In your opinion, why are people still not using Bitcoin as a payment method and instead relying entirely on banks? Is it really much harder than having cash in hand, or do people perceive paper as a more stable form of ownership, even if that is an illusion?

Sometimes, I think that people have been successfully conditioned to be uninformed. Everyone who steps outside the mainstream tends to fail. I still can't break this dependency, as it is related to an environment I am unable to change.

I'm thinking about this again because I want to order a server that accepts crypto, but I have no idea how to receive payments in that currency without using a bank card that I no longer use.

👻 ps

Mar 29 · 7 months ago

25 Comments ↓

🚀 clseibold · 2025-03-29 at 08:34:

@HanzBrix These, and it is also terrible for the environment because it's intentionally energy inefficient, lol.

Crypto in general is also being used to scam people, especially when you get into the NFT crap.

@ps The mainstream is not always wrong about everything. Bitcoin in general is not good. Whether the mainstream does or does not agree with that doesn't matter.

Bitcoin actually *is* more unstable than banks, and we have both statistics to prove that, *and* we know how it works to prove it.

It is also usually more expensive to maintain than it is to earn bitcoin! It's literally a complete scam because of that. POW (Proof of Work) was designed to be energy inefficient as a security measure, which means it actually just runs up your energy bill and costs you more than you gain.

Mining on bitcoin also requires very expensive equipment now, which means it literally *increases* the money gap of the poor and the rich. Only rich people can efficiently get bitcoin for free profit, which is just a ridiculous idea to begin with.

And lastly, there are also scams where websites and programs put a secret miner running without the user knowing, thereby using up someone else's energy bill for their own profit.

And do not get me started on certain politicians creating NFTs and their own crypto coins to run up the stock markets for profit only to then shut the coin down or ignore it later.

You know crypto can be used for bad when actual literal *criminals* like crypto. Roy Cohn would *LOVE* crypto.

🚀 clseibold · 2025-03-29 at 08:54:

@ps

Everyone who steps outside the mainstream tends to fail.

This isn't really true, and it's also a little insulting to all of the civil rights and gay rights leaders, but anyways.

We shouldn't conflate going outside of the mainstream to hurt people with going outside the mainstream to help and protect people. Those are not the same thing, and you don't seem to make this important distinction.

Let me just demonstrate something to you, and then give you a piece of unsolicited advice :D

In Grecco-Roman times, women were seen as lesser than men. That was mainstream at the time. It was also mainstream in Roman times that gay men were worse than women. You can see this is Plato's dialogues all the way up to the New Testament period in the first three centeries, where Philo and Josephus first equated the sin of homosexual sex to the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah, and where women in the Church became subservient to men, which paralleled the Roman state's structure and culture at the time. I can give you more sources from this time period that show all of this.

You know what's mainstream now in many western countries? That men and women are mostly equally capable, or at the very least that they are complementary.

The very people who think that women are less than men nowadays are *outside of the mainstream now*, but would have been *inside the mainstream* in Grecco-Roman times.

So if we pretend like the contrarians are always right, how do we reconcile that most of the "contrarians" nowadays who hate women and LGBTQ+ people are actually just social conservatives who agree with the past's mainstream?

Being contrarian is not what makes you right. Philosophy and science are. So my suggestion to you is to search and strive for truth in science and philosophy, and then it doesn't matter if you win or fail in the mainstream's eye, because the philosophy and science will always back you up.

🍀 gritty · 2025-03-29 at 11:38:

I don't like how I can lose money if I can't recover my wallet.

It sits on the block chain never to be used again. dead money.

🚀 stack · 2025-03-29 at 13:34:

Why are people still not using Linux, but keep using Windows? Even engineers and scientists, who should know better, so it's not an IQ thing like you would expect :)

As for crypto, people do not like to be responsible for their own actions, and like the fallback of the bank making them whole after they give their credit card information to a scammer.

🚀 clseibold · 2025-03-29 at 13:40:

@HanzBrix Crypto companies also aren't under proper oversight by governments, and while in overly-authoritarian governments, this can be a good thing, it's also very very bad thing because it means there's no safety mechanism for people who lose money because of company bad practices, or for companies that scam people with crypto. The government can't ensure that crypto banks aren't lending more than they have, for example.

One of the biggest causes of both the great depression and the recession is that banks didn't have proper oversight and laws to protect the people. It's why I consider anybody claiming that banks should have less oversight and no restrictions are absolutely idiotic and insane.

🚀 stack · 2025-03-29 at 13:43:

You can only lose money in crypto by being stupid and/or greedy, and sending it to say, an 'exchange' or 'invest' it -- you have to hit the send button.

Or you can buy some shitcoin and blame others when it becomes worthless.

Being stupid is the worst reason to have the government return your money, but they gladly will print and give it to you, because otherwise people might not use their toilet paper money.

🚀 clseibold · 2025-03-29 at 15:32:

Yeah, it's not very smart to ignore the accountability and negative actions of scammers who trick people. Blame the "stupid" people who were lied to all you want, the bad actors still lied, still scammed, still pressured, still harmed other people.

Blaming victims is pathetic and morally reprehensible. But I guess those who do this still live in the might is right delusion, or "survival of the fittest" mindset, as if that says anything about morality and who we should help at all.

Humanity as a whole still has an obligation to protect people you consider "stupid". But I guess it's common in certain spheres now to want "stupid" people dead and to think we should control the creation of humans to ensure people aren't "stupid".

If you have to use "survival of the fittest" and other similar sentiments to derogate people who have been harmed and deny the availability of protective mesures for them, then you're on the wrong side of history.

As an aside, I believe intelligence and people's values expand far beyond what most people consider. IQ tests only measure specific aspects of intelligence, they don't measure it all or it as a whole. It's why I don't buy into ranking people by IQ or pinning their value to their IQ, especially when it's not an all or nothing thing.

👻 darkghost · 2025-03-29 at 15:52:

It never took off because people valued it in real (fiat) currency instead of how many of some commodities you could buy. That's all currency is, even though we like to play games around that core function. This is the problem with all crypto and until you can think of it as 10 tons of wheat = 1BTC it will just occupy the space it presently inhabits, the finance games absent the core function. Gold used to be a currency and it is more like crypto these days, particularly gold ETFs where you don't physically own gold.

🚀 stack · 2025-03-29 at 18:34:

Well, the reality is that "bad money displaces good money". If you have crap currency and good currency, you will spend the crap first, regardless of how you justify the choice. Hence, some things will be 'hoarded' while others will be circulating, especially when salaries and taxes are in that circulating currency as well. The worse the currency, the better its apparent utility -- government love it and inflate it daily, taking money out of your back pocket as you sleep.

As for the other thing... There is a difference between "dog eat dog" survivalism and personal responsibility for one's actions. The moral risk of paying people who make poor choices just perpetuates the sitation, and the belief, that Big Brother is your friend. Politicians love it, and people who take idiotic risks love it too. And it's easier to be a victim as opposed to admitting poor judgment.

There is also a significant difference between saying that you should make responsible choices and that scammers somehow are not responsible for their actions. Pointing fingers back with "victim-shaming" is not always correct -- educating the victim to avoid insane risks is always right.

The premise of crypto currencies has always been "he who has the private keys owns the contents". Therefore, giving the keys to anyone, _anyone_, -- or transacting -- is handing them the money. Only you can make that choice (unlike your bank account or credit cards, which anyone can charge against), and once made, it is final. If you don't get it back, it's on you. You want the government to step in? No, you get the hell off this train instead. There is a Chase bank around the corner, I am sure.

P.S. I've been scammed a few times, once for a very significant amount, and each time it was entirely my fault. I could blame others for bullshitting me, but the choices I made were my own, (rather stupidly, and I should have known better, but sometimes I am pretty dense). As much as it is possible in this god-forsaken universe to make choices.

🦂 zzo38 · 2025-03-29 at 18:37:

I prefer to pay with cash when I can, and I think Bitcoin is a waste of power.

🚀 stack · 2025-03-29 at 18:43:

I think the global banking system, constantly skimming the money supply, is a waste of power and then some.

👻 darkghost · 2025-03-29 at 18:53:

Banks are a necessary evil. Especially with the planned obsolescence of cash. It is impractical to keep it all in cash when the largest denomination here in the US is $100 which is worth less every year. And, of course, the cops will eye you suspiciously if you're carrying "too much" cash and subject it to civil forfeiture.

🚀 stack · 2025-03-29 at 19:34:

Yes, and that should be the subject of your righteous outrage! Banks started out 'greasing the wheels of industry', but it's a lot more profitable to inflate currency (or attach to the government teat that iflates it) than provide payroll loans.

And it's not just crypto scammers. My mother lost her life savings by plowing it all into Yahoo, because the news was "the market will never go down now, and the Internet stocks are unsinkable". I tried my best to stop her, but no, and I've been taking care of her ever since. The economy is the scam, not crypto.

No one complains when they are sharing the profits of the scammers and multiplying their money. But then they lose a penny, and it's "Help! We are the victims here! Make us whole, o Government"....

👻 ps [OP] · 2025-04-01 at 05:36:

Thanks for your opinions. I don't even know what to say as I understand all of this.

One thought about green tech: it reminded me of George Carlin's episode:

— Earth with Plastic

🚀 stack · 2025-04-01 at 12:59:

The only green tech is no tech, or at least not disposable crap with a new version every year (yes, you, Apple fans pretending to be green and dumping their perfectly good cars for Teslas!)

Don't forget, the current 'green' movement was founded by the guy who immediately became a billionaire from his 'green' trading system for exchanging fake carbon offsets (and making the "convenient untruth" movie), and a low IQ adolescent.

Just stop polluting. Fix old things -- don't assume anything is ever recycled. Don't buy new things.

👻 darkghost · 2025-04-01 at 16:09:

Green goes way back to the 70s with the environmental movement. Carter had solar panels on the White House which fit the mood of the nation at the time. Reagan took em down which also for the mood of the nation at the time.

🚀 stack · 2025-04-01 at 16:19:

I feel that something went terribly wrong at some point. The boomers completely sold out, many (well, not that many) 70's kids I know are now raging on Facebook (not that I go on Facebook) against small restaurant owners for using plastic while driving around in new electric cars between their city and country real-estate holdings...

I am trying to do what I can to counter it, by owning no real estate whenever possible and wearing pants with a hole in the crotch.

🚀 stack · 2025-04-01 at 16:46:

Re "green" plastic bags: a friend is in the business. He told me that they are still 75% same plastic as before, and maybe worse, as the Chinese will sign off on 'certifications' without any actual analysis, if you find the right official.

They break down structurally into little bits -- an nanoplastics soon after -- leading one to think they are actually decomposing.

And in NYC where disposable plastic bags are illegal, and paper bags are no longer given away, all deliveries are made with heavy plastic bags that are not 'single use', but everyone uses them as garbage bags because there are way too many.

👻 darkghost · 2025-04-01 at 16:52:

My work went through a deplastic phase, but only in the kitchen. So we saved a few dozen straws. Meanwhile I'm in the lab, ditching thousands of single use science straws every day. Good job everybody! Almost everything reusable has been replaced with single use over my career. Oh well.

👻 darkghost · 2025-04-01 at 22:01:

@hanzbrix I think it perfectly illustrates a key point. While it is often asked that an individual have responsibility to perform the way you really move the needle is to get industry to do things differently.

🚀 stack · 2025-04-01 at 23:48:

It's mostly to make people feel like they are doing something to prevent the global catastrophy, without actually cutting back on consumption.

After way too long NYC implemented composting, one of the few ways to actually put stuff back where it belongs. People toss ziploc bags full of scraps even though it clearly says not to -- and ruins the entire load. I am sure they feel like they did something good.

The school compost buckets sit in the street for days before being picked up, and get topped off with bags of dogshit.

We ain't never gonna make it.

👻 darkghost · 2025-04-02 at 00:03:

We won't. No. The things humanity must do to undo the harm it has done are nothing less than turning back to the early 1800s for several centuries. No one is willing to make that sacrifice who isn't already living a subsistence life.

🐦 wasolili [...] · 2025-04-02 at 02:42:

why are people still not using Bitcoin as a payment method and instead relying entirely on banks?

There are better cryptocurrencies than bitcoin if you actually want to use one as a day-to-day payment system. bitcoin's confirmation time is too long (unless you use something lightning network (though I have not personally used lightning)) and the fully public ledger is a turnoff (I don't want anyone i send a payment to to be able to look up my wallet balance and activity history). privacy coins like monero solve that (and some other issues) but even crypto-friendly services will often shy away from accepting privacy coins.

as for bank replacement, for people who aren't afraid of a banking collapse or having their assets frozen, there's not a lot of selling points, at least not in nations where the fiat currency is more stable than crypto

That's my personal reasons, anyway. When I talk to my non-tech friends, they seem mostly turned off by the culture of cryptobros, seem unbothered by the problems cryptocurrencies address, or wrongly think it can't be used for anything. The lack of fraud protection and chargebacks also scares people.

I think the environmental concerns are valid, albeit often overblown (both can be true). Some other coins mitigate these concerns to some extent (but not entirely), but either we'll have a mass adoption of clean energy (lol) or we're completely fucked already and stopping all crypto won't help.

You know crypto can be used for bad when actual literal *criminals* like crypto

criminals also like cash, gift cards, knives, baseball bats, lawyers (well, their own lawyers at least), and plenty of other useful things. "somebody will use it for evil" alone is not a compelling case to take away something useful from good people.

also: crimes, sometimes, are good.

👻 darkghost · 2025-04-02 at 07:10:

Name your cryptocoin, its value will always be expressed in fiat currency and not commodities. This makes it look like an investment, a very risky one because there are no rules. Mining crypto is the act of exchanging electricity for money, something we already do with power generation. But rather than being a constructive act, it is destructive, consuming already generated power. The externalized costs of power production harm everyone and this accelerates that harm while doing no useful work for society (eg manufacturing a good, enabling labor, etc.)

It will be interesting to see how these currencies fare in a recession. They've not been tested in one, believe it or not. It's easy to make money in a bull market. It's hard to pick losers. In a bear market, it's hard to pick winners, that's where good investors show their talent. The economy started sputtering in 2022, people were sure a recession was about to hit, and we saw massive sell offs. Not a good sign of things to come. Turns out recessions mean people want liquidity and no cryptocurrency is seen as liquid.

And then there's the big bet, that current cryptography will develop quantum resistance faster than quantum computing can be brought to scale. BTC, the leading currency, is not pursuing this and may one day be vulnerable. Although some currencies pursue this goal, your average get rich quick investor doesn't care and isn't thinking about this at all. They're going to leave someone else holding the bag long before cryptographic vulnerability is a legitimate concern.

🚀 stack · 2025-04-02 at 13:54:

I think now that the funds are in, crypto will tank during liquidity scares as people sell to avoid margin calls.

I still think quantum is largely a scam, like AI, a party trick turned to magic sauce for IPOs and billion-dollar investments. But only time will tell.