Pros and cons of crypto

Matt Simis

Dohnjoe wrote: »

Apart from black market use, no one with a brain is currently buying items with crypto at the moment. Aside from the novelty, it's still too impractical, too risky and volatile

You have no evidence to back that statement.
There are lots of legit transactions going over Bitcoin specially. For example Overstock's CEO posted some stats a while ago. There are far more that are just taking it as a payment without posting about it online.

Ripple are moving bank funds globally in the billions (granted not payments). I've bought loads of stuff personally, it's great for large payments abroad with not conversion fees or card limits.

Dohnjoe

Matt Simis wrote: »

You have no evidence to back that statement.
There are lots of legit transactions going over Bitcoin specially. For example Overstock's CEO posted some stats a while ago. There are far more that are just taking it as a payment without posting about it online.

There's little evidence to the contrary. Apart from blackmarket or niche uses it makes little or no sense to purchase items with crypto in place of cash.

Purchases are made of course. I have a privacy obsessed friend who uses crypto to buy whenever he can. It would be easier and more practical for him to use cash, however he does it simply out of a belief he has.

As for volume? I'd like to see the Steam stats on games sold for cash vs BTC.

It makes no sense for the public to buy general items for crypto right now. Why go through the hurdles of changing cash to crypto via exchange (taking on exchange risk) then buying the item - when the cash can just be used in the first place to buy the item

Likewise, why would anyone use their existing crypto to buy when many cryptos are going up in value or are volatile. If someone were to buy with crypto and want to replace, they have extra hurdles in replacing the spent crypto (again taking on exchange and other risks each time)

Just easier and more practical to buy with cash in almost every scenario (except as mentioned niche uses e.g. blackmarket)

Hopefully in the future that will change, but right now crypto is a far more similar to a volatile speculative asset than a stable currency

People don't buy stuff with volatile speculative assets that have to be bought and sold on unrated exchanges. They hoard or trade.

Matt Simis

Dohnjoe wrote: »

There's little evidence to the contrary. Apart from blackmarket or niche uses it makes little or no sense to purchase items with crypto in place of cash.

Purchases are made of course. I have a privacy obsessed friend who uses crypto to buy whenever he can. It would be easier and more practical for him to use cash, however he does it simply out of a belief he has.

As for volume? I'd like to see the Steam stats on games sold for cash vs BTC.

It makes no sense for the public to buy general items for crypto right now. Why go through the hurdles of changing cash to crypto via exchange (taking on exchange risk) then buying the item - when the cash can just be used in the first place to buy the item

Likewise, why would anyone use their existing crypto to buy when many cryptos are going up in value or are volatile. If someone were to buy with crypto and want to replace, they have extra hurdles in replacing the spent crypto (again taking on exchange and other risks each time)

Just easier and more practical to buy with cash in almost every scenario (except as mentioned niche uses e.g. blackmarket)

Hopefully in the future that will change, but right now crypto is a far more similar to a volatile speculative asset than a stable currency

People don't buy stuff with volatile speculative assets that have to be bought and sold on unrated exchanges. They hoard or trade.

Hey I'm just saying you are making postings in an affirmative tone that suggests you have some stats the rest of us don't. Its a largely untracked/awkward to track currency. You just don't know what is being spent or where, everything above is just your opinion, not fact.

Rumpy Pumpy

Can someone explain to me how a parody coin like Dogecoin can have a market cap of 959 million dollars? What justifies this price?

Dohnjoe

Matt Simis wrote: »

Hey I'm just saying you are making postings in an affirmative tone that suggests you have some stats the rest of us don't. Its a largely untracked/awkward to track currency. You just don't know what is being spent or where, everything above is just your opinion, not fact.

Outlets accepting crypto (mainly BTC) have been decreasing from a peak a few years back

It's also anecdotal. Have many friends/colleagues into crypto, am part of several groups. No one spends it like a currency (bar the odd black market purchase or for personal beliefs)

It's simple economics. For example, people aren't inclined to spend something that rises faster than the rate of inflation. People don't go through extra hurdles for no gain or benefit. Companies/businesses will not use something volatile over something that is stable.

If for example Amazon started accepting Litecoin tomorrow, even as a crypto enthusiast there would be little or no advantages using it over cash. On the contrary there would be disadvantages and extra hurdles.

It's unfortunate naming - crypto"currency", crypto"asset" would be a far accurate description. Economics 101, just because something can be used as a type of money or payment (cigarettes, gold, cryptos, etc) doesn't necessarily make it practical as a currency

There are also other 800lb gorillas in the room that few in crypto seem to be addressing

Dohnjoe

Rumpy Pumpy wrote: »

Can someone explain to me how a parody coin like Dogecoin can have a market cap of 959 million dollars? What justifies this price?

The potential for large gains

It's the biggest driver in this market by far

grindle

Dohnjoe wrote: »

The potential for large gains

It's the biggest driver in this market by far

Ignoring the stupid coin and the implication for larger gains,the greatest thing DOGE has going for it is that it's an actual utility coin. Doesn't get pumped or dumped massively, you can send tx from one exchange to another quickly.

****coin, but utility coin.

Rumpy Pumpy

grindle wrote: »

Ignoring the stupid coin and the implication for larger gains,the greatest thing DOGE has going for it is that it's an actual utility coin. Doesn't get pumped or dumped massively, you can send tx from one exchange to another quickly.

****coin, but utility coin.

So it’s valued at almost a billion dollars because it can be used to send coins from one exchange to another for the purposes of buying other coins? Doesn’t seem like a particularly accurate valuation.

grindle

Rumpy Pumpy wrote: »

So it’s valued at almost a billion dollars because it can be used to send coins from one exchange to another for the purposes of buying other coins? Doesn’t seem like a particularly accurate valuation.

Valuation of cryptos isn't like stock valuation - if a company was worth $1b and decides to sell for that to somebody with $1b and the shareholders agree to it then the company gets handed over for $1b.

If a crypto is "worth" $1b and somebody with $1b comes along, well, the price will not stay at $1b, it's heading upwards. Holders and dearth of liquidity will ensure it gets driven upwards, there's no way around it.
If people are using a coin (using a coin for a purpose, what a crazy idea) the buy pressure will increase the price - the utility of the coin is certainly proven so I'm not sure what argument you have against it.
Do you prefer slower methods of transferring funds between exchanges with the bonus of exorbitant fees? There's a specific coin for that and you can use it if you'd like. Most would probably prefer to use whichever coin is cheapest to send.

CastielJ

Pros for Bitcoin
Deflationary - it is a fixed supply, bitcoin does not rot in storage, and can retain, or even appreciate wealth.
Distributed - it is democratic and cannot be co-opted by bad actors or state powers.
Peer-to-Peer - Because Bitcoin is peer-to-peer it facilitates free trade and prevents centralized control that could exhort political.
Also there appear many services that accept bitcoin currency as a payment. I read "Cryptocurrencies for Gambling" and it's said that even some online casinos accept such payments.
Surely bitcoin is unstable currency but nothing ventured nothing gained.

crytoadvice

Dr Bolouswki wrote: »

PROs:
Distributed cloud is the next step for large scale applications. Just as we went from monolithic computers, to clustered compute, to spread clustered, to cloud and all it's derivatives, logical progression brings us to distributed ledger systems (i.e. blockchain). Many of the benefits that occured in the previous methods for IT infrastructure (hard or soft), apply also to distributed systems. Risk mitigation is enhanced, economies of scale are easier to achieve, performance enhancement without the need for infrastructure investment, better access to target demographics, more direct go to market models, reduction of intermediaries etc. Blockchain based ecosystems, where the users collectively provide the resources to run the system, are an incredibly efficient way of utilising resources. Coins that leverage these things are the ones to look at.

CONs:

Many of the coins out there are barely more than micro-shares for companies shilling a "coin" based project that does not gain any benefit over traditional current deployments. Lack of regulation allows anyone with slick marketing to get rich on an ICO and then never technically have to do anything afterwards. A nice web page, a whitepaper of some description without too many spelling errors and some clever looking directors/advisors does the trick.

It's hard to seperate the wheat from the chaff - very time consuming. My personal opinion is that platform based currencies like Eth and Neo are the way to go.

is NEO not a risk considering the crackdown in China