But it’s fairly easy to use “cryptocurrency” to pay for things, e.g. if you have a cryptocurrency-denominated account at the same provider as your vendor. This is, of course, not open finance in any meaningful respect.
I just noticed I read that wrong. I missed the same provider as your vendor part.
So I guess the solution for using cryptocurrency to buy things at Amazon is “if you already bought cryptocurrency at Amazon…”.
But I’m trying to buy something. So how does the intermediatory step help at all?
This post may sound somewhat hostile. I TRUELY don’t understand how cryptocurrency helps any of this. It only seems to help cryptocurrency people.
The author nailed my feelings 100%.
- possible the transaction won't happen immediately or happen at all
- extremely expensive
- stupid (if you expect your particular cryptocurrency to increase in value over time)
- missing all the protections and benefits of a credit card
Either way, it completely defeats the purpose of decentralization, consensus, etc. Coinbase, in that case, is exactly like a traditional bank except that you're trading non-money instead of money.