The tech even then seemingly worked for you then. Your anecdotal is comparable to saying students at a college not being able to add one another on Facebook in it's early days, because the campus Wi-Fi was on the fritz.
EDITED to correct autocorrect.
(signed a MtGox victim.)
the people “in the vanguard of [the cryptocurrency] movement” absolutely use non-custodial wallets (SW or HW). the part of this story where “the vanguard” is using custodial wallets is the least believable.
the average speculator, sure — they’ll go with whatever’s easiest for them, which is probably to keep their crypto on the exchange. “vanguard” users? lmao.
And cash is cash, but I don't think crypto is really competing with cash, more with cash-alternatives (like credit cards, venmo etc.)
There's a process for taking the details for an offline credit card payment[0] which is settled later.
[0] https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/8322/how-are-cr...
A wire transfer is really a more apt comparison when discussing sending money from Coinbase.
It's true, but it's also missing the point.
Regular bitcoin transaction OTOH would presumably have worked just as well as credit cards.
Facebook isn’t an appropriate analog to what BTC/crypto aims to be.
Nope. Reminder for those new to how credit cards actually work, there are two distinct transactions and they are not connected. Authorization transactions establish that this is, in fact, really a credit card issued by BIG BANK, and optionally that some credentials you've got are genuine (e.g. a PIN for modern chip and PIN cards, or a 3-4 digit security code for a remote payment). Authorization aims to protect merchants from crooked customers and to some extent to protect banks from crooked merchants. Nobody cares about the customer, if you want protecting ask your government. Settlement transactions move money from the customer's account to the merchant's account.
An offline credit card terminal may be able to perform some limited Authorization with chip cards in particular, it can confirm that the chip card says this is the correct PIN for example, but regardless it can begin the Settlement transaction.
Now, the Settlement won't actually happen immediately, but eventually the transactions are batched up and sent to a bank and the bank executes them, and the settlements occur.
Debit cards can need an online transaction because the card may be unwilling to authorise the Settlement process if it can't confirm you actually have the money, as these cards may be issued to people who aren't allowed credit.
Six equivalent cards, each performing six offline transactions for $5 each results in thirty six $5 transactions, $180 from one account to various merchants. Settlement transactions can complete more or less instantly or take several days, you don't care and your card isn't involved.
Credit cards suffer from a similar problem, the transactions will not necessarily go through when you get online.
Only because they trusted each other! I mean, any currency or barter mechanism anywhere in the world or throughout history works if you trust the person to pay you tomorrow.
BTC was supposed to be able to move beyond that, somehow. And it turns out that the world still runs on trust.