The future of nostr is endless subscriptions and custodial crypto management. It's going to be an expensive metadata leaking hellscape, difficult to manage, difficult to use, with all the same old downsides of centralized gate keepers and none of the benefits of decentralization. Capitalism is incompatible with decentralization and privacy, period.
yes, the future of decentralized nostr is endless subscriptions and custodial crypto management. It's going to be an expensive metadata leaking hell hole, difficult to manage and use, with all the same old downsides of centralized gate keepers and none of the benefits of decentralization. Capitalism is incompatible with decentralization and anonymity. Period.
many of these use just bitpay ( eg scan) thats just the same as using a crypto > fiat exchange. Scan don't even see the crypto, only the fiat. Its all fiat an KYC.
But what can you actually BUY with stable coins (or any crypto) apart from a vpn subscription?
It makes more sense to use fiat, unless you have a load of monero and not much fiat. Which is going to be the case for anyone selling high value stuff illegally on the black market. I guess my question is how do black market sellers get rid of their monero for actual food once the possibility of changing it for cash in person is eliminated (i can't imagine even that is easy to do for large amounts)
Which businesses and shops accept stable coins? I figured at some point you have to change them for fiat unless the only thing you want to buy is black market goods.
Easier to hide than bitcoin mining, fair point. But in a world where its still illegal the risks are prison, so yes only 'criminals' willing to take the risk will do it, and that shrinks the number of people willing to mine, making the network smaller , less decentralized and ultimately less secure.
I was referring to sats sent on the lightning network.
Thats great, except cash is being gotten rid of, esp in the UK. Some places don't even except cash, this is a fast growing trend. So if you want to spend bitcoins you are left exchanging it for digital money, and that requires permission from your bank to fund your account from an exchange whether P2P or centralized..
Thanks for the explanation. Seems its essentiually the same as changing crypo for fiat on an exchange (but more like a lightning channel for it). Ie a bit more convenient, delayed cash out. As you say anything that requires a similar level of trust as centralized exchange is unappealing. Might as well just use paypal.
Would you not want to use monero to buy bread just because bread is not illegal?
90% of of sats are not self custodied. The cantillionaires are laughing at you, selling you their traceable, impossible-to exchange-for-actual-goods-without-KYC, non-currency. Bitcoin is a lot of cool things, but what it isn't at any scale is permissionless, private or spendable on real goods and services without KYC. Fiat cash beats it on all of those measures. Its sad how in denial Bitcoiners are about this. They have been conned into using the most restricted and traceable financial instrument there is, its little more than a CBDC.
Until you can buy your groceries, fuel and utilities in Bitcoin (not via a licensed fiat exchange service) it is not permissionless . If the only thing you can buy with bitcoin directly is drugs and illegal goods its not money, and its not useful for society, and its absolutely not permissionless.
Won't another bigger problem with monero adoption under hostile conditions (ie where is is made illegal to use it) be mining. If mining itself has to go underground that would create problems, it could be come very difficult to do, which might also make mining more centralized via organised criminal mining operations.
'I don't think it is likely that Monero will ever be adopted at large, but a significant chunk of the economy outside of white markets seems very plausible imo.'
I believe silk road markets are already preferring use of Monero over bitcoin. And I expect they would also prefer cash over bitcoin too!
I see what you mean about when cash disapears monero may be all thats left for the black market, and if that can never be exchanged for digital fiat on an exchange (which it likely won't) then white market goods (say food ) may start to appear on black markets, else those selling balck market goods won't really be able to live of their profits. But still purchase of other things like utilities, cars and houses aren't really possible that way . Black market sellers will still struggle to spend their monero profits on things they actually need. Fiat isn't going to disappear, but when paper cash disappears, maybe what happens is that black markets just shrink or disapear as crypto becomes pretty useless for buying things you need to live off. Some may see this as a good thing. Of course any country who doesn't get rid of cash or legalises monero as currency could cash in on this, as El Salvador is doing with bitcoin. Then again they risk get invaded or overthrown in a coup de tat via the US foreign policy. As we have seen in many countries that have attempted to change their currency or petro dollar to something else. eg Libya..
To be honest, I don't really understand stable coins , they still have to be exchanged for cash on an exchange like any other crypto right? What is the purpose of them other than to remove problems with speculation? Maybe you can explain that to me please?
Fair enough. I think the quote is paradoxical and unenlightened.
I struggle to visualize a world where most people even use lightning. Though I accept it could happen. But do you honestly visualise a world where most people who use lightning will self custody aswell? I think theres a much greater chance of quantum computing breaking bitcoin before that happens
I see that, but its just PR fluff, most people won't use it. Like all those companies releasing 'self hosted open source' software who sell a subscription service because they absolutely DEPEND on most people not self hosting. If that were to change then their business kinda fails.