{"id":373769,"date":"2018-08-17T13:39:10","date_gmt":"2018-08-17T12:39:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/cryptocurrencys-real-problem-lewrockwell\/"},"modified":"2018-08-17T13:39:10","modified_gmt":"2018-08-17T12:39:10","slug":"cryptocurrencys-real-problem-lewrockwell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/cryptocurrencys-real-problem-lewrockwell\/","title":{"rendered":"Cryptocurrency\u2019s Real Problem &#8211; LewRockwell"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t                            \t<!-- S3 Cache --><!-- S3:S3:Original -->\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>Vitalik Buterin, a powerhouse in crypto, the mastermind behind the Ethereum network, effectively denounced those obsessed with the price of crypto and its possibility for breeding derivative financial instruments, tweeting recently \u201cI think there\u2019s too much emphasis on BTC\/ETH\/whatever ETFs, and not enough emphasis on making it easier for people to buy $5 to $100 in cryptocurrency via cards at corner stores. The former is better for pumping price, but the latter is much better for actual adoption.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But this too misses the point.<\/p>\n<p>Crypto provides no value to the average Westerner. Making crypto more accessible is not enough.<\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s no reason for the average Westerner \u2013 my aunt and uncle for example \u2013 to care, because crypto brings no additional functionality to their lives. They ask me about it practically every time we talk. When they ask me what to do with it, despite my five years of involvement in the industry, I have no answer.<\/p>\n<p>All crypto, Bitcoin included, is a speculative play at this stage. Like any early stage technology, we have yet to figure out many uses in which Bitcoin beats the legacy competition in functionality.<\/p>\n<p>As an example, for payments, credit cards are better than crypto. So is PayPal. Cash is better too, if only for the network effects, but in reality for far more. That\u2019s why more people use those methods for payments than Bitcoin.<span class=\"amazon-element-wrapper-custom align-right\"><br \/>\n<span class=\"amazon-element-med-image\"><span class=\"amazon-image-wrapper\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Bitcoin-Manifesto-Allan-J-Stevo\/dp\/1539595137?SubscriptionId=AKIAI63WS3YGA3Y5U2QA&amp;tag=lrc18-20&amp;linkCode=xm2&amp;camp=2025&amp;creative=165953&amp;creativeASIN=1539595137\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com\/images\/I\/51BD4WJ3ieL.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"amazon-image amazon-image-medium\"\/><\/a><\/span><\/span><br \/>\n<span class=\"amazon-element-title\"><span class=\"appip-title\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Bitcoin-Manifesto-Allan-J-Stevo\/dp\/1539595137?SubscriptionId=AKIAI63WS3YGA3Y5U2QA&amp;tag=lrc18-20&amp;linkCode=xm2&amp;camp=2025&amp;creative=165953&amp;creativeASIN=1539595137\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">The Bitcoin Manifesto<\/a><\/span><\/span><br \/>\n<span class=\"amazon-element-author\">Allan J Stevo<\/span><br \/>\n<span class=\"amazon-element-lowest-used\"><span class=\"appip-lowest-used\"><span class=\"appip-label label-lowest-used\">Best Price: <\/span>$17.10<\/span><\/span><br \/>\n<span class=\"amazon-element-formatted-price\"><span class=\"appip-formatted-price\"><span class=\"appip-label label-formatted-price\">Buy New <\/span>$17.16<\/span><\/span><br \/>\n<span class=\"amazon-element-disclaimer-new\"><span style=\"display:block;color:#888;font-size: .80em; padding: 0 0 3px 0;\">(as of 02:15 EDT &#8211; <span style=\"cursor:pointer;\" title=\"Product prices and availability are accurate as of the date\/time indicated and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on Amazon.com at the time of purchase will apply to the purchase of this product.\">Details<\/span>)<\/span><\/span><br \/>\n<span class=\"amazon-element-button\"><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/aws\/cart\/add.html?AssociateTag=lrc18-20&amp;SubscriptionId=AKIAI63WS3YGA3Y5U2QA&amp;ASIN.1=1539595137&amp;Quantity.1=1\" rel=\"nofollow\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.lewrockwell.com\/wp-content\/mu-plugins\/amazon-ad-link-lr\/img\/buy-from-tan.gif\" border=\"0\"\/><\/a><\/span><br \/>\n<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Cheering on or otherwise attempting to rush the price movements of Bitcoin is futile. Praying for its movements is futile. Pitching its potential with slick marketing is more than futile, such marketing is in fact most likely counterproductive as it will leave early&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.lewrockwell.com\/2018\/08\/allan-stevo\/vitaliks-wrong-cryptocurrencys-real-problem\/\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Vitalik Buterin, a powerhouse in crypto, the mastermind behind the Ethereum network, effectively denounced those obsessed with the price of crypto and its possibility for breeding derivative financial instruments, tweeting recently \u201cI think there\u2019s too much emphasis on BTC\/ETH\/whatever ETFs, and not enough emphasis on making it easier for people to buy $5 to $100 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-373769","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/373769","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=373769"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/373769\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=373769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=373769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=373769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}