Nevertheless, my basic economic background in crypto told me that, since the currency is neither tied to ownership in something with value or some entity that actually produces something valuable or some token which governments will arrest you if you fail to pay, that it has no useful value. For years, I pointed this out to those around me, who thought I was some kind of Luddite.
But, I think this is going to vindicate my basic argument. There is nothing valuable in crypto. It failed as a means of payment. It's failed to decentralize finance. And now, it's failed to be a store of value as well.
Fun fact, the Luddites weren't actually anti-technology - many of them were skilled machine operators. They were protesting for better working conditions, higher pay and apprenticeship programs. [1]
[edit] Of note: the machines they were attacking were not new, and smashing industrial machines in protest was not a concept that began or ended with them. They were some of the more prolific victims of anti-organized-labor smear campaigns.
[1] https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/what-the-luddites-rea...
I'm a sci-fi reader. It seems to me that digital cash has utility. I've gone to Apple Pay wherever possible, my only wish was that apple pay would have taken out Visa and Mastercard with a direct offering with much lower fees.
On merchant side there are still ripoffs - a lot of ACH processing fees are absurd (1% - no cap on amounts etc - so you end up at $100/transaction if you do a $10,000 transaction through certain platforms) and there is no way in person trx have enough fraud to justify the 2.x%. charged there. Chip and pin would solve the issue there anyways but for whatever reason has not been adopted in US.
Can speak to this. Historically the US has been reluctant to adopt CVM PIN because of the extra transaction time. A CVM Signature transaction (or even a CVM None) takes 1-2 seconds. Asking someone to enter their PIN takes an additional 10-20 seconds. A full order of magnitude longer.
For places like McDonalds, this was a non-starter. It's even fairly painful in the countries where it has been adopted.
The solution in both markets was to move to contactless EMV cards and especially to contactless-enabled mobile wallets. You get the best of both worlds with mobile wallets: low transaction times and low fraud risk.
The interchange rate you're referencing (2.x%) isn't due to fraud risk really, it's used to fund the cost of reward programs. The EU just doesn't have nearly the same kinds of cash-back or frequent flyer program type cards - which just cannot be funded by the regulated 0.3% interchange cap.
Digital cash has great utility, but decentralization of digital cash has marginal utility over centralized alternatives. In particular, physical cash is centralized and is just as useful as decentralized fiat.
But yes, if the US stopped collecting taxes, the dollar would heavily devalue, and eventually reach zero
In general, the value of fiat currency comes from how useful it is in satiating the demands of the government backing it. Usually, that is taxes, but there are a few other ways fiat is used that have to be taken into account (judgements, etc)
I sincerely feel for the people who got in over their heads.
They were insufferable pricks when they were making loads and laughing at everyone else staying poor. Why would I give them a second thought on the other side? btw: same goes for some tech entrepreneurs too.
Remember: Be Nice to People on Your Way Up. You’ll Meet Them On Your Way Down
Why should I feel for cryptocurrency "investors" who got in over their heads? If they all end up bankrupt that would be a perfectly acceptable outcome, and a valuable object lesson in the importance of making smart decisions.
[1] https://www.cnet.com/personal-finance/crypto/binance-resumes...
See: https://mempool.space/graphs/mempool#24h & zoom out farther to see how the current fee regime is higher than usual.
This does show a nasty form of contagion within crypto. One player pauses withdrawals which causes a run for the doors elsewhere, any given L1 can only process so many txns per second, so fees spike, their code doesn't handle it gracefully so more players pause withdrawals to fix it.
