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Comment by woeirua | Hacker News Reader

Owning coins that can't be exchanged for anything is kind of a pointless endeavor, is it not?

The value of most coins is going to zero as a result of this. Crypto is going to be a frigid wasteland after this for quite a while.

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There are tons of vendors I actively use that accept crypto. Not as much as I'd like, but hardly no one.

But yeah, you're right, a currency nobody uses is obviously worthless. I'm attempting to drive adoption so that they CAN be exchanged for goods and services.

You're not getting it. Vendors almost all immediately convert Crypto to USD or their local currency. When the exchanges collapse that will no longer be possible. Poof, your ability to use Crypto also ceases at that very moment.

You are incredibly exposed to the same risk that these exchanges have.

If a large enough user base and set of vendors accept crypto, there's no need for converting to USD.

How do you handle refunds? Converting twice? Sure, charge users for it, you'll be driven out of the market by businesses who are not scared to keep a crypto wallet liquid.

How are the vendors that accept crypto paying their invoices? The company I work for has hundreds of vendors and suppliers, and none of them accept cryptocurrency. They all seem to want USD.

By expressing your desire for crypto payments to said vendors. If there's enough demand, the industry can change to accommodate it.

This dynamic actually exists even in much more conservative/slower moving fields like hardware manufacturing. It's a slow process

This train of thought requires every single person involved in production down to the person putting the item on your doorstep to be a true crypto believer.

Don‘t forget the IRS!

I was giving OP the benefit of the doubt that they live somewhere with terrible currency policy and no cap gains like Turkey or Czech Republic.

But yeah, something tells me the taxman isn't all that interested in your bitcoins.

Honest question: Suppose you lived in a world where crypto was more common. What if you have a vendor who refuses to use crypto? Would you still transact in fiat?

Even if crypto catches on more than it has, I do not think everybody will want to deal with it. I am do not do any importing or exporting. Dealing with another currency just seems like wasted energy.

I'm a pragmatic person, not some crazy fundamentalist. I do use fiat where necessary, yeah.

> I do not think everybody will want to deal with it.

The thing is, crypto should be much, MUCH easier to deal with, we just don't have mature software/UX around this. Because we're still figuring out best practices, and people are learning about this tech.

And when the mom-and-pop bookstore down the road can no longer exchange their crypto for fiat (needed to pay their taxes), do you think they’ll keep accepting your crypto?

It depends on the government.

"Crypto Currency Now Accepted For All State Tax Payments" https://tax.colorado.gov/cryptocurrency

Ohio tried it, and now http://ohiocrypto.com/ is a blank page.

I looked at the Colorado site. I predict this will also get shut down. Basically you are paying more just so you can say, "I paid my taxes with cryptocurrency", which honestly seems stupid.

"A sufficient amount of cryptocurrency to cover the tax, obligation and fees is converted to dollars"

No it doesn't. Your crypto is not and will not be denominated in crypto. It's still dollars.

Good proxy for the promise and reality of crypto though - you need to interact with some shitty PayPal crypto platform and they charge you charge 1.8% for the luxury of doing so.

For comparison, what is the credit card fee?

For a better comparison, the debit card fee would be about 25¢.

And do those vendors use crypto to buy from their suppliers? Otherwise, they have to raise their crypto denominated prices as the exchange rate falls and you're still in the same boat as selling it yourself.

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