That’s because 90% of cryptocurrency marketing consists of “THINK OF THE GAAAAAAINS YOU CAN MAKE!” instead of “You can use this to buy things without government censorship”.
The entire crypto industry has based itself around being a speculative asset, not a currency.
Which is really unfortunate. If you avoid the most popular coins (Bitcoin, Ethereum, etc), you avoid most of the scams and speculation and end up with a decent currency that respects your privacy and has low fees.
not profitable to mine, so most miners are enthusiasts who want the coin to succeed
privacy-focused - basically creates a ton of fake transactions to mislead snoopers
relatively popular - seems to be the most popular coin recommended by privacy enthusiasts (e.g. Mental Outlaw, he even gives a discount on his store for Monero)
not popular among speculators - they mostly stick to the big ones (BTC and ETH), as well as new startup coins
low cost transactions, fairly short transaction window
It’s far from ubiquitous, but it’s popular enough that if a place accepts any crypto, there’s a good chance they accept Monero as well.
Some do, which is a lot more than GNU Taler. I don’t know of another digital payment system that has more usage that isn’t dominated by a handful of companies.
Here are some examples of things you can buy today w/ Monero:
It’s far from ubiquitous, but it is being accepted today. If any of those places interest you, I recommend putting a small amount of money into Monero and trying it out.
One benefit to payment processing for crypto is that there’s little in the way of material limitations on processing payments. The blockchain for a given coin already exists, your job as a processor is primarily to convert those on-chain transactions into and out of other currencies. Only requiring intervention at the point of entering or exiting dollars to and from the system changes a lot of the dynamics.
It’s pretty easy to switch between cryptocurrencies, so they can surely find an exchange that is friendly to their business. That’s way better than the credit card situation where there are only four major processors–Visa, Mastercard, Discover, and American Express–and only two of those actually matter.
Payment processors like Visa and Mastercard control a huge chunk of the market, which gives them a lot of say in what transactions are allowed. Even if you avoid credit, most debit cards go through those two companies, so they can restrict what transactions you can make.
With cryptocurrencies, there’s no restriction at the point of sale. Your problem seems to be that converting crypto to fiat could be problematic, and they’d potentially be stuck with “useless” currency. My point is that’s a much easier problem to solve:
if their exchange stops converting a given currency, they can convert to one they do accept
if their exchange bans their account (e.g. due to the nature of their business), they can switch exchanges
there are ATMs that dispense cash for crypto
if no exchange will work with them, they can make direct exchanges with regular people (i.e. “launder” the money)
they can also spend the currency directly
There are a ton of options to convert crypto to fiat, there are far fewer to select a different fiat payment processor.
Cryptocurrency is the solution here, and unfortunately that’s an unpopular take here.
That’s because 90% of cryptocurrency marketing consists of “THINK OF THE GAAAAAAINS YOU CAN MAKE!” instead of “You can use this to buy things without government censorship”.
The entire crypto industry has based itself around being a speculative asset, not a currency.
Which is really unfortunate. If you avoid the most popular coins (Bitcoin, Ethereum, etc), you avoid most of the scams and speculation and end up with a decent currency that respects your privacy and has low fees.
monero?
Yup, Monero is probably the best option. I’ve heard good things about Z-cash, and Bitcoin can work on the lightning network.
Tell me more
Monero is perhaps the best option imo. Here’s the official page about it, but basically:
It’s far from ubiquitous, but it’s popular enough that if a place accepts any crypto, there’s a good chance they accept Monero as well.
Is it really the best option when no business uses them?
Some do, which is a lot more than GNU Taler. I don’t know of another digital payment system that has more usage that isn’t dominated by a handful of companies.
Here are some examples of things you can buy today w/ Monero:
It’s far from ubiquitous, but it is being accepted today. If any of those places interest you, I recommend putting a small amount of money into Monero and trying it out.
Not when exchanges still govern taking money out. They are businesses like everything else and will be just as risk averse
One benefit to payment processing for crypto is that there’s little in the way of material limitations on processing payments. The blockchain for a given coin already exists, your job as a processor is primarily to convert those on-chain transactions into and out of other currencies. Only requiring intervention at the point of entering or exiting dollars to and from the system changes a lot of the dynamics.
It’s pretty easy to switch between cryptocurrencies, so they can surely find an exchange that is friendly to their business. That’s way better than the credit card situation where there are only four major processors–Visa, Mastercard, Discover, and American Express–and only two of those actually matter.
None of what you said addresses the problem I mentioned.
Then I guess I don’t understand your problem.
Payment processors like Visa and Mastercard control a huge chunk of the market, which gives them a lot of say in what transactions are allowed. Even if you avoid credit, most debit cards go through those two companies, so they can restrict what transactions you can make.
With cryptocurrencies, there’s no restriction at the point of sale. Your problem seems to be that converting crypto to fiat could be problematic, and they’d potentially be stuck with “useless” currency. My point is that’s a much easier problem to solve:
There are a ton of options to convert crypto to fiat, there are far fewer to select a different fiat payment processor.