• FaceDeer@kbin.social
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    2
    arrow-down
    4
    ·
    5 months ago

    In addition to using it as a currency, sure. But as I asked rigatti, is that a problem? At worst one might perhaps argue that the name “cryptocurrency” is misleading, but I’ve never cared much about semantics like that.

    • TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      5 months ago

      You’re saying “in addition to using it as a currency” as if that’s actually what people do with crypto. They don’t.

      And yeah, it is a problem. It renders it useless outside of as a bit of gambling on the side.

      • FaceDeer@kbin.social
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        edit-2
        5 months ago

        Alright, so let’s call them cryptotokens instead. I’ve always preferred that myself, it’s a much more general description of what they do. It doesn’t change what they are but if that term makes you happier we can go with that.

        It renders it useless outside of as a bit of gambling on the side.

        Hardly, there are lots of things you can do with these things. A ledger is more than just for tracking money, it’s a database. You really can’t think of useful things that could be done with a completely decentralized and permissionless database?

        • TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          5 months ago

          People don’t use bitcoin or other cryptocoins as a general purpose database. They use it as they’d use a stock.

          • FaceDeer@kbin.social
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            1
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            5 months ago

            Bitcoin, no, because it’s a hopelessly out of date blockchain that actively resists having new capabilities added to it. Ethereum, on the other hand, is designed that way from the ground up. Many of the other smaller but more modern blockchains are also like that.

              • FaceDeer@kbin.social
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                1
                ·
                5 months ago

                You can’t use them as a currency everywhere. But the same can be said for any other currency too. You can’t use US dollars everywhere. You can’t use Chinese Yuan everywhere. And so forth. A currency doesn’t have to be universally accepted everywhere on the planet for every application before it’s useful.

                Regardless, I was talking about using Ethereum as a distributed database.

                • TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  1
                  ·
                  5 months ago

                  You know fine well that’s not what I meant.

                  If you were to attempt to only use Bitcoin, Ethereim, whatever, you almost certainly literally wouldn’t be able to live.

                  You can’t just pay all your bills with it.

                  And even the people who own it almost never use it as a currency. They treat it like a stock.

                  • FaceDeer@kbin.social
                    link
                    fedilink
                    arrow-up
                    1
                    ·
                    5 months ago

                    I really don’t see your point here. I’m agreeing that you can’t use it for everything. But what’s wrong with that? There are plenty of things in this world that aren’t useful in every circumstance and yet that doesn’t mean those things are worthless. Use them for the things that they’re good for. Elsewhere in this thread I listed off a whole bunch of non-stock, non-currency applications that have been built on blockchains if you really don’t like the monetary applications.

                    As a side note, though, I’m kind of amused and baffled that the Grand Nagus of all people is dismissing any monetary uses for cryptocurrency.