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Comment by alwayslikethis | Hacker News Reader

Until the day your phone breaks for some reason, or one of those payment monopolists decides you shouldn't be able to spend your money because you modified your phone without their permission, and you find yourself unable to pay for the bill. Eliminating cash also eliminates the possibility of having transactions that are difficult to trace for whatever reason, at least in small amounts. What if something you take for granted today becomes illegal (weed, abortion, anything you may think of) and the government will now have near total ability to see what you bought. It's a bleak future without privacy.

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The "phone breaks" argument is weak as plenty of wallets are lost and sometimes even attached to phone and then both are lost. The strong argument is that things don't even have to be illegal to become impossible to pay for using digital currency. Look at the adult industry, where it is nearing impossibility to find a merchant to support payments for legal adult services. Better laws & privacy protections will help but won't ever fully solve the problem. (And before anyone else jumps in, neither do cryptocurrencies in their current state.)

Cryptocurrencies, especially the stronger privacy protecting ones like Monero mitigates tracking to a great extent and is permissionless, requiring no authorization from a third party to use your money. Though by doing so it also attracts criminal and law enforcement attention and is likely to be banned upon widespread adoption.

No cryptocurrency in its current or foreseeable future state are useful as daily methods of payment, for many reasons. Cryptocurrencies are volatile speculation instruments, not a practical currency as they lack the necessary combination of stable value, widespread adoption and either usefulness outside of limited markets or privacy friendly method to convert. Monero might not be as routinely traceable as other cryptocurrencies but any conversion to or from fiat is likely to be traceable or dodgy enough to get a bad rate of return. To be a truly useful currency someone has to be able to earn it one day and spend it freely in the overwhelming majority of commerce situations a week or month later for the equivalent value. That is not going to happen with cryptocurrency in the foreseeable future. The majority of people who claim it will be or should be are typically those most interested in cryptocurrency being a volatile speculation instrument, which defeats their stated goal.

> one of those payment monopolists decides you shouldn't be able to spend your money

I assume you keep all of your money at home?

Oh, you keep it at the bank. And withdraw it using a plastic card? Well then.

He was specifically talking about physical money (cash) vs digital money only.

> Until the day your phone breaks for some reason

I happen to have a second Apple device on me at all times: my watch. Risk of this happening is low. Still a risk though.

It is not just breakage. My phone was low on battery when I realized my bus pass was just in digital form. I had to find a place to charge.

All of these concerns have analog equivalents. Plenty of people get to public transit and realize they need to recharge their pass before it's useful again.

I agree, though I suspect HN is going to be a tough crowd :)

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