Cryptocurrencies use cases

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Peter89

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My main beef with cryptos is that mostly they are used in order to make money.
The original idea of BTC - imo - was to be a currency i.e. to be used as a means of payment. That's why they are called crypto-currencies.
But currently - after 15 years - their adoption rate as means of payment among businesses - is percent wise basically zero.
Online businesses, yes, offer occasionally payment with BTC, but brick & mortar businesses, no.
Cryptocurrencies aren't used as currencies - as a replacement for fiat -, they are used as investment/speculation - as a way to make more fiat.
BTC and its peers were hijacked, so to speak.
imo


But are there cases of cryptos being useful for ordinary people?
I think there are. This one for example

"Take a journey to San Francisco, Colombia, where the Decaf app, built on the Stellar network, has revolutionized the local economy and the lives of those living there. See how blockchain is solving real-world problems: addressing the dangers of cash payments and the onchain effect of financial access, providing opportunity and security, and empowering communities."

 
Some crypto use cases:
  • Financial assets - Cryptos with hard caps or deflationary tokenomics are likely going to end up in this bucket with Bitcoin (BTC). Network limitations will ensure BTC will only ever be a digital asset and not a widely used currency.
  • Currency and Decentralized Finance (DeFi) - ETH, SOL, SUI, EGLD, XRP, XLM et al are vying to become the 800lb gorilla of real cryptocurrency adoption. Ethereum (ETH) ran out to a commanding lead, but has technical problems hindering further growth as a currency. Solana (SOL) looked to take Ethereum's crown, but has suffered some technical challenges of it's own. Newer challengers including SUI and MultiversX (EGLD) are innovating and coming to market with improvements in scalability, efficiency and cost.
  • Real World Asset (RWA) Tokenization - The race is on to become the standard/leader in the RWA tokenization space. Many cryptos have achieved some adoption with legacy financial industry including Avalanche (AVAX) and gold tokenization projects include Kinesis et al..
  • NFTs - While most NFTs in the early days of crypto are ownership claims for a website address to an image/picture, use cases for NFTs are evolving. For example, they are being used by the video game industry for developing markets/economies for in game assets that players can earn/develop while playing.
  • Web3 - a decentralized internet built upon distributed ledger technologies - web3 developments have been slow to take root and grow.
  • DePIN - Some crypto networks are powering a new class of disruptive innovation industries that empower people to participate and earn some ROI for their investment of capital and/or time/effort. Theta/TFUEL is an example of this and PEAQ seems poised to become a foundation layer 800lb gorilla for the space.
  • AI - There are a number of cryptos that have some relation to the AI space, but the Artificial Superintelligence Alliance (FET) is an artificial intelligence lab building an open, permissionless, decentralized machine learning network with a crypto economy.
  • Stablecoin - Bridging the gap between the crypto universe and legacy financial networks, stablecoins provide crypto currency analogues for fiat currencies.
 
Thanks PMB

pmbug said:
Currency and Decentralized Finance (DeFi) - ETH, SOL, SUI, EGLD, XRP, XLM et al are vying to become the 800lb gorilla of real cryptocurrency adoption
Click to expand...
This is what I'm talking about - I guess -, cryptocurrencies used as everyday currencies.
I agree that once adoption in this field starts this will represent a monetary revolution impacting the everyday life of ordinary people.
As far as I understand Lumens (XLM) is the most promising in this regard - based on the speed and low cost of the Stellar network.
 
Stellar has high speed and low gas/transaction costs, but it's similar to Ripple (XRP) in using a Federated Byzantine Agreement (FBA) consensus model. That means using trusted (ie. centralized) validators. It's not the promised land of decentralized, government tamper proof crypto.

Justin Bons posted an interesting thread on X today:


I don't know if your access to X has been restored or not, but his threads usually generate some thoughtful replies/discussion. If you can't read on X, you can read the thread on this threadreaderapp page:

Thread by @Justin_Bons on Thread Reader App

@Justin_Bons: 1/15) BTC is a purely speculative meme-coin with ZERO utility ETH is also totally uncompetitive; as they sold their soul for L2 tokens & equity! XRP is centralized & they are deceiving the public So...…
threadreaderapp.com

Food for thought!
 
Bitcoin 2.0 is probably just around the corner.
 
I understand that the big difference between Stellar and Ripple is that Stellar is designed for micro-payments i.e. to serve ordinary people and little businesses while Ripple focuses on institutions.
Therefore my sympathy for Stellar : )
Probably that's the reason why kinesis currencies run on a fork of Stellar.

Stellar has already shown how they can directly improve the life or ordinary people (s. post #1).

Centralised or decentralised, that's not important to me - another point we disagree about I guess
Whether a currency can improve the life or ordinary people, overcoming the deficiencies of fiat currencies and banking system, this is my focus.
This is the only reason why I am interested in gold backed currencies like kinesis.

My X account is partially restored - I can read but not post. Progress right? : )
 
Peter89 said:
...
Centralised or decentralised, that's not important to me - another point we disagree about I guess
Click to expand...

It's not important until it is, and then it is paramount. It's the difference between liberty and slavery. With centralization, government can impose their will at any time. With decentralization, they cannot.

Peter89 said:
...
My X account is partially restored - I can read but not post. Progress right? : )
Click to expand...

Nice!
 
pmbug said:
It's not important until it is, and then it is paramount. It's the difference between liberty and slavery. With centralization, government can impose their will at any time. With decentralization, they cannot.
Click to expand...
100% agree PMB, I get the value of decentralisation - but there are those decentralisation maxis refusing as a matter of principle every centralised network. Judging currencies, networks and projects only by the centralised/decentralised criterium.
"Is this centralised? Yes? Then it's not worth it."


There are 40 million of US citizens un- or underbanked.
Does Stellar help to improve the lives of these people, Yes, then I support it.
I don't dismiss the value of decentralisation but I don't make my support for a currency depend on the degree it's centralised or decentralised.

Don't take it personal boss
 
When Ripple and Stellar "were born", they were best in class with transaction speed and cost. That's no longer the case. Newer cryptos like SUI and MultiversX (EGLD) rival them on both counts while maintaining a decentralized architecture. I think crypto developers and VCs/investment money are naturally going to gravitate to decentralized platforms all else being equal. $.02
 
pmbug said:
Newer cryptos like SUI and MultiversX (EGLD)...
Click to expand...
Me discussing crypto with you looks like a football match between Joe Soap and Cristiano Ronaldo!
 
Last edited:
I'm still learning myself. I've posted a bit about SUI here: https://www.pmbug.com/threads/sui-blockchain-sui.7276/

I've posted a bit about MultiversX (EGLD) here: https://www.pmbug.com/threads/multiversx-egld.7898/

You can also get a good bit of info on any crypto from the "About" tab on CoinMarketCap when viewing a coin:

Sui price today, SUI to USD live price, marketcap and chart | CoinMarketCap

The live Sui price today is $4.23 USD with a 24-hour trading volume of $1,607,700,015.91 USD. We update our SUI to USD price in real-time.
coinmarketcap.com

MultiversX price today, EGLD to USD live price, marketcap and chart | CoinMarketCap

The live MultiversX price today is $53.64 USD with a 24-hour trading volume of $77,954,087.77 USD. We update our EGLD to USD price in real-time.
coinmarketcap.com

... and of course every coin has it's own website that publishes white papers and marketing hype.

I also learn a good bit from discussions on X (see post #4 for example).
 
I bet many Syrians wish they had cryptos includong Assad.
 
nickndfl said:
I bet many Syrians wish they had cryptos includong Assad.
Click to expand...
I bet all Syrians wish they had the oil revenue that was stolen from them. Oh, well. Now that their president is gone, they will find out what their new overlords will demand from them. Maybe it will be as gentle as losing land to another jurisdiction.
 
When you can commonly buy toilet paper with BTC is when it stays.
 
Why don't they start a Bitcoin 2.0?
 
nickndfl said:
Why don't they start a Bitcoin 2.0?
Click to expand...

Anyone can do it, but recreating the viral experience that prompted thousands (millions?) of people to set up and run network nodes is going to be near impossible IMO.
 
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