By that definition the Argentinian Peso is not money because it’s not stable, nor is the dollar since the majority of stores in the world don’t accept it (mostly just the ones in the USA do, and a couple of others here and there, but definitely not the majority worldwide). And if you’re going to start randomly limiting locations, I’m fairly confident you can find a specific neighborhood or city where more stores accept Bitcoin than dollars, and worldwide I’m fairly confident more stores accept Bitcoin than Tuvaluan dollar, does that mean that that is not money?
Lumisal@lemmy.world 2 days ago
You crypto heads always bring up the Argentinian Peso even though it’s still actually more stable than even Bitcoin. People aren’t buying Argentinian Pesos thinking they might become rich one day, because it’s an actual currency, not a speculative asset, which is what crypto is. It won’t spike in value over 3 months or dive off a cliff by multitudes of thousands.
But ignoring that, most of the world does actually accept US dollars - it’s the most traded currency in the world. It’s also safe to say in nearly every country you can probably exchange USD to the local currency fairly easily.
If you can find me a city where more stores accept Bitcoin rather than the designated currency, then sure. I’m not sure a single one exists.
And that’s bitcoin, which actually is well known and traded. What the person in the article lost wasn’t even that, not any other well known crypto like Ethereum.
Nibodhika@lemmy.world 1 day ago
I bought the Argentinian Peso because I am Argentinian, and lived through the devaluation of our currency, and the Patacones and Corralito, maybe because you haven’t experienced something similar you don’t understand just how much of “money” is based on trust.
You can speculate with anything, the fact that people speculate with crypto has no bearing on it being money or not. Also you might be unaware but people do speculate with dollars/pesos in Argentina, that does not disqualify either of those as money.
No, you’re wrong, outside of Argentina and the US (and a few tourist heavy places) I have never seen stores that accept dollars. This is a misconception Americans have, dollars are not accepted worldwide, you need to exchange it for the location currency, just like how trying to pay for stuff in the USA with Euros or Reais would not work.
Bitcoin is more traded than some small countries currency, if that mattered then Bitcoin would be more of a currency than that one.
Also possible to exchange Bitcoin, that has no bearing.
Than the designated currency no, but than a specific currency absolutely, I’m 99% sure every city I’ve lived for the past 5 years has more places that accept Bitcoin than Argentinian Peso.
Still, it’s a problem of definition, money is an abstract concept, one where is very hard for you to find a definition that includes all of the countries currency but doesn’t include Bitcoin.
But here’s the most important thing that goes through everyone’s heads, just because something is money doesn’t mean it has inherent value. People who invest in crypto, be it FT or NFT, are no different from people who invest in gold or art. And scams involving crypto are no different from other scams, you don’t go around saying emails are scam because people use them to scam others.
All of that being said, crypto bros are the other extreme from you, thinking that crypto is a magical solution to everything and can’t see the glaring issues that will make it impossible from being adopted in any meaningful scale (and it boils down to cryptocurrencies having the same attributes than paper money, bit people not taking digital security seriously the same way they do with securing paper currency)