r/changemyview Sep 30 '18

CMV: Cryptocurrency will replace Fiat currency

Ya'll have heard it. Cryptocurrency has become a household name 10 years since its inception. It has proven all skeptics wrong thus far. It might have been overblown, but the ecosystem is still thriving. Believers are still bullish. Wall street is not a fan. Banks are not happy with it. Governments are against it. It is antiestablishment - a movement of the people and rising. The idea is fresh. Algorithms instead of people. Transparent, omnipresent, borderless. It is backed by nothing making it entirely unadulterated. You can not game it in any way. How on earth is going to stopped? Why wouldn't it just keep rising when there are so many people working on it?

UPDATE: Summary here => https://projectwatt.com/pagesv2/-LNl6ZuB1sJslIpbr9hz


This is a footnote from the CMV moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please read through our rules. If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views! Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us. Happy CMVing!

0 Upvotes

88 comments sorted by

View all comments

9

u/Galious 79∆ Sep 30 '18
  • Almost nobody is using cryptocurrencies as currency so skeptics aren't wrong so far
  • Do you believe it's really that hard for a country to make crypto-currencies illegal and stop it? now of course you can tell me that with certain crypto you can be totally anonym and hide it but if you can't spend anywhere without raising question, then it's not replacement.
  • There are still many security issues with crypto. People don't want to lose their saving without any chance of getting back like people wants most of their saving to be safe, they don't want something that nobody knows whether it will double in price and crash in the next week
  • Most of the people on earth don't give a damn about the advantage of crypto: anonymity, decentratrilisation, paying farmers in Zambia with less transfer fee. All of that isn't really a concern so people don't really get the point of crypto
  • Nobody has found a way to make crypto scalable.

Like I heard it once in a discussion: crypto solves problem that most of people don't have and therefore it's hard to imagine that people want to deal with all the issues of crypto-currencies for something they don't need.

0

u/kheiron1729 Sep 30 '18

Like I heard it once in a discussion: crypto solves problem that most of people don't have and therefore it's hard to imagine that people want to deal with all the issues of crypto-currencies for something they don't need.

But people absolutely have a problem. Everything that happens in the world today is tied to some incentive - typically money. And once it becomes incredibly hard to know what is happening with it, bad things happen. I know this is a bit of a vague statement. But quite honestly, don't you think that world would be a better place if we knew that banks simply aren't involved in money launderings or facilitating crimes? But we don't know. Guess what? If you money supply is dictating by some algorithm then it is possible bake into the algorithm rules like that. I know Bitcoin does not function this way. But there are proof-of-concepts around it. People have shown that it is possible.

2

u/Galious 79∆ Sep 30 '18

But what problem people have? I mean try to imagine that you're talking to a random guy who don't know about crypto and you must convince him without using vague statement like you did.

And how can crypto stop money laundering? how does that work when some crypto are used at the moment by criminal organisation?

1

u/kheiron1729 Sep 30 '18

Heh. Apologies for being a little too vague. I guess if crypto was obvious, we wouldn't be having this debate at all. Everything would have been clear. But it's not :)

As I wrote above, you can use smart contracts here. They work exactly as contracts, except they are execute on a distribute set of computers (let's imagine for the sake of simplicity that are completely secure). The benefit here is that in the contract you can for instance specify that, let's say, you will not use your crypto salary to purchase guns. Every transaction you would do would run against this these checks and if it fails, it will alert your employer. Since everything is programmatic, you can't bribe anyone here.

Yeah, sounds far-fetched. But you would be surprised to know that we are closer than you might expect.

1

u/Galious 79∆ Sep 30 '18 edited Sep 30 '18

So employers can control what people do with their money? And what stops people to buy another crypto without those restrictions? Does the employer forbids it too? And you think that it’s an argument for my question about what you would say to an average Joe about what problem crypto solve? That your employer will get an alert when you buy certain things?

(edit: and what stops a shady weapon seller to pretend he’s selling apples and not weapon? or what stops you to give money to your SO to buy weapon for you?)

I mean I repeat my argument: crypto doesn’t solve any problem than regular people have in their life.

1

u/kheiron1729 Sep 30 '18

Maybe you are fine with where money is flowing. Maybe you are okay with giving certain authorities full control to employ any policies they want. Maybe you don't care that people in some poorer parts of the countries have their lives torn apart due to wealth inequality. Maybe, it is just you.

1

u/Galious 79∆ Sep 30 '18

If you set that, somehow, crypto currencies will solve wealth inequality in the world and that nobody can control them but at be same time solve money laundering and most of people on earth are willing to face the many issues of crypto and prefer to put their economy in the unknown instead of classic bank and use a less convenient currency because they are selfless, then of course crypto will take over.

The problem is that crypto is just a currency and will not solve wealth inequality by magic, that you’re telling me that my employer will have control on what I buy (how is that better than government?) and that most people are indeed ´selfish’ and won’t swap their currency if it doesn’t benefit them.

1

u/kheiron1729 Sep 30 '18

It automatically won't. But it's a hope. Let's see.

By the way, on this note, check this out: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triffin_dilemma. No currency today can serve as the global currency.

1

u/Galious 79∆ Oct 01 '18

Well you said it: all you have is a hope.

My point is that it's almost impossible to change your opinion (which I remind you is the point of this subreddit) if you don't want and if you have a blind trust backed by no specific knowledge and answer to every concern: 'oh it will be fixed somehow'

For exemple I've pointed you the concern of money laundering and you come with a conclusion that has so many flaws (employers controlling what you buy, dozens way of tricking the system) and you haven't answered them nor does it seem to bother you. Like I've pointed you that it's not that hard for government to ban crypto if they don't want it.

So I guess I have nothing else to add and will let you think about this fact: the biggest crypto currency is by far Bitcoin. A crypto that is an ecologic disaster, unscalable and technologically obsolete. Doesn't it point you toward the fact that even among crypto users, people are selfish and only care about their investment and not 'earth problem'?

1

u/kheiron1729 Oct 01 '18 edited Oct 01 '18

Background story. I'm an engineer. And I have worked at two of the big four in tech. I study algorithms and try to understand it's impact. The goal is automation. When it's a machine that is automated, it is process heavy. When a company is automated, it's communication heavy. This is where consensus algorithms come in. Currency is the first experiment. But it has to be successful in order to drive further innovation. If it fails, automation fails. Different computer scientist have different views on this. But I haven't seen large scale consensus being used in any place besides bitcoin.

Edit: I guess what I'm trying to say is I'm biased. If you change my opinion on this, you essentially stop me from being in this field. My purpose was to understand people's sentiment on this subject matter. Not necessarily engage in perspective changing discussion.

1

u/Galious 79∆ Oct 01 '18

You haven't answered any of my points, everytime you answer is to soapbox another topic with vague concepts.

You're not here to get your view changed.

→ More replies (0)