Just an anecdote but never the less.
A couple of years ago I got a job at an animal shelter in a country that’s not the one I live in. For this I was paid 400€/m in cash to cover my bills back home during the time. So I went to the local BTCatm and even though they charge an insane markup (15/20% iirc) it was still cheaper than the “minimum fee” charged by the bank/western union.
As useful as the electricity or fire? Probably not. But as a tool for low paid workers that go to another country and is sending money home to their families without having to pay half of it in fees it’s pretty usefull.
orosus@lemmy.world 3 days ago
I don’t want to say crypto in general, but Bitcoin in particular was born after the 2008 crisis, as a decentrized form of money, meaning storing value against the inflationary fiat money that the goverments can print in a centralized manner, destroying all your savings. I think any technology that empowers decentralization is positive. Same as fediverse. And in the case of bitcoin, having a decentrized money it’s a really positive tool for freedom to avoid centralizing the power in the governments. But I am curious on knowing why you say that there is no positive uses.
Saleh@feddit.org 3 days ago
Well, the decentralization of Bitcoin only lasted so long. Now it is in the hand of a few large “mining” corporations who can afford the hardware and have access to cheap electricity.
grrgyle@slrpnk.net 3 days ago
As soon as you could exchange it for real money it just became another tool of capital to move in secret.
grrgyle@slrpnk.net 3 days ago
I believe any good thing you can say about crypto will eventually be coopted and controlled by capital.
The same is true for all “disruptive” technology unless it’s built specifically to be hostile to monied interests, like the fediverse - and even then, you have to continue defending it against incursions.
RedditIsDeddit@lemmy.world 3 days ago
That’s oversimplifying things quite a lot. And is also not accurate.
untakenusername@sh.itjust.works 3 days ago
As long as those companies have to compete with each other for mining, there is some decentralization. Ofc it could be a ton more, some currencies like Monero use different hash functions that cant have custom chips made for them, making it easier for traditional CPUs to mine it, so large companies cant control vast amounts of the hash rate.
Rekorse@sh.itjust.works 3 days ago
Why do you think freedom and decentralization is always good? I don’t think bitcoin improves lives and the majority of people view it as gambling rather than currency. Sometimes its useful to get around local regulations or to pay slightly less in fees that would normally go to a bank. Its just a different western union money transfer and yet people on here are talking about it like it represents freedom and the individual spirit or some nonsense. Its main use is to scam people out of money. Its secondary use is to facilitate purchase of illegal goods. A very small fraction of the whole is people using it as an actual currency.
I’ll put it this way, a small fraction of responsible heroin users does not make heroin as a whole a good thing.
orosus@lemmy.world 1 day ago
I don’t know why you say that bitcoin is mostly used to scam people and to purchase illegal goods. I agree that maybe a small fraction of people is using it as a currency. But, in my case, most of the people I know who have bitcoin, just have it as a store of value. Maybe I am lucky and know a lot of those “responsible heroin users” who understand that there will be only 21 million bitcoins, so what makes it valuable is its scarcity, and as long as central banks keep printing money out of thin air, bitcoin demand will grow, at least among those who understand it.