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Far more of that stuff is done using US dollars than cryptos. The anonymity of cryptos is also overstated. They find the owner of one address, get them to reveal who they transacted with, and just keep fanning out from there.
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Not really. Cash has big drawbacks for illegal purposes: lack of anonymity, traceability, and weight: paper money is heavy, and the electronic version is very, very traceable. It's really, really difficult to lose the paper trail and legitimise your ill-gotten gains without either getting caught, or getting less than 20% of face value.
Crypto isn't - or at least not as easily - which is why it's the organised crime currency of preference. I'd expect to see an expansion in the use of crypto for even street level drug dealing in the next few years or so to reduce that problem for example.
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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I should have said cash explicitly. Not anonymous or traceable? C'mon. Now, if you want to deposit a briefcase full in a bank, it will provoke endless questions, as will trying to withdraw a similar amount. So it gets washed through captive businesses.
Cryptos have been traced the way I described. The entire ledger is public if you want to sift through it, and one address leads to another if you have ways to persuade people. But cryptos are gaining market share, though their volatility currently makes them less attractive than paper as a short-term holding, as has been pointed out this thread.
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Yes - and that costs a lot, hence the 20% or so return.
Laundering your ill-gotten gains is the hardest part of it, and the easiest way to get caught!
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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Just like Tim Apple saying iPhone is the latest and the greatest.
Caveat Emptor.
"Progress doesn't come from early risers – progress is made by lazy men looking for easier ways to do things." Lazarus Long
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Gerry Schmitz wrote: Face paint and floppy shoes comes to mind when I think of these bastions of the business world.
MacDonald's? 
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.
-- 6079 Smith W.
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Gerry Schmitz wrote: Never heard of "interest"
Which is hardly given.
Gerry Schmitz wrote: debit cards
For which you pay a yearly fee.
..but those are just small things. The elephant in the room is inflation. Regardless of that, I don't see crypto's taking the place of official fiat any time soon.
Bastard Programmer from Hell 
"If you just follow the bacon Eddy, wherever it leads you, then you won't have to think about politics." -- Some Bell.
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Market cap of fiat: ~$95T
Market cap of gold: ~$11T
Market cap of BTC: ~$1T
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My debit card is free (for the first x charges) ... and since the vendor doesn't pay the 3% Visa transaction fee, vendors usually treat debit cards as "cash" (you usually get a discount for pickup food orders paid with cash, for example).
It was only in wine that he laid down no limit for himself, but he did not allow himself to be confused by it.
― Confucian Analects: Rules of Confucius about his food
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Cryptocurrency is a speculation mechanism, not replacement for banks, but in all fairness 1) is true. There are numerous scams that exploit the fact that it may take up to a month[^] for a bank transaction to clear.
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Gerry Schmitz wrote: 1) "The banks take a long time to clear a cheque" (Never heard of automatic bank deposits apparently).
Just because the bank gave you the money does not mean it has cleared. They can still take it back if they find an issue with it. And it still takes days for it to go through and process with the bank that is on the check. It's all still a slow process.
Gerry Schmitz wrote: ) "The banks take a bigger fee" (Never heard of "interest", deposit insurance, debit cards, senior rebates (lol), etc.).
Credit Unions provide better services than banks and do NOT charge fees, so yes, they are charging extra fees.
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Whether it ends up being crypto or not, it should be very clear to everyone that a digital currency will rule at some point. So, rather than bash crypto as if digital will never be a thing, fix what's wrong with crypto because it's inevitable that some form of digital will win.
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SeanChupas wrote: it should be very clear to everyone that a digital currency will rule at some point
Should it? What's the advantage? Plain old currencies mostly exist in digital form as well (what's the use of actual physical coins nowadays, maybe to pay for public toilets or to give to beggars?), so the advantage (if any) would have to be something other than digitalness by itself.
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harold aptroot wrote: , so the advantage (if any) would have to be something other than digitalness by itself.
I disagree.
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Very well, you have forfeited the argument and I have won the debate.
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My debit card is "digital currency" as far as I'm concerned.
Whatever happens, people need an "account".
In this rush to the "universal currency", what's missed is that everyone will need a "device" to manage / access that account.
They say the "poor" people need cryptocurrency because they have to "cash their checks" and they have no "bank account" (but they all have a phone, apparently).
We've then come full circle: the non-bank account that is a bank account; the Feds will still want their tax and come looking.
If cryptocurrency ever gets "big", the speculative part will disappear and it will be the banks and firms grinding out small gains with their computing.
All it does now is feed whales like Musk with their "mysterious tweets" to the unwashed (who respond as he wants them to do ... buy / sell / hold / buy my Tesla or ticket to the moon).
It was only in wine that he laid down no limit for himself, but he did not allow himself to be confused by it.
― Confucian Analects: Rules of Confucius about his food
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I always look at the recommendation to buy into that lunacy as something the financial wiz's do right after they buy in (and shortly before they sell out on the rise from the demand they hoped to create).
| Ravings en masse^ |
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| "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
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Gerry Schmitz wrote: Because it's "faster" and "cheaper".
At the tradeoff of being open to theft and manipulation? IMO, the computer system(s) that cyptocurrency has to reside on will be controlled by someone (most likely the government). That "someone" can be bought/corrupted/stolen from and we'd have no recourse. I realize the same thing can happen to my paper money, but I have a choice in whether I put it in such an institution or hold it myself.
"One man's wage rise is another man's price increase." - Harold Wilson
"Fireproof doesn't mean the fire will never come. It means when the fire comes that you will be able to withstand it." - Michael Simmons
"You can easily judge the character of a man by how he treats those who can do nothing for him." - James D. Miles
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Go in the room where their current owner slave, wearing dark glasses indoors, has attached weird stuff to the floor ... and, then: stay there more than five seconds: [^].
Yet 500 humans, love-slaves of 500 cats, were crazy enough to join this experiment.
«One day it will have to be officially admitted that what we have christened reality is an even greater illusion than the world of dreams.» Salvador Dali
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This brings to mind one of the older Internet memes: "Cats do not have owners, they have staff."
I've always disagreed with this statement, and thought my version captured more of the essence of the relationship: "Cats do not have owners, they have clients."
Software Zen: delete this;
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Standing in line at the pet barn the other day waiting to buy flea treatment, I spied a slogan on a bag that nearly brought me to tears and made the rest of my wait melt away.
If cats could text you back,
they wouldn't.
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In almost 40 years of being a client of many felines, I've had one that would have.
Of course, Raphie would have only sent NSFW pictures of himself... 
Software Zen: delete this;
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They didn't answer "why". They just proved that 6% of humans were bored enough to carry through this "experiment."
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