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Comment by throwawayqdhd | Hacker News Reader

This is my exact problem. I haven't been able to use any of these cryptocurrencies to do actual work so far.

Everything has existed on the plane of theory and whitepapers so far.

Nearly a decade after BTC's release and nearly half a decade after's ETH, shouldn't there be a few mainstream applications using them?

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I don't think they have to be mainstream enough for you to have actual value.

I run a CBD store and it's extremely hard for CBD companies to get banking without exorbitant fees. For example, it costs ~2.5% for normal companies to process a credit card payment through stripe. For us, it costs >7%. Many of my competitors and suppliers are turning to cryptocurrencies for the lower fees and guaranteed certainty of payment.

The impact of crypto is yet to be fully estimated but it seems as if there isn't any existing system crypto cannot replicate and there are many systems enabled by crypto that existing systems will fail to create.

Are you in the US? I think that's a particular limitation of your country's payment systems, with its over-reliance on credit cards. In most other places you can use payment systems which are less vulnerable to fraud (since they use a push-style system, not pull) and much harder to chargeback.

Cryptocurrencies might have an edge for a while, but don't count on it long-term.

I am in the US. Is there a form of internet commerce that doesn't depend on credit cards?

Absolutely. Here in Portugal they don't even appear in the top 3, and in many other EU countries they're not the first. Many of them are developed by the local banking system (like iDEAL[1]), but SEPA transfers are used too, since they're usually free.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IDEAL

Thanks for the information. I wasn't aware of these local options.

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