Cryptocurrency was a broken concept from the very start. It assumed that you can build a financial system by engineering "trust" in purely technical terms.
Trust is something between humans. If you cannot find an arrangement of checks and balances that gives people comfort that the "system" is not ripping them off there is no amount of cryptoaccounting that will solve it for you.
The very anonymity of the bitcoin founder(s?) shows this was never an honest-to-goodness project. Its not surprising then that crypto never solved any real economic problem. As in: making any economy a tiny bit healthier, more resilient, less unequal. Not a single one.
But had it stayed a failed financial reform project would have been one thing. It is heartbreaking to witness the amount of fraud, waste of resources and manipulation it unleashed. Its ongoing amoral adoption by the formal financial system as "yet another asset class offering diversification to our customers" is a fitting closure.
In my opinion it feels like Bitcoin was designed by an amateur from a monetary perspective. Imagine if governments actually used it. Inequality would get worse than it already is. People buy it because of the multi level marketing aspect. Someone bought Bitcoin and they tell others to buy it, rinse and repeat.
People will call "nocoiners" jealous because they missed some train after all they didn't buy Bitcoin when it was at $100. Yet they talk about how oppressive the government provided financial system is. Like how getting -0.5% negative interest on savings above $100k is the end for the small saver but having your money go up 10x because you bought it early and having the purchasing power of your labor go down by 10x because you bought too late is the paragon of equality. One year of work buys me less Bitcoin than 3 years ago. I'm getting priced out like with real estate. It's really puzzling to me how this is supposed to lead to a crypto utopia.
The jealousy argument just reveals the character and knowledge level (and maybe age) of the people who make up the cryptomania movement.
Money is not a "asset class", it is a claim on other people's time and the economic value they can generate with their work and talent. It is only "worth" the value of the community that accepts it as a legitimate tender. If a token dollar is worth something it is because a vast range of people will happily exchange it for something trully valuable.
The economy of a community made up of speculators and extortionists is worth exactly zero (if not negative) and it is a matter of time before this transpires.
The only positive thing to say about bitcoin and friends is that is showed to many more people that monetary system alternatives are in principle possible. Ofcourse some people have been for ages working on complementary currencies and such. Digital and programmable currencies are the future, but they will have to become real economic tools that will fix true problems before they stand a chance against the current system.
All I know is that I actually feel in control of my money with crypto and can easily move it around the world. ACH and wire transfers are painful in comparison.
I am not defending existing monetary systems. The cost and difficulty of transfers is in no small measure the result of cartels that the official system is quite happy to let fester because they haven't seen an oligopoly they didn't like.
I'm sorry, it has nothing to do with cartels and everything to do with an incredibly complex banking infrastructure running mostly on fortran and cobol.
Did you read your link because it says nothing about high fees due to cartels or kyc or anything else. In fact it say big old banks are the most expensive while new internet services are the cheapest. Remittance is already paid for with crypto and increasing. It’s a perfect application for it.
"It Is Difficult to Get a Man to Understand Something When His Perceived Crypto Wealth Depends Upon His Not Understanding It"
This is an article by mainstream economists in official positions who would in general not name names - yet the situation is so egregious they actually do. They state in no clear terms in the abstract and section header that lack of competition (and lack of education) are the reasons.
Increasing competition does not lead us one-to-one to adopting crypto except to tunnel vision minds.
In any case, I have given you the benefit of the doubt for the sake of discussion. There is no report that crypto has made any difference in remittances or any other disadvantaged economic group. If there is such evidence please inform us.
Trust is something between humans. If you cannot find an arrangement of checks and balances that gives people comfort that the "system" is not ripping them off there is no amount of cryptoaccounting that will solve it for you.
The very anonymity of the bitcoin founder(s?) shows this was never an honest-to-goodness project. Its not surprising then that crypto never solved any real economic problem. As in: making any economy a tiny bit healthier, more resilient, less unequal. Not a single one.
But had it stayed a failed financial reform project would have been one thing. It is heartbreaking to witness the amount of fraud, waste of resources and manipulation it unleashed. Its ongoing amoral adoption by the formal financial system as "yet another asset class offering diversification to our customers" is a fitting closure.
The chicken came home to roost.