> Yes, I'm not actually sending the merchant crypto, but what does it matter?

In the context of the question, it matters a lot. You're not using it as tendered currency.

The question was who is buying things legitimately with crypto, and your Binance card isn't that. You're buying things legitimately with that card... ...with real currency.

Why merchants prefer real currency to crypto is left as an exercise for the reader.

You're nitpicking.

The question was: "Anybody actually uses crypto for legal goods and services?"

I am using crypto to buy suff, how it is facilitated under the hood is an implementation detail and none of my concern. I am using and spending cryptocurrencies to buy things. My balance on the card is currently primarily USDT (and some ETH). Not dollars, not pounds, not euro: a cryptocurrency. The fact that technically they sell that USDT to fiat when I make a purchase is transparent to me and not something I have to care about.

If I'm nitpicking, then you're hairsplitting.

You could just as easily be exchanging black tar heroin for real currency and using that to make your purchases.

Are you then using heroin to acquire goods and services?

The question was if anybody was using cryptocurrencies to buy stuff. Well, I am. When I buy stuff, my crypto balance goes down and I get the purchased item. What happens outside that is invisible to me. From what I see on my end, I am spending crypto.

If I used a US credit card to buy something from a European store with prices in euro, am I spending USD from my USD balance or am I spending euro? From my perspective, I would say that I’m spending USD, even though the bank is exchanging it to euro under the hood and sending the merchant euro. How is it any different with crypto in my case?

Again, you're not buying stuff with cryptocurrencies, anymore than the heroin dealer is buying things with heroin. You're both converting your asset to a fiat currency, and then buying things with that.

It's a simple distinction.

Okay, less emotive comparison - you hold gold as a store of value. You liquidate some for US dollars, and then use those to purchase goods and services.

Again, did you buy those goods and services with gold, or with US dollars?

It's even worse than this, because they don't even have gold (or bitcoins in this case), what they have is an IOU for bitcoins on a bank account (at Binance): this is fiat bitcoin and it has even lower guarantee than fiat dollar, since Binance is far more regulated than a regular bank.

I can at least easily/cheaply convert and withdraw it as one of many cryptocurrencies. Of course, if Binance went away or otherwise restricted withdrawals, then I wouldn't have access to it, but that's the price you pay for the convenience and features of a centralized exchange.

Some of the newfangled DeFi cryptocurrencies try to get around this, but of course they can't offer a visa card.

As with all things, its a trade-off. For me, Binance is a better trade-off than my bank, for the things I use Binance for. I also don't exclusively use Binance and I do keep some of my crypto in my own wallets, separately from the centralized exchanges.

Go back to my scenario: when you use a US credit card, denominated in USD, to buy something from a European merchant, whose prices are in Euro and who receives Euro from the purchase made, are you buying the goods in USD (the currency that your account contains) or in Euro (the currency the merchant receives)?

From the perspective of the customer, you only ever see the dollars: that's what your account contains and that's what the number that goes down in exchange for the goods. Yes, behind the scenes, your bank turns that into Euro (liquidates the gold for you, in your example) and sends the Euro to the merchant, so as far as the merchant is concerned, the transaction is in Euro, but from the customers perspective, everything happened in USD.

I'm not arguing that you're not correct, that you are technically buying goods in Euro, what I'm saying is that from the customers perspective it may as well be in USD.

For the cryptocurrencies, of course I'm technically buying in USD, on-demand liquidating the cryptocurrencies to USD in the process, but from the customer experience, I may as well be transacting cryptocurrencies and I am spending my cryptocurrencies (via a transparent exchange behind the scenes) to make the purchase, just like a USD card holder spends their USD (via a transparent exchange behind the scenes) to make their Euro purchase and just how you would liquidate your gold (assuming there was a "gold" visa card where the bank handled the liquidation for you transparently behind the scenes) to make a USD purchase.

From my perspective, when I use the Binance card, I am using my crypto to buy something. How that works isn't relevant to me. I don't see the USD[1], I see my crypto balance go down and I get the purchased item. For all intents and purposes, I am using crypto to buy things. If I didn't have the crypto, I wouldn't be able to buy things with that card.

What the customer sees matters, since the money in a non-gold-backed account is just a number anyway, you're not really "spending" anything. But from the customers perspective, the number represents the USD (or whatever) that's in their account. When they make that number go down, that's what they're spending. If the bank decides that for some reason its more efficient to convert the money to GBP first, then to Euro and then back to USD, good for them, it doesn't affect the customer. Its an "implementation detail".

Or another scenario: What if I use a USD card to make a Euro purchase, but the merchants account is in GBP? (A UK-based business with an EU-localized store, perhaps) I am buying in USD, the actual purchase transaction happened in Euro and the merchant only ever sees GBP. You seem to be arguing that only the middle bit, the Euro transaction, matters. I'm saying which part matters depends on the observer: for me, the USD part is what matters, for the bank the Euro part might be the most important and for the merchant its the GBP part. For all intents and purposes, I spent USD, the merchant received GBP, but the bank processed Euro. The dictionary says "spend" means "to use up" or to "pay out" (and pay is to give), I'm using up the USD in this example.

[1] I mean, technically I do: the merchant quotes their price in USD and Binance does of course let you see the USD equivalent balance of your cryptocurrencies

The difference is that a US merchant must accept US dollar for your purchase but must not, and in fact does not, accept cryptocurrency.

That wasn’t the scenario though, I picked the scenario because it’s similar to my use of cryptocurrencies: where your credit card is in a different currency to your purchase, while the card issuer does the conversion behind the scenes. Just like is happening when I buy something with a Binance card. So what currency a seller must accept is unrelated.

Dude, enough. Things were okay, but now you really are splitting hairs. This is a legal (for now) use case for cryptocurrency.

Edit - “For now” is critical. Who knows what the next five years will bring??