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PayPal cautious about future of Libra cryptocurrency

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blockchain is a canard. it supports illegal activity. if you want a decentralized economy you want a black market

Let's start with 'blockchain'. Blockchain is a technology that is used to store information with an immutable (unchangeable) history. Once something is written to history, it is permanent. This technology can be used to do anything from storing medical information, to recording votes in an election, to recording financial transactions.

Blockchain does not 'support' anything. That's like saying a hammer supports building a house. Blockchain is a tool.

Your post refers to blockchain, but it's clear you were referring to cryptocurrencies.

Cryptocurrencies are an implementation of blockchain technology that use the blockchain to record financial transactions. Real world money exchanges hands, and is recorded using the various cryptocurrencies' blockchains.

Traditionally, this was a service handled by the banks. Just as the priests used to tell people that the only way to god was through the church, the banks have told us that the only way to manage our money is through the banks. This gives banks immense power - they own us all. We are beholden to them to manage our money.

Which has made the banks rich rich rich rich rich rich rich rich. Finance as an industry is built upon the banks being the sole means of humanity to manage their finances. We all pay. All of us. Well, maybe not the homeless or those who abandon the system. But the rest of us paaaaaaaay. All because the banks were the sole means of recording financial transactions between people.

Until now, this has had a side effect where those in the underworld had to find ways to move their criminal 'dirty' money into the legal 'clean' system - aka money laundering.

The blockchain has provided a means for criminal underworld to now record transactions. The decentralization of the system means there is no way for an overriding authority to stop them from doing so.

Let's be clear, that horse has bolted. Even if all the legal systems in the world ban cryptocurrencies, the underworld can still run their own to record their transactions. Essentially, they now have the means to run their own 'banks'. They can keep their own logs, outside of the banking system.

That's unfortunate. But, it is what it is. The idea that the rest of us should not use cryptocurrencies to manage our own finances as due to the criminal underworld also being able to do so, is akin to saying people shouldn't use cash, because people buy drugs with cash.

The bigger issue here however is that the banks do NOT want to relinquish their power. This is akin to the church not wanting people to realize they can talk to god themselves, or abandon religion altogether. Or more recently, akin to the music industry suddenly realizing that CDs, previously the only means for people to get digital music, were about to become obsolete due to the internet.

Cryptocurrencies are the future of financial transactions for humanity. In 2009, when Bitcoin was started, that was the trigger that will eventually lead to the dramatic downsizing of the entire financial industry. It will still be massive - just like cash, and the recording industry, the financial industry has its place. But no longer are banks the sole means for humanity to record the logs of our financial transactions, and as these cryptocurrencies become more and more stable, and more and more integrated into society providing easier means to use them in real-world transactions, so will the power of banks over the people be reduced.

And that's good for all of us. If someone buys into the idea that cryptocurrencies are bad because they can also be used by bad people, then what is that person doing on the internet? Don't they realize that there are a lot of very bad people doing very bad things on the same internet they are posting on regarding cryptocurrencies?

5 ( +5 / -0 )

Strangeland’s post is better than the article.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

Strangeland’s post is better than the article.

Thanks!

(strangeRland)

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Wow! A Facebook currency. On one hand, definitely needed as currency by governments can swung wildly due to the idiots in charge, but do we really want to give Facebook and Paypal more leverage over our lives?

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(^^)

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I just want to shift money from A to B without having to pay additional taxes upon those that I paid having to gain that money... seems fair ?

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blockchain is a canard. it supports illegal activity. if you want a decentralized economy you want a black market

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