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Quoting: Pyrate

Quoting: LoudTechiealso relevant to this discussion.
Valve will never accept monero, because it's anonymous and decentralized.
The scammers for which they sacrificed their own gift cards would exploit exactly this decentralization and anonymity to hide their activity.

Even though I can't imagine how that could happen, (just like how I cant believe peoole sfill fall for gift card scams), you're probably right. I wonder when this stops being about a problem with gift cards and currencies, and more about people not thinking clearly when falling for these scams.

Never.
Financial regulations are strict for a reason.
Finance is based on trust as such all trust the government can insert it will insert and be rewarded for it.
"People won't lie and cheat you out of your money" is a big part of this.

Edit:
the closest we will ever get is by replacing those features.
Wallets with daily spending limits, MFA on the blockchain, shared "wallet black/white lists", anonymity erosion for larger wallets, etc.

Remember when you build a substitute for something make certain it's at least as good and integrates cleanly with the current system.

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Quoting: LoudTechiealso relevant to this discussion.
Valve will never accept monero, because it's anonymous and decentralized.
The scammers for which they sacrificed their own gift cards would exploit exactly this decentralization and anonymity to hide their activity.

Even though I can't imagine how that could happen, (just like how I cant believe peoole sfill fall for gift card scams), you're probably right. I wonder when this stops being about a problem with gift cards and currencies, and more about people not thinking clearly when falling for these scams.

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Quoting: tuubiI view people who get very passionate about crypto the same way I view enthusiastic small-time stock traders. They keep talking my ear off about how they make (or save) money with it and everyone should do it, and I indulge them to a point because I'm nice and patient like that (in real life more than online), but I just don't find any of it interesting. Money is a necessity and I've never been wealthy enough to ignore it. It's just not something I could ever get passionate about.

Im sorry, but point to me where I did this here, where did I talk about making or saving money, market price, hype and all that wall street crap ?

Monero would protect my financial activity from heavily regulated banks and my government, which I'm a lot less concerned about. Some communities have excellent reasons to hide this activity, but most of us do not.

Only if you choose to. You can disclose your transactions for taxes or any other reason. I could explain how it works but I'm getting fed up with still being talked to like a crypto bro, I'll just share that optional transparency is a built-in function into a Monero wallet for auditing and taxes etc.

I'm not paranoid and this isn't about paranoia. Speaking for myself for example, I recognise what is a real and what is a more theoretical danger when I'm constructing my threat model, but most of the time, I use privacy tools out of principle more than out of immediate need. This is something I feel is lost for many people recently, at least that's what I'm getting online. Recently I keep recalling that one Luke Smith youtube video about in projects like Linux, how users are slowly abandoning the freedom hard lines started with Free Software and GNU etc. I think we need more hardasses, the Stallman type, so we don't drift away in convenience and complacency.

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It seems like a very cool game especially with the graphical update, but I feel like it's too difficult for me to grasp.

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Quoting: PyrateJust like Signal, there's no PR dependent nor a search pitch for open source communities (afaik, maybe there is one for Signal since there's a organisation behind it, can't tell). You are simply unaware of a project and are choosing to be on the guard. I get it but it still feels a little insulting that as a relatively old member here in the website, I'm not being taken seriously for mentioning an open source project for the privacy conscious, where you'd think this kind of place (and specifically this post) would call for such a discussion to be taking place. Guess I'm wrong.

There's a difference here. Signal—which I've used for years—protects my private communications from foreign corporations and (other) bad actors. Monero would protect my financial activity from heavily regulated banks and my government, which I'm a lot less concerned about. Some communities have excellent reasons to hide this activity, but most of us do not.

Crypto doesn't actually seem to solve a problem I have. I am very privacy-conscious, but I try to keep my paranoia to a reasonable level. I don't like corporations tracking my private life and communications, but my buying habits aren't something I feel like I need to hide from the tax man or the police. Banks I don't really trust to care about my privacy as long as they can make a profit, but the regulations here in the EU seem to keep them in check, for the most part.

In the end, all I need is a secure way to transfer money from my bank account to that of the recipient, preferably without divulging any of my private information to third parties, and only minimal information to the payee. I don't care if blockchain tech is used under the hood, as long as it all works quickly, efficiently and securely.

I view people who get very passionate about crypto the same way I view enthusiastic small-time stock traders. They keep talking my ear off about how they make (or save) money with it and everyone should do it, and I indulge them to a point because I'm nice and patient like that (in real life more than online), but I just don't find any of it interesting. Money is a necessity and I've never been wealthy enough to ignore it. It's just not something I could ever get passionate about.

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On the Monero discussion.
Monero is a great idea by non-scammy people(that's very rare for a niche crypto currency).
It's such a great idea that rich [scumbags](https://monero.observer/antidarknet-collective-claims-responsibility-suspected-monero-spam-attack/) found the need to [ruin it.](https://cryptoapis.io/blog/365-understanding-the-monero-51-attack-technical-insights-for-developers-and-product-managers)

Edit:
also relevant to this discussion.
Valve will never accept monero, because it's anonymous and decentralized.
The scammers for which they sacrificed their own gift cards would exploit exactly this decentralization and anonymity to hide their activity.

Monero isn't designed as a crypto scam(it's actually decentralized), Monero is actually anonymous(only individual transaction can be traced with enough effort), it's old and tested and it's not even an exit scam.

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Keen, I played most of the thief games except the first

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Wow, it's such an old game now and why not just use proton? Good on the devs regardless

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Quoting: Carolly

Quoting: PyrateYou continue to talk about Bitcoin and bitcoin-like crytpo in particular, like everything I've mentioned about Monero is irrelevant. With all due respect, after this message, if I feel like what I type isn't being engaged with, I think I'm better off spending my time doing something else rather than write a few paragraphs that'll get avoided.

Again, do you say all this while being knowledgeable about Monero and the economy being created around it ? This is where I'm going to have to start sharing links, so here are a few examples:

Buy/sell goods & services with/for XMR!:
Directory for Merchants accepting Monero:

Bud no offense here but your posts literally read like you work for Monero's PR department and people generally aren't going to be inclined to engage in good faith with someone who appears to practically be quoting the corporate sales pitch word for word.

Maybe dial back the intensity a little bit and people will be more inclined to take you more seriously.

Is this really how you guys find my messages, like PR ? I only answered what I got asked. How can I prove to you that I'm actually debating in good faith and out of passion ? I don't understand how my messages get read like intense ads, like, did I ever do the thing and talked about price, or said "you should buy it now, it'll go to the moon !!" or anything like that ? Genuinely curious here.

Also, I mentioned this a bit previously, but this is exactly, and I mean exactly what happened with me and my friends when I asked them to switch to Signal for messaging with me, "they pay you for advertising ?". Sigh...

..Just like Signal, there's no PR department nor a sales pitch for open source communities (afaik, maybe there is one for Signal since there's a organisation behind it, can't tell). You are simply unaware of a project and are choosing to be on the guard. I get it but it still feels a little insulting that as a relatively old member here in the website, I'm not being taken seriously for mentioning an open source project for the privacy conscious, where you'd think this kind of place (and specifically this post) would call for such a discussion to be taking place. Guess I'm wrong.

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Quoting: Purple Library GuyBut it can't. I can't walk into a store and use crypto as money.

You can. I pay with my decaf.so card. As I said, the network automatically converts to what they are charging. It costs pennies and takes a few seconds.

Also, say I'm middle to lower middle class, let alone poor. I need to know how much money I have in the bank to pay the bills with. I would be amazingly stupid to have my basic bank account in crypto, because I wouldn't know whether next week I'll have enough money to pay those bills.

That's already a solved problem. Store their money in a stable coin of their choosing. Something that will become easier and easier as institutions build out. Easy if someone has shown you what to do a few times. Still probably not for normies yet.

Crypto is a speculative investment vehicle, not money.

Only if you transfer your value to a volatile currency. Stripe, Paypal, MoneyGram, they aren't storing your wealth in BTC or ETH. They are using coins pegged to USD. There are other coins pegged to other currencies. My Decaf.so card is using USDC. Again, all this is very new. It's not old school mine for BTC and DOGE coin or ETH or something.

Not really. You know, I had a significantly higher opinion of cryptocurrencies when they were new, before I knew much about them. Now I do know quite a bit about them, and I have come to the very considered opinion that they suck.

Yes really. It sounds like you are just a little out of date. Kind of like talking to someone who used Linux in the 90's and determined Linux is only for programmers and keeps saying it even though it's been 30 years. Things have wildly changed over the last couple years.

Crypto ultimately comes out of a particular politics, a politics of big-L Libertarianism. It can't work because big-L Libertarianism is bunk that only spreads because it is useful to some of the very wealthy people picking our pockets.

Okay, but it does work, today. Right now, it's working. It's still very new, so it's not ubiquitous yet. In my case, The VISA I have issued by my Decaf.so has a waiting list because its new. Meru is the same. But it's all coming. Also it's a little rough on the edges in places, i.e. anchors. Normies are still going to have to wait for institutions to build it in.

Checkout Hoops Sagrado, they have a video on Twitter explaining how using the block chain to pay volunteers, instead of traveling to and through Guatamala with backpacks full of cash, has been a big deal for them. It's safer for them and safer for the volunteers. Each volunteers money was transferred into a self custodial wallet. Decaf.so is a platform for paying employees using the blockchain, among other things (like I've mentioned).

It's all happening. Definitely not the Block chain you remember. Stores don't have to post a BTC QR code and for you to pay with only your BTC wallet, then pay a massive gas fee and stand there for ten minutes for consensus.

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Quoting: Purple Library GuyBut it can't. I can't walk into a store and use crypto as money. And again, there was a time when it looked like that might become a thing, it was sort of starting to, but it did not happen, and not for lack of heavy players trying to push it.

Other than volatility, why do you suppose businesses choose not to take it as payment? Not debating here, just picking your brain.

Quoting: Purple Library GuyQuite a few years ago, my Canadian province of British Columbia

Hola.

Quoting: Purple Library GuyIt can't work because big-L Libertarianism is bunk that only spreads because it is useful to some of the very wealthy people picking our pockets.

Quoting: Purple Library GuyAlso, say I'm middle to lower middle class, let alone poor. I need to know how much money I have in the bank to pay the bills with. I would be amazingly stupid to have my basic bank account in crypto, because I wouldn't know whether next week I'll have enough money to pay those bills.

It's funny you mention that. Canada's in debt $1.3ish Trillion (capital T), so the money sitting in your bank account is increasingly becoming more and more worthless by the day - and that's on top of the fact that you're also being taxed more on it than they did in the past. So you're losing money on two fronts, inflation, and taxes - which is something that can be entirely blamed on one group of people. Take a guess who? In theory, Bitcoin could fix half of that problem.

And btw, I would be considered "wealthy" by the government's standards... which is why HALF of my sweat blood and tears goes to the government - only to be squandered and spent in ways that only benefit themselves, and not the country. Trust me, people like me aren't the ones stealing from you. But anyway... let's bring it back to those gift cards eh? lol

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Guys, I'm very curious... what do you think of the Ğ1 ("June"), then?
[https://duniter.org/](https://duniter.org/)

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Quoting: Highball

Quoting: Purple Library GuySure, there's tools to make it easy to exchange for money, but it has become increasingly clear that the money is money and the crypto is a thingie that can be traded for money.

Today it seems that way. It's all still very new.

Not really. You know, I had a significantly higher opinion of cryptocurrencies when they were new, before I knew much about them. Now I do know quite a bit about them, and I have come to the very considered opinion that they suck.

Some technologies I'm an early adopter, some technologies I resist because I conclude they are lousy but I know they will succeed whether I like them or not, and some technologies seem like they will go somewhere, but turn out to be a dead end. Newness does not guarantee future adoption. Neither does ingenuity. So for instance, I own an electric car, bought in 2018. Quite a few years ago, my Canadian province of British Columbia had a highly touted company that was about building fuel cells for like hydrogen powered vehicles. It was innovative and lots of people thought it could become pretty important. It didn't. Back then I thought maybe fuel cells had a significant future. I have come to the realization that they don't--burning hydrogen that you generated with electricity is massively less efficient than just using the electricity directly in the vehicle. There may be a few special cases, but basically it's a dead end technology. So is crypto. Like private equity finance cannibalizing previously profitable firms, it's a symptom of our current economic moment. The fact that significant ingenuity has been dedicated to trying to make it work does not change its fundamental inappropriateness to the task of being money.

Crypto ultimately comes out of a particular politics, a politics of big-L Libertarianism. It can't work because big-L Libertarianism is bunk that only spreads because it is useful to some of the very wealthy people picking our pockets.

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Quoting: Slaxer

Quoting: Purple Library Guybut it has become increasingly clear that the money is money and the crypto is a thingie that can be traded for money.

Not because it can't be used as money on its own, but because people just choose not to use it.

But it can't. I can't walk into a store and use crypto as money. And again, there was a time when it looked like that might become a thing, it was sort of starting to, but it did not happen, and not for lack of heavy players trying to push it.

Also, say I'm middle to lower middle class, let alone poor. I need to know how much money I have in the bank to pay the bills with. I would be amazingly stupid to have my basic bank account in crypto, because I wouldn't know whether next week I'll have enough money to pay those bills. Maybe I'll have extra, but that's just a perk, while not having enough is a much bigger deal; ordinary people need stability for their actual money. There are other reasons nobody does that, but that is one of them. Crypto is a speculative investment vehicle, not money.

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Quoting: PyrateYou continue to talk about Bitcoin and bitcoin-like crytpo in particular, like everything I've mentioned about Monero is irrelevant. With all due respect, after this message, if I feel like what I type isn't being engaged with, I think I'm better off spending my time doing something else rather than write a few paragraphs that'll get avoided.

Again, do you say all this while being knowledgeable about Monero and the economy being created around it ? This is where I'm going to have to start sharing links, so here are a few examples:

Buy/sell goods & services with/for XMR!:
Directory for Merchants accepting Monero:
https:/monerica.com/
marketplace:
https://xmrbazaar.com/
https://www.reddit.com/r/moneromarket/new/
Gift cards:
https://cakepay.com/
https://xmr.cards/
https://coincards.com/
Freelance:
https://monero.jobs/

Bud no offense here but your posts literally read like you work for Monero's PR department and people generally aren't going to be inclined to engage in good faith with someone who appears to practically be quoting the corporate sales pitch word for word.

Maybe dial back the intensity a little bit and people will be more inclined to take you more seriously.

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I guess Coinstar and Gamestop can atill exchange money for wallet codes.
That should make some friends of mine happy who prefer it that way.
Wonder how the cards got that bad they were nice to grab quickly when I happen to have cash on hand but I guess we don't really need them.

I do like to exchange gamestop giftcards for steam wallet codes though when I get gifted one during a steam sale so as long as I can still do that sometimes I'm good.

Can always be creative and get a wallet code on a receipt then put it into a hallmark card with a bit of tape for a simple physical gift.

Heck get dvd cases print out the game you want the giftee to get then ibclude the receipt inside and a qr code to the game's store page would work fine too and feel like a physical gane gift.

I will miss the cards a bit though but we'll live.

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Quoting: Slaxer

Quoting: PyrateI too would like a return to the gold standard. That fixes the value and asymmetrical depreciation part, but what about privacy ?

The only true privacy is physical cash, so a gold standard could provide that too couldn't it? You also gotta ask - privacy from who? If your transactions leave a paper trail or a digital footprint, you can never be too sure that any counter-measures you have in place will stop anybody determined enough from revealing who you are, but it's probably safe to say that you can have a reasonable amount of privacy from corporations and nosy regular people. Privacy from intelligence agencies? Probably not.

My bad, I didn't make it clear: online privacy. Cash is king and solves the privacy problem when in person, but online, it's Monero.

As for the question of privacy from who ? Well, from everyone, all the time, except for when I myself, selectively choose to disclose a transaction or more to a party I choose for whatever reason. This is basically the definition of privacy, having the authority to choose secrecy or transparency.

Quoting: HighballI think you believe this because you don't see, crypto being used.

This is how I started my first message in this article here. Some people are simply not ready for these sort of technologies, despite suffering from the problems that they solve. I said my piece, further debate in this direction is kind of pointless as I can clearly see the mental barrier here.

so ultimately, it all just comes back to everyone's choice to not use it.

^The definition of a currency.

Think of all the hyperinfalting currencies

Yep, I happen to live in an economy that suffers from this. Crypto is volatile and all, but Monero held its value better than my currency a year ago.

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Quoting: Purple Library GuySure, there's tools to make it easy to exchange for money, but it has become increasingly clear that the money is money and the crypto is a thingie that can be traded for money.

Today it seems that way. It's all still very new. Tomorrow, the same shops will stop converting to their local currency and into a currency that is more favorable to them. Think of all the hyperinfalting currencies, ripping off the citizenry. Now, nobody needs to hold the local currency, they can choose any currency they feel is more stable, to include bitcoin and other coins that give a return for holding the coin. Now the thingie no longer needs to be traded for money and ipsfacto, becomes the money. I also think these countries that have been stealing the wealth of their people through the constant and purposeful devaluation of the local currency will eventually have to compete. If they don't, it's only a matter of time before these shops and their patrons stop converting all the way to the local currency. They don't even have to know, neither of them used the local currency.

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Quoting: Purple Library Guybut it has become increasingly clear that the money is money and the crypto is a thingie that can be traded for money.

Not because it can't be used as money on its own, but because people just choose not to use it. I understand that its value being volatile is an issue, and it's why Valve chose to stop accepting it on Steam, but I think that becomes a negative feedback loop. I imagine that its volatility would eventually subside if more people and more businesses just chose to use it... so ultimately, it all just comes back to everyone's choice to not use it.

A bunch of my games in my Steam library were purchased with Bitcoin when they did accept it. It was pretty cool to be able to do that at the time.

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Quoting: Highball

Quoting: Purple Library GuyBut even before we get there, it is noticeable that while crypto is far bigger and more mainstream than a few years back, most of the attempts to use it as actual currency day to day have gone away.

I think you believe this because you don't see, crypto being used.

Well, yes.
There used to be a few local stores around where I live that were experimenting with accepting Bitcoin as payment. None of them do any more. Now it's like owning a stock or bond--people hold an amount of crypto, and generally judge the success of their project of doing so by how much real money it's currently worth, and then they exchange it for money and use the money as money. Sure, there's tools to make it easy to exchange for money, but it has become increasingly clear that the money is money and the crypto is a thingie that can be traded for money.

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Quoting: PyrateI too would like a return to the gold standard. That fixes the value and asymmetrical depreciation part, but what about privacy ?

The only true privacy is physical cash, so a gold standard could provide that too couldn't it? You also gotta ask - privacy from who? If your transactions leave a paper trail or a digital footprint, you can never be too sure that any counter-measures you have in place will stop anybody determined enough from revealing who you are, but it's probably safe to say that you can have a reasonable amount of privacy from corporations and nosy regular people. Privacy from intelligence agencies? Probably not.

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Quoting: Purple Library GuyBut even before we get there, it is noticeable that while crypto is far bigger and more mainstream than a few years back, most of the attempts to use it as actual currency day to day have gone away.

I think you believe this because you don't see, crypto being used. I think people assumed crypto would be used like cash. I think it would have but, before that could happen, crypto became speculative and lead people to hold onto it like gold. Now a days though, financial institutions are building out and utilizing crypto, which makes it invisible to the consumer. Someone early in the chat mention PIX as an option to pay on Steam. PIX uses the blockchain to seamlessly exchange currencies. You attach your bank account, when you pay with PIX, your currency will be converted through the liquid pools on the blockchain and pay the store in their local currency, all for a few pennies. That's insane compared to traditional means. Sure, it's still the early days, and it's not how people initially imagined how things would work. But it is happening. If you are in the know, then you are using it and saving money. Only 7% of the worlds population holds crypto. If you are a normie, then you will probably have to wait for the institutions to bake it in to their products, i.e. MoneyGram, Stripe, Paypal. For me, I'm glad I don't have to pull stacks of peso's from the ATM to save on exchange fees, then hide it all in my motorcycle jacket while I ride around MX. That's pretty good.

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Quoting: Pyrate

Quoting: SlaxerThe real fix would probably be to go back to a gold standard and move away from fiat currency, so that the money itself has intrinsic value. I'm with you on the idea that money really should be decentralized though. I do like Bitcoin, but as someone else on this thread has already mentioned, it does come at an environmental cost that's always bothered me. Everything has pros and cons.

I too would like a return to the gold standard.

A return to the gold standard would run into a basic problem: A functioning broader economy pretty much depends on governments running deficits and some inflation. You can't print gold. Yes, I know gold bugs think balanced budgets are the bee's knees, that's because they have no idea about the economy. There's a reason why even neoliberal central banks don't try for zero inflation (these days, most target a band around 2-3%, which is probably too low); if they did, there would be recessions all the time. Any non-fiat currency based on something with a supply that's difficult to expand chokes off economic growth.

There's nothing much wrong with traditional government-issued fiat currency (there are problems with the governments that deploy them, some bigger than others, but that's the way of institutions created by imperfect humans). The gold standard would solve problems we don't have but create a bunch of problems we don't have. Crypto generally fails to solve problems we don't have but creates problems we don't have. And your special magic crypto appears to solve some crypto problems that are not the basic Achilles' heel of cryptocurrencies, but does not solve the fundamental problem that the whole idea is one of those things where a techbro looks at an issue in politics and sociology, fails to understand it, and says "We could do a technical fix for that!"

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Quoting: Pyrate

it is noticeable that while crypto is far bigger and more mainstream than a few years back

It's not, really. Bitcoin (and by extension, the rest of the market) is down significantly from its 2021 highs currently. I don't follow the broader news outside Monero because it's all hollow investment schemes as you say, but from what I know, the game is shifting from crypto to AI and other stocks, crypto as an investment is being left behind, and that's a good thing.

While it's true that in the last year or so AI has taken the headlines, there are a lot of ways in which crypto has become more mainstream over the last while, particularly in the US. Various laws have been passed basically allowing crypto to be invested in without much safeguards; the crypto lobby has poured a lot of money into elections and has in general gotten a good deal of its wishlist and been treated much more like a standard, respectable investment (even though it is not).

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Quoting: Pyrate

Crypto is a fiat currency with a government backing it that is so weak it does not exist.

Which crypto is that ? Which one is a fiat currency and has government backing ?

You misunderstood. My point is that crypto (all kinds) is effectively a "fiat" currency in that it has no inherent value the way gold does, but that it resembles a fiat currency issued by an infinitely weak government--that is, no government at all is the same as a government with zero power. And so, just as fiat currencies from governments that are very weak exhibit wide swings of value, we can expect fiat currencies from no government at all to exhibit even wider swings--indeed, there is no real underpinning stopping them from ceasing to have value at all.

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Quoting: SlaxerThe real fix would probably be to go back to a gold standard and move away from fiat currency, so that the money itself has intrinsic value. I'm with you on the idea that money really should be decentralized though. I do like Bitcoin, but as someone else on this thread has already mentioned, it does come at an environmental cost that's always bothered me. Everything has pros and cons.

I too would like a return to the gold standard. That fixes the value and asymmetrical depreciation part, but what about privacy ?

And about the environmental costs for running Bitcoin I already mentioned that I talked about it in one of my messages.

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Quoting: PyrateIt's another story altogether if you simply don't accept the concept of a decentralised way for people to operate and transact their own affairs without an uninvited oversight, that this can never happen, and that you must have an overlord issuing your only accepted form of exchange medium, telling you what you can and cannot spend your money on.

I genuinely feel here like one of those instances where I'm explaining the benefits of Linux to Windows users, or to use Signal instead of WhatsApp. It's the same thing all over again. Guess I'm cursed in this regard, lol.

The real fix would probably be to go back to a gold standard and move away from fiat currency, so that the money itself has intrinsic value. I'm with you on the idea that money really should be decentralized though. I do like Bitcoin, but as someone else on this thread has already mentioned, it does come at an environmental cost that's always bothered me. Everything has pros and cons.

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You continue to talk about Bitcoin and bitcoin-like crytpo in particular, like everything I've mentioned about Monero is irrelevant. With all due respect, after this message, if I feel like what I type isn't being engaged with, I think I'm better off spending my time doing something else rather than write a few paragraphs that'll get avoided.

Crypto is a fiat currency with a government backing it that is so weak it does not exist.

Which crypto is that ? Which one is a fiat currency and has government backing ? On the actual topic of discussing Monero, what you said doesn't apply here. It very much isn't fiat, and no country claimed to back or have reserves in Monero (I posit countries like North Korea or Iran would be the first candidates if such a thing happens).

it is noticeable that while crypto is far bigger and more mainstream than a few years back

It's not, really. Bitcoin (and by extension, the rest of the market) is down significantly from its 2021 highs currently. I don't follow the broader news outside Monero because it's all hollow investment schemes as you say, but from what I know, the game is shifting from crypto to AI and other stocks, crypto as an investment is being left behind, and that's a good thing.

most of the attempts to use it as actual currency day to day have gone away

Again, do you say all this while being knowledgeable about Monero and the economy being created around it ? This is where I'm going to have to start sharing links, so here are a few examples:

Buy/sell goods & services with/for XMR!:
Directory for Merchants accepting Monero:
https:/monerica.com/
marketplace:
https://xmrbazaar.com/
https://www.reddit.com/r/moneromarket/new/
Gift cards:
https://cakepay.com/
https://xmr.cards/
https://coincards.com/
Freelance:
https://monero.jobs/

But in general, crypto isn't money, doesn't act like money, and will not start acting like money because it has neither inherent value

I've already responded to this in my previous message.

Quoting: Purple Library Guy

Quoting: PyrateFor 'stable institution', that is achieved here with the mining consensus. This is error proof because it's all mathematics and physics, and not what some politically motivated official who decides whether or not to fuck his subjects over for personal gain (Trump, thanks to his shenanigans, makes this point so easy to accept).

It's another story altogether if you simply don't accept the concept of a decentralised way for people to operate and transact their own affairs without an uninvited oversight, that this can never happen, and that you must have an overlord issuing your only accepted form of exchange medium, telling you what you can and cannot spend your money on.

Error proof doesn't matter a damn. I mean, I suppose it would be even stupider without it, but that does not substitute for real social institutions.

But the point is not centralization. The point is power. Whether centralized or decentralized, the organization must have some way of binding people to the decisions made. If it's just "if I happen to feel like it", it will fall apart. If you have a decentralized direct democracy, and everyone votes and the majority agree to thing X, then the difference between a decentralized direct democracy government and a decentralized direct democracy culture club is, once the vote has happened, is there a mechanism to make sure everyone operates according to what was agreed? If yes, it's a real institution. If no, it's a socially pleasant nonentity and it sure as hell can't do a currency.

This isn't either or. I'm not arguing to overthrow fiat and replace it with Monero. Both can exist, as they do now, and any individual can choose to participate in what's referred to as the parallel economy. I do believe more people will indulge into this currency because, if world events are anything to go by, they'll soon have to.

And again, mining consensus does exist, I believe this answers your question in the second paragraph. Monero's network for example went through multiple 'hard forks' where the community, and those who power the network around the world was made aware a network upgrade is planned in advance, the update which is discussed and agreed upon by the community and developed in the open, also funded (in Monero) by the community. Once a hard fork goes live, any miner who doesn't update the Monero software gets their work invalidated by consensus. You can read more about this online if you're interested.

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Oh, cool. I might need to start a new game when this releases. With the things Dwarf Fortress players have managed to farm over the years (mermaids, sea serpents, dragons…) I can only imagine unleashing a horde of dinosaurs on the next goblin siege.

Of course, the real question is, what letters will they use in the ASCII version? 😁

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Quoting: Eike

Quoting: LoudTechie

Quoting: Eike

Quoting: LoudTechie[/
American Express, Discover, JCB, PayPal, Wero(for european customers), PaysafeCard and Klarna are all still options.

But Wero is not offered yet, right?

Wero is a fusion of national payments providers and the ones that were supported before the fusion are still supported.

That's not what I asked.

Do you know a place where Wero can (directly) be used to buy Steam games already?

Because, I'm waiting for it to be supported here (Germany)...

Yeah, but apparently I wasn't clear.
The Netherlands.

Just like before the fusion IDEAL continues to work.
IDEAL is now Wero.
Thus Wero works there.

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