes it can come in handy if you need a couple grand all of a sudden but damn, what a ball and chain, I hated it
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Crypto has its issues, but when used as an actual payment system, it’s a great alternative for online payments, and can give more privacy and anonymity if used correctly
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except for the insane fluctuations in currency value and the immense inefficiency of the whole system and all the fraud even in "stable" coins and all the lack of regulation
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- "Insane fluctuations in currency value": Someone who makes most of their payments in crypto is likely doing it with a stablecoin, which is a cryptocurrency pegged 1-to-1 to a fiat currency, like the US dollar. So, no more wild fluctuations than the 10% decrease in value the USD has experienced over the past year. Speaking of which, the 100% increase in BTC value this past year certainly is wild, but I don't think any of it's holders would consider that a problem.
- "Immense inefficiency of the whole system": If you consider the US military to be the value security for the world's dominant fiat currency [which you would be foolish not to] Proof of Work security is a large improvement on energy use. Proof of Stake security, which most stablecoins use these days, doesn't really use any energy worth noting.
- "All the fraud": Credit cards suffer far more fraud than crypto. Perhaps that's a product of their wider adoption, but that's where 99% of the fraud is happening.
- "The lack of regulation": One of the hottest topics in US congress over the past several years, for both Biden and Trump regimes, has been crypto regulation. It's a moving space right now but it seems myopic to call lack of regulation when it's certainly going to be a moot point by 2028.
Sorry I don't really consider myself to be some crypto warrior but I do really dislike these decade+ old off the cuff relatively low-information talking points. This is not how you argue against crypto, if you want a strong argument against crypto come at it from an explicitly anti-capitalist lens and accuse it of accelerating global financialization, which it is, like a gas can poured on a campfire. Go big or go home. If you don't oppose capitalism and you're just looking for a better money, crypto is not your boogeyman.
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The lack of regulation is pretty much a goal. When a government controls or regulate a currency, your liberty is attacked.
Fraud? What are you talking about?
How is the system inefficient though? Compared to what? I don't believe it's fair to compare a decentralized system to a centralized one. Lemmy is much more expensive to run per user than Reddit for example
Fluctuations suck indeed, though they vary, it depends of the crypto
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If you're gonna pick a cryptocurrency, go with the one that actually keeps your identity encrypted, and is intentionally designed to make it unfeasible to farm with a huge crypto mining operation:
Monero.
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It is extremely inefficient
The entire model behind crypto is flawed and actually pretty centralized. (Consensus and value propped up by hype)
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Yeah it's designed for botnets instead.
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Why would a malicious malware botnet dev choose to mine a more difficult to mine, and thus less profitable crypto currency, when their botnet could instead be mining a much more profitable coin with their botnet?
I won't argue that ransomware often asks for payment in monero, because monero is actually difficult to track and deanonymize, but ransomware and a distributed mining botnet are not the same thing.
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Oh sure, now Lemmy wants to embrace crypto instead of calling it a scam, all because your porn was threatened.
I had to put up with so much abuse here just because I always say positive things about crypto. You people suck.
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Crypto AI porn sounds kinda hot
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It's not porn availability that's threatened, but freedom. I don't want to use bitcoin and I still think it's a scam and a sort of gamble, but if Visa or Mastercard can deprive us of freedom, we may have to consider using bitcoin.
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The don't use Bitcoin.
I like Etherium cause it doesn't waste electricity and you don't need to buy expensive proprietary hardware to mine it. All you gotta do is press the "stake" button and enjoy that 4% APR. I made $500 in two years simply by sitting on my ETH and letting it grow. Just like how banks used to work back in the day. It's nice; you're missing out.
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Bro. I feel you. But you have to embrace the fact that Crypto is both a blessing and a curse. People certainly use it in scammy ways - but they do the same with dollars and physical currency.
So people hyperfixate on how crypto can hurt them instead of how they can be helped.
Crypto 100% can replace banks, savings accounts, the stock market, and pretty much every centralized financial institution that has already been captured by billionaire interests.
But you aren't going to get people to hear that if you just complain about them fixating on the bad stuff.
Talk about what's good about Crypto enough, and people will definitley come around.
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What's so frustrating about it is that every argument against crypto can also apply to fiat currency. The only one that holds water is the waste of electricity argument, which is why it's important to invest in Proof of Stake coins like Etherium. So even that argument is a weak one at best. I just don't understand the hate.
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I guess the dollar might need to end, but for different reasons.
As long as Trump is in power, he can in principle just print as many dollars as he wants to and spend them on what he likes.
The mechanism is by (ab-)using the Federal Reserve bank. It hands out "loans" to the government, the government never really has to pay them back. (it's called national debt)
Ending the existence of the dollar seems to be the only real way to take a money-printing machine out of Trump's hands.
I'm not saying this lightheartedly, just considering the options.
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The insane thing about Bitcoin's continued popularity is that out of all the thousands of cryptocurrencies out there, it's easily the worst in every regard.
I'm not going to name names for fear of being called a shill, but if you want a cryptocurrency for just buying stuff there's a ton that are more stable, faster, don't cost a fortune to process, and don't destroy the planet.
Bitcoin's transfer fees alone are huge. It's over $1 USD now for any transfer, and it will get much worse.
And it's not even close to private.
It dominates because it's the one that everyone knows. If you're lucky enough to find a shop that accepts crypto it's almost certain that the crypto they accept is bitcoin and bitcoin only. despite its flaws it is a proven technology. It might 3 hours to send an on chain payment but you don't have to worry about a technical glitch dropping it.
I somewhat agree about it being not great though. it has serious scalability issues that were supposed to be addressed by lightning but lightning adds a lot of complexity imo. My grandma is never going to be able to figure out how to use lightning whilst still being able to benefit from a self custody wallet.
A lot of the newer coins that crypto bros bang on about seem to be centralized under private entities, "regulation friendly" and not distributed.
That's the beauty of crypto, there's flavour for everyone