• Dashi@lemmy.world
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    24 days ago

    The best way I’ve found to explain crypto currency as someone who dabbled in mining and trading.

    It’s like any other foreign currency. I don’t know what backs the British pound, I don’t know what people do with it, but I do know at any given day the pound vs the dollar fluctuates in price. Some people somewhere prefer the pound.

    All that is true about most crypto currencies

    • SkyezOpen@lemmy.world
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      23 days ago

      The analogy isn’t strictly incorrect, it’s just misleading. The price of usd to btc has seen more fluctuation in the last 24 hours than gbp to usd has seen in the past year. Crypto isn’t a currency, it’s a speculative asset.

      • 0x0@infosec.pub
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        23 days ago

        The fact that you don’t consider Zimbabwes dollarinos an actual currency doesn’t take away anything from the argument you replied to.

        • SkyezOpen@lemmy.world
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          22 days ago

          Honestly not sure what point you’re making. ZWD has been completely stable against USD for a long time. BTC fluctuated by 7 entire goddamn percent. The currency of Zimbabwe is more of a currency than literally any crypto.

          • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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            22 days ago

            A currency isn’t defined by being stable. Argentina, Venezuela, and Turkey have had crazy inflation recently, and what’s inflation if not high volatility in valuation? Argentina, for example, had 200% inflation or something last year, that’s nuts! It doesn’t make it any less of a currency.

            I consider something a currency if it is primarily used as a medium of exchange. That is absolutely true for a number of cryptocurrencies. Stability of valuation vs some benchmark is irrelevant.

            • SkyezOpen@lemmy.world
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              22 days ago

              primarily used as a medium of exchange. That is absolutely true for a number of cryptocurrencies.

              Exchange for goods and services? Or exchange for real currency or other crypto in a speculative manner? That’s where I draw the distinction. Very few people (as far as I’m aware) just hold and use crypto like real money.

              • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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                22 days ago

                That’s the only thing I use it for, and the only thing I’m interested in. I don’t care about speculation, I just want a private, digital currency so financial institutions and governments can’t snoop on me.

                I don’t buy anything particularly interesting (mostly VPNs and other online services), but I go out of my way as a form of protest because I don’t like how much tracking goes on.

                I stick to Monero for my cryptocurrency use largely because there’s so little speculation and it doesn’t have a good way to track purchases. I only keep a couple hundred USD worth at a time in my wallet, which is plenty for the stuff I buy.

                • iAmTheTot@sh.itjust.works
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                  22 days ago

                  Isn’t every single transaction you’ve made stored on the blockchain that anyone can view? How is that private?

                  • SkyezOpen@lemmy.world
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                    22 days ago

                    You’d have to tie the wallet number to the person. Not sure how much effort that takes, but it’s a good deal more anonymous than using a credit card.