Cayman Islands, UAE, Bahamas, Monaco, Bermuda, Qatar, Bahrain, Brunei, Oman, Kuwait, British Virgin Islands, Panama, Saudi Arabia, Anguilla, Somalia... There's more, but you only asked for one. I will admit that doing fine is a relative term and probably doesn't apply to all these places. ๐
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That would just suppress the price in the short term and leave that country behind in the digital currency revolution. Everyone has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. Politicians can legislate all they want, but crypto will keep humming along.
Governments have shown in the past they will indeed never give up their money printer. That's a key reason crypto was created. You seem to think governments are willingly allowing crypto to exist and have the ability to shut it down. Centralised e-cash has been tried (and quickly squashed). P2P crypto is immutable and exists to preserve the freedom of users.
I should have clarified: the revolutionary part is that through the possession of data (private keys), users are able to lay claim to their units of cryptocurrency.
Monopoly money is issued by Hasbro (private institution), can be fairly easily counterfeited, has little to no acceptance outside the context of a board game, and there's no upper limit to how much can be printed. On top of all that: there's no cryptographic way to prove the validity of Monopoly money and it can't be transferred across the planet as easily as sending an email.
Value of anything only exists in the minds of humans. No value is inherent to anything. You're absolutely correct that gold isn't fiat. But gold could absolutely be used as currency. Its in circulation and used as a medium of exchange. You're also right that crypto is a currency. But its not a fiat currency. Crypto and fiat are both mediums of exchange not backed by a commodity. The key distinction is that fiat also relies on trust from the issuing institution.
Fiat is government-issued currency with no underlying commodity and no upper limit. Crypto has no government backing and its issuance is determined by each cryptocurrency system (maintained by miner consensus). Some crypto has upper limits and others do not. I think having no supply limit is the distinction you're trying to define as fiat.
Crypto is a revolutionary product because it enables users to possess their own units of account. With great freedom, comes great security concerns. Keep in mind, the vast majority of scams are still conducted with fiat currency. Blaming ignorant crypto users does not overshadow the value digital assets provide to humanity. These benefits include: protection from fiat debasement, the ability to transact without intermediaries, global accessibility, privacy, and transparency. We're using the fediverse for fucks sake, so some of these features ought to be seen positively by many of us. You're absolutely right that greedy and gullible are drawn to crypto because "line goes up." There will always be a learning curve for new technology and hard lessons will be taught to early adopters.
For what its worth: I've been running enterprise since 2015 (when it was called LTSB) then switched to LTSC IoT around 2021. Its fantastic and doesn't have all the Candy Crush and other bullshit. I highly recommend.
- Pick up at register
For a lot of the cheap stuff on Amazon, the price is literally double at a local brick and mortar retailer. Phone chargers, kitchen utensils, towels, cleaning products are high-margin examples that come to mind. Plus, of course, your time and gas money to grab it. Some people also struggle with impulse purchases they may grab while shopping in store. Its easy to see why people continue to throw money at creepy Bezos and just wait for shit to appear on their porch.
Hoarding fiat currency will always end worse than slowly trading it for assets that hold or increase in value. All the while: government money loses value by design. Attempting to time a crash and call the bottom is more akin to gambling than investing.