@Hyolobrika Why do you concern yourself with such scammers?
In general, we need more independence from government, not less, given the way the world is going.
Also, you can trade it for private digital money such as XMR.
@Hyolobrika
> In general, we need more independence from government, not less, given the way the world is going.
Isn't it odd though that cryptocurrencies are more actively used in counties with greater economic and political freedoms and such activities are nearly non-existent, heavily regulated or embraced by governments themselves in non-free regimes?
@admitsWrongIfProven
@Hyolobrika
This alone makes me think that they do not solve the problem they claim to solve: taking cryptocurrencies under control seems to be relatively easy, and they are merely being tolerated in countries where people already have greater independence from the government.
@admitsWrongIfProven
1) How are they being taken under control in more authoritarian countries?
2) They also provide protection from debanking by private entities.
3) Making censorship harder is always good.
@Hyolobrika
You can just impose fines on organisations for accepting payments in cryptocurrencies — that's it, problem effectively solved! Paying in cryptocurrency becomes as "easy" as buying illicit drugs or guns.
In countries with freedoms and rule of law you can exclaim: "But muh rights, you can't do that!",— doesn't work in the non-free regimes, they do whatever they deem fit and don't ask you about your rights.
@admitsWrongIfProven
@Hyolobrika
And again — that's it! They are both allowed to circulate on paper, but are de-facto under government control.
I've been staying out of the loop, but both Russia and… say North Korea have been actively encouraging cryptocurrencies — there were a plethora of cases such as this: https://www.theregister.com/2021/09/28/virgil_griffith_guilty_north_korea/
@admitsWrongIfProven
@Hyolobrika
Yes, NK have been holding summits on cryptocurrencies — governments see it as a viable options to circumvent sanctions.
At the same time these countries might be banning mining by individuals domestically — not hard, since they control the power grid, and yes, sadly, they CAN decide what you spend your electricity on even if you pay for it!
@admitsWrongIfProven
@amerika
Those who can afford a nuclear power plant can do lots of bad things. When it comes to cryptocurrencies, they can take over the distributed ledger by flooding it with nodes under their control and achieve something like this: https://web.archive.org/web/20211222000248/https://fortune.com/2018/05/29/bitcoin-gold-hack/
Some time ago there were lots of debates whether China can take over Bitcoin, I'm not sure what the consensus is today.
@admitsWrongIfProven @Hyolobrika
@Hyolobrika
Taking them under control involves extra steps, like creating your own cryptocurrency and banning all the "wrong" ones, e.g.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_ruble
This effectively shifts the perception of the general public: "It's not that these cryptocurrencies thingies that everyone's talking about are banned — it's just the bad ones, ones that are probably used by our enemies anyway"
@admitsWrongIfProven