[dougk16]

I would continue easily dismantling your points but you're like a boomer railing against the Internet in the early 90s. It's bad according to your value system so other people shouldn't use it either. You don't understand it or want it or whatever. Which is totally fine. I'm not saying your position is a bad thing. In fact you have my respect. My Dad was like this with the Internet in the early 90's, and still is. He STILL doesn't use the Internet and his construction business is just fine without it. He has my respect. Both he and I ended up being "right". My only advice is to stick to your guns going forward, be like my Dad and NEVER use cryptocurrencies or metal or barter. Only use military-backed currencies and have them tracked and traced as much as possible. In fact don't even use physical cash. For your safety.

As for me, I'll continue to use Monero and precious metals and barter, and use fiat and the coming CBDCs as little as possible. If that's alright with you of course!

It takes all kinds. Though if you don't know what the Metaverse or CBDCs are you got some surprises coming!

[dale_glass]

Nah, you're barking up the wrong tree entirely. I did have a very passing interest in crypto way back, when BTC wasn't yet at full capacity. I was sure back then the situation couldn't last, because paying $50/transaction was completely ridiculous for any kind of currency. People HAD to rebel against that and at least raise the block limit to alleviate the urgent problem now, even if that wasn't the long term solution.

Oddly, that didn't happen. The big players strenuously resisted any effort to alleviate the network congestion. I was feeling very confused.

It slowly dawned on me that my type of usage was a niche. The main players were interested in speculating on the value, and held huge hoards they intended to optimally sell once. They didn't care if it took 10 hours for the transaction to go through or they had to pay a ridiculous fee, because a $100 fee is effectively nothing when you're making a profit of $millions.

So far nothing has really changed my mind. If what Monero offered was what people wanted, they'd have switched over en masse, and they really didn't.

[dougk16]

I dismissed it all very early on but for other reasons. I took one look at the BTC whitepaper way back, saw that every transaction and wallet was completely public, and immediately wrote it off based on that, along with everything to do with the cryptocurrency space, until I found Monero then some other related currencies about 4 years ago.

You have different standards than me as far as what constitutes a "successful" currency. And that's cool! For example you generally can't buy breakfast with the currencies of silver or gold or British Pounds (in America) either. All throughout history there has been different currencies for different situations and crypto is just another one on the pile. I wish salt would make a comeback myself. ;)

I use cryptocurrencies as private replacements for bank wires. If your standard is that you must be able to buy breakfast in a city with it, then I agree with you it is not a currency by that definition and probably never will be.

As for me I get paid for my professional services in crypto and turn around and sometimes pay other people for goods and services without any conversion in between. Sometimes I convert it to precious metal directly. Sometimes I convert it to a fiat currency or another crypto. Sometimes I hold. It's all good!

Thanks for the conversation and good luck with everything you're working on.