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Comment on Buying a $250 Residency Card From a Tropical Island Let Me Bypass U.S. Crypto Laws

shortwavesurfer@lemmy.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

Fiat currencies are money by decree of a government. If you have lost trust in your government or your government is not trustworthy to begin with, then the Fiat currency is not worth the paper it’s printed on or the digits in your bank account. Your access to your bank account can be restricted at any time for any reason with just a simple push of a button and you have extremely small or no recourse to such an action. Cash is better in that regard, but even so your government or central bank purposely says they want to devalue your cash and other currency by a set target per year. Therefore making you have to work harder or become poorer. As an example, the U.S. Federal Reserve targets a 2% inflation target per year, which means if you put a $100 bill under your mattress today, in 2035, it would only buy you $80 worth of goods. I’m not that old, and yet, when I was a young kid, a $500,000 nest egg would work extremely well for a good retirement. Now, that is absolutely not the case. Not because of the goods getting more expensive, but because of the currency depreciating in value as you work for it.

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mosscap@slrpnk.net ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
I trust governments with fiat currency a hell of a lot more than I trust anything that has to do with crypto.

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- shortwavesurfer@lemmy.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  Ah, okay. See, we are exactly the opposite in that case, because I have lost all faith in governments, and therefore have lost all faith in what they call money.
  
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  - ALiteralCabbage@feddit.uk ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
    I understand the inflation argument, but what gives crypto any value other than a) a relative value which is based on fiat currency anyway and b) the faith of the userbase in it?
    
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    shortwavesurfer@lemmy.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
    What gives any currency any value other than human belief in it? After all, when fiat currencies become valueless, we as humans end up back at gold, which has been in use for millennia.
    
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  - mosscap@slrpnk.net ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
    I’m not saying that governments are the most trustworthy institutions in the world, but as someone who tried to be an early adopter of blockchain from both a tech and a financial perspective, I immediately assume that anything that has the word “crypto” in it is deeply flawed and inherently untrustworthy. I’ve unfortunately learned this from experience.
    
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BakerBagel@midwest.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
A small bit of inflation encourages people to spend their money and keep the economy moving. Because if your currency is going to be worth more tomorrow than it is today, your incentive is to hoard it and mever soend a dime unless absolutely necessary.

Way more people have lost everything because where they keep their cryptocurrency went under than their bank freezing their accounts. Banks only close your account if they suspect you are doing highly illegal and fraudulent stuff. And of i forget my credentials, my bank has a process where i can access my money again after 5 minutes of KYC. If someone DOES fraudulently access my account without my authorization, the bank will fully restore my account and go after the fraudster.

I dont trust the US goverment any more than you do, but Uncle Sam isn’t interested in what his greenbacks are worth compared to other currencies. All he cares about is that i pay my taxes in USD.

You posted all that text, and still haven’t given an actual example of where cryptocurrency out performs USD for someone just going about their daily life.

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