About 3 or 4 years ago PayPal added the option to buy cryptocurrency, which I thought I’d try. (Dumb idea 🙄)
Part of the sign up process was glitched. I retried and clicked submit one too many times, I guess. Now I’ve been unable to use PayPal for years. They blocked me because THEIR SITE was broken, but the web page essentially accuses me of being a criminal and asks for my bank records. No way in hell.
This was just for me to pay others. I can only imagine how awful PayPal is if you are a vendor.
Fuck PayPal.
Still, I don’t know any non-shady online shop that takes crypto.
Gratuitas.org sells premium grade coffee for Monero. You can also look at monerica.com. There are absolutely tons of legitimate businesses that accept crypto. Actually, when it comes right down to it, it makes a whole lot of sense to accept crypto because the transaction fees are so damn low that businesses save a ton of money over credit card transactions.
But why should I base my shopping habits around a currency/platform when I could just use one that almost everyone takes. When I want to order off a random online shop, I do not want to think about whether they’ll even take the money I have.
Fair enough, I’ll be the first to admit that it takes work in order to use it. I’ll give two reasons. One is a monetary, and one is not.
Reason 1: If we are right, and 15 years of data shows we at least have a point, then you would be an early adopter and very likely end up very wealthy.
Reason 2: You can buy anything from anyone, anywhere, in the world at any time without permission. And it’s guaranteed to be irreversible in 20 minutes.
How is that a good thing? I want to be able to chargeback if I don’t get what I ordered.
That’s what multi-signature escrow is for. You deposit money into an account and you have one key. The vendor has one key and a third key is given to an arbitrator and at least two keys must sign the transaction in order for it to be completed. If the vendor sends you your product and you are happy with it, you sign the transaction and the vendor signs the transaction and the vendor gets the money. If the vendor does not send you what you ordered, you talk to the arbitrator and the arbitrator listens to your case and the vendor’s case and makes a decision.
So it is speculative.
And should I feel the need to buy something from somewhere I need permission for, I will consider getting some crypto. Haven’t had a situation yet where cash didn’t suffice though.
I feel it’s speculative something like electricity was speculative in the early days of electricity when people were doing it wrong and burning down their houses and people laughed at electricity like who would ever want that and now we can’t really live without it. I will agree, cash is a bearer asset and untraceable and therefore is very good. The only real problem with cash is that it’s based on the monetary policy of the governmyth that issues it. They make bad decisions and you suffer for it.
Edit: That and it’s kind of hard to stuff cash bills into my computer and get them to come out on the other side halfway across the world.
Don’t get me wrong, crypto definitely has its uses. But other than national or international transactions that I‘d prefer to be untraceable, from a European perspective, it seems to be too unwieldy for day to day use. At least for the foreseeable future.
I use PayPal because it quicker and easier than grabbing cash from an ATM or to pay online. I use Apple Pay, because it’s quicker and easier than searching my wallet. Crypto would ad at least a step or two to any of those processes. It’s neither quicker nor easier.
And that’s a totally legitimate viewpoint. I am using it and helping to smooth out the edges so that when you are ready to use it, you will be able to and have the experience that you expect to have. I am willing to put up with the rough edges and difficulties now in order to make your life easier in the future.
Fair. That’s partially why I use Linux while most people are still stuck with Microsoft.
Maybe for you, but there are large parts of the world that are relying on crypto such as the African region which for them has been a game changer as an alternative to their unstable currencies.
That is legitimately great. Doesn’t make it a good or even viable PayPal alternative for me, a European, though. Or even a viable alternative for the Euro.