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927 points smallerfish | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.281s | source
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abdullahkhalids ◴[] No.42925423[source]
In the 15 years since Bitcoin went viral, has someone proposed a reasonable social, legal and financial protocol for how a society can adopt a novel cryptocurrency without getting stuck in the phase where the cryptocurrency becomes a speculative asset rather than a common medium of exchange? By novel, I mean not using an existing cryptocurrency that is already stuck in the speculative asset phase.

Surely, if a government wants the people in the country to use a novel cryptocurrency, it has a lot of levers of control which some distributed libertarian minded community simply doesn't.

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est31 ◴[] No.42925547[source]
Customers use currencies if it lets them buy stuff. Shops accept currencies if people come and want to buy stuff with that currency. In touristy places, it's common to see people list their prices using currencies from common originating countries, regardless of the legal currency in that country.

Any new thing needs to be better than the current thing at least in one domain, if it wants to grow users. Fiat currencies work so well, that the only niches cryptocurrencies can find is crimes really, avoiding financial sanctions, etc.

Like China for example bans their citizens to trade the chinese currency for foreign currency (above small limits). Then buying bitcoin domestically makes sense if they don't trust the chinese government to keep their own currency valuable.

Of course, all the exchanges operating in countries where there is reasonable laws require KYC to be in place. Cryptocurrencies are also in many ways more trackable than non-crypto currencies. So for crime it makes no real sense to use most crypto currencies.

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1. abdullahkhalids ◴[] No.42925663[source]
> Any new thing needs to be better than the current thing at least in one domain

For instance, my native country, in an effort to digitize the economy has passed a law that if you pay digitally or with a card at a restaurant you pay only 5% sales tax instead of 16% if you pay via cash. Some government wanting to encourage the adoption of a cryptocurrency can take similar measures. Governments have options that Vitalik Buterin does not.