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Would you be willing to be paid by your employer a fixed number of a cryptocurrency unit, such as bitcoin, on a monthly basis as your salary?
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katsu78
God, no.
Aly Rustom
yes but only with cyber security taken seriously
rainyday
No, I prefer to recieve the equivalent amount converted into bags of broken glass shards, which are a much safer investment.
Strangerland
Not yet. When usage has become more mainstream, and a currency has stabilized, I'll be open to it.
Kabukilover
Like Monopoly money.
dee
absolutely. it will be worth many times more in just a few years. people who call it worthless and like the people who have rejected advancement in every generation.
sun around earth/flat earth/industrialisation/equality/technology....the list goes on and some people are always against change, as they can't see it as progress. no matter, it happens anyway.
rainyday
The simple new thing = progress trope doesn't really cut it with me. There have been a ton of technologies equated with progress and considered cutting edge which you would have been a fool to invest in: Segways, Myspace, Betamax, Blackberries, Pets.com etc etc.
Cryptocurrencies should be evaluated on their merits, not on just the fact that they are some form of new technology. As a currency they suck, hardly anybody uses them for actual transactions, and as an investment they also suck - most of them are little more than pyramid schemes: great if you get in and out early, horrible for everybody else.
smithinjapan
Why? To benefit a government push to lead in said currency so they look good, only to have it stolen because their security is gawd-awful? No thanks.
Matt Hartwell
I prefer Australian gold backed crypto
The best of both worlds. I can say that taking off here.
Mocheake
You get, say, 500,000 yen worth of something which may be worth almost nothing tomorrow? No, thanks.
Serrano
"Would you be willing to be paid by your employer a fixed number of a cryptocurrency unit, such as bitcoin, on a monthly basis as your salary?"
I'm in the 77% who say no in this survey.
Alex.B
I would rather not have such a volatile currency.
gogogo
As long as it was optional, I could decide which crypto currencies, and I could change it or turn it off anytime I liked.
maybeperhapsyes
As Ally said.
It surely has to be the future. We can't go around handling bits of paper forever.
commanteer
I'm happy to accept payment in crypto, but not in a fixed monthly amount. It is still too volatile for that, so that would essentially be gambling.
If it was in bitcoin or a coin I had a lot of faith in, I might be persuaded to agree to a set amount per month for one year. That would still be gambling, but less so.
Do the hustle
No bloody way would I invest in a cloud. Too much of this money ends up in cyberspace.
sf2k
It's like saying, would you like to be paid in coupons?
sf2k
Bits of paper and coins do not require electricity to exist. Processing a bitcoin transaction consumes more than 5,000 times as much energy as using a Visa credit card, so no, the world cannot afford to use crypto. It'll have a niche but it physically cannot replace currency
sf2k
Bits of paper and coins do not require electricity to exist (after they are made!)
Strangerland
No it’s not.
Or in other words, they DO need electricity to exist.
inkochi
Virtual currency is just that, virtual.
ANyway, though it looks nice when the market is rocketing up, it fluctuates far too wildly.
Then there is always the threat of an EMP.
Hmm - 'Better to be paid in gold ingots', he wished.
Strangerland
At least you admit it’s a currency.
sf2k
you're right it's not the same as coupons. Just like real money, coupons don't take any electricity to persist either. Therefore, cryptocurrency is even WORSE than coupons!
Bitcoin is just a canard for the rich and the international money launderer of the week. Can only do 4 transactions a second, and can't scale due to the electricity requirements.
Can't be insured either. Thank you Deposit Insurance Corporation of Ontario
Blockchain might still exist...funny enough, for business coupons. Temporary only
Strangerland
Got any more apples you wish to compare to oranges?
I've used it, and I'm not rich (by first world standards), nor am I laundering money.
So no, it's not 'just' that.
I don't get it, are you railing against cyrptocurrencies, or against problems with bitcoin's implementation?
dee
rainyday, you've made the classic mistake that most naysayers make. you mention "Segways, Myspace, Betamax, Blackberries, Pets.com". in every forward move, some individual efforts fail, but the main idea moves on. segway fails but new transport thrives. myspace fails but social media thrives. getting the idea? cryptocurrency is 100% guaranteed to thrive. it may be bitcoin, it may be a different currency, but it will be part of our future.
Cliffy
Not mainstream, no backing of any source - no thanks.
sf2k
It's one and the same. It costs too much energy.
Maybe you can keep you crypto wallet persistent in future if you hook up a bicycle dynamo and exercise on it all day long to make electricity to keep your wallet active 24/7/365.
On top of that, you also would need to generate 837 KWh per transaction, so that dynamo is going to be pretty big. Good luck!
Is that clearer? Or are you expecting Niagara Falls just to power crypto wallets instead of homes, businesses, hospitals, etc? That's crazy. Never going to happen.
Bitcoin will not survive the environmental upheavals and power changes that are going to be necessary in a world of finite resources
Please look up; terawatts bitcoin
Bitcoin currently uses 32 TWh a year. As the planet moves away from fossil fuels so we will learn to live more efficiently not wastefully.
Bitcoin is the epitome of the gluttony of waste of the 1st world against the planet.
As an idea on it's own, blockchain is interesting. As an implementation though, it's more stupid than nuclear power.
https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-energy-consumption
sf2k
Some other site said 32 TWh per year
Digiconomist reports "Bitcoin's current minimum annual electricity consumption** (TWh) 60.05"
sf2k
Please don't take it personally if you use Bitcoin, blockchain is a fun technology as an idea. But it doesn't fit the planet we live on. It has really come along at the wrong time, like an Easter Island statue at the pinnacle of our environmental decline.
Maybe in some far off future but as it stands now it uses too much energy for practical application. As a society we have to consider that the pollution cost of running it is too much to bear, especially when we're trying (hopefully?) to switch over to green technology so that humans can live on into the future.
Number of U.S. households powered for 1 day by the electricity consumed for a single transaction = 28.27
Carbon footprint per transaction (kg of CO2) = 409.93
It's like robber barons of oil and gas who want to destroy the planet currency. It'll have to lose its dependence on high energy cost computing but that's all it is, so it can't.
Ah_so
Well, I wouldn't go so far. Currency is a token form of money, so I could only call them currency if I could consider it to be "money".
The standard tests of money are:
1) Unit of account - pass - crypto currencies pass this test because they can be broken down to small units
2) Medium of exchange - Fail. While technically they can be used for purchases, these are mainly on the blackmarket and represent a tiny fraction of purchases
3) Store of value - Fail. The value fluctuates far too much. In Bitcoin terms, ordinary prices have trippled in value in the past year.
4) Standard of deferred payment - Fail. No one will accept future payment in a crypto currency - the value is too volatile and there is little certainty that the currency in question will be around in the future.
It is so far from being money in a meaningful sense.
It may become so at some point in the future, but we are far from there today.
Serrano
In the future we'll have the Federation credit. But in the meantime, I wouldn't mind cowry shells - they're so pretty!
englisc aspyrgend
Serrano, you beat me to it, bring back the Cowry shell!
fxgai
If I were paid 4 magnitudes greater in value of cryptocurrency to dollars or even yen, the yeah I would.
But like that is going to happen, so heavens no way Jose