The fact that this parent has a number of children that don't seem to pick up on this is problematic to say the least.
Neither of them have to be. All exchanges take place in pairs; one holding is exchanged for another. Buying BTC with dollars is (USD, BTC); buying Microsoft is (MSFT, USD); buying EUR with dollars is (EUR, USD).
Nothing prevents you from pricing Microsoft stock in BTC or BTC in EUR or Etherium.
The holding as such, however, is only a fiat holding when it is in fact either a (wad of) cash equivalents and/ or a bank balance.
There isn't a person on earth for which there is only two types of relevant holdings, in either USD or BTC. A person that (seriously) considers acquiring a crypto holding, such as BTC, is most likely choosing between other crypto currencies, gold or silver, primarily. Even more likely, they're merely FOMO-speculating as a complement to plain stock holdings.
The fact that a number of you don't seem to understand this should call your competency into question.
But yes, I agree with you about where fiat is used. It's almost always used by people that don't quite undersand the concept of value or that of money for that matter.
Money is not declared valuable by political authority. That is just not how it works. Crypto is what's declared valuable by fiat, ironically. Its value is described as derived in terms of a limited supply (it's just like Gold!)
Fiat currency derives its value from network effects, debts and the feeling of safety (or the lack thereof.)
There is plenty of evidence to the contrary.
If you didn’t cash out already and are taking your coins offline etc, you’re the bag holder.
https://crypto-anonymous-2021.medium.com/the-bit-short-insid...
https://bitfinexed.medium.com/tether-is-setting-a-new-standa...
USDC (the second largest stablecoin), isn't appreciably better.
Binance has its own stablecoin: BUSD
USDC is associated with Coinbase, the exchange that recently went public, so I'd assume it's far more trustworthy than Tether.
As a cryptocurrency exchange, Binance must hold Tether to operate.
As the most popular cryptocurrency exchange on the planet, they're likely to be on the larger end of Tether (and various other cryptocurrencies) holdings.
I'm not defending Binance here, I think there's fair potential that they're doing shady stuff, but they're not responsible, in any way, for the minting of billions of dollars of Tether, or involved in any of the dodgy accounting around Tether's backing.
Same goes for Huobi, who are second on that list. They're an exchange. Holding Tether is an essential part of being in that business.
https://cointelegraph.com/news/a-by-the-minute-look-at-tethe...
BTC is functionally a security. Under any duress of the USD I'd expect it to perform no different than AMZN stock.
If you traded your BTC for some non USD currency the same point remains.
Yeah, sure, but everyone except cranks who works in fiat openly acknowledges that. Fiat (well, major fiat currencies like the dollar) are good for low-volatility liquidity. For long-term accumulation of value, you invest in productive assets, which are both riskier over the long term and higher volatility over the short term, but have higher average long-term yields. And, ideally, you diversify investments in ways that maximize independence of at least long-term variation, to mitigate risk and get closer to consistent long-term average results.
Crypto“currency” that isn’t fiat-pegged tends to be worse than major fiat at the things people who prefer fiat think fiat is for, while (in the best cases) being a very high-volatility speculative asset with very good average performance over its history to date (which isn’t very long term). It’s thus not a great replacement for fiat, but potentially a bice addition to the stable of available investments.
I think you should not ignore the forest for the trees here. A small purchase today held for another 5-10y could prove quite lucrative for you.
Am I supposed to believe crypto nerds aren't holding any fiat?
For some reason people genuinely seem to believe that crypto will only go up, when the reality is that we have no clue.
When every average Joe thinks crypto will make them rich, it's time to dump your bags.
I just hope my parents and relatives aren't secretly stashing away their life long savings in crypto because of all the hullabaloo.
There’s an ad running on Indian TV literally of this script..Two moms are talking, while one brags about her son being in USA, buying cars etc the other’s son is seemingly trading crypto on a mobile app. The other mom then retorts “all that is fine, but have you invested in crypto?”.
It’s crazy, they are drumming up FOMO.
If you are curious and know Hindi: https://youtu.be/KKItA9fDCk4