Why no PayPal?

[iaresee]

I think it the idea already surpassed the "interesting" phase. The core idea of bootstrapping a currency from nothing, not only achieving parity with the USD but surpassing is in itself incredible. The fact that this has been repeated multiple times already is also incredible.

Speculative trading already exists in existing currencies (see FOREX).

Sure, speculative markets are everywhere, but the difference between bitcoin and the USD is bitcoin's value is based entirely on speculation. There's no real wealth or product that backs its value. That's a huge difference IMO. And one that hasn't even begun to mature enough for the world take it seriously as legal tender for anything yet.

Yes, the current volatility of crypto-currency exchange rates makes them hard to use as a currency you use on a normal day. But blockchains and smart contracts ain't going nowhere, just like the idea of the internet didn't go nowhere

No argument against blockchain contracts being useful. Bitcoin: not so much.

The current speculative bubbles in cryptocurrencies don't seem all that different than the .com bubble of the early 2000's.

A reasonable comparison. Also an entirely speculation-driven market!

I don't know about "narrow" set of circumstances; I worked on the field for just a bit, but you'd be surprised actually the huge... and I mean HUUUUUGE databases of scenarios (multi sensor + multi camera video and other descriptors) you have to pass before you are considered a candidate solution and this was years ago now.

Sensors are great, but they are inputs to a decision making framework and computers just can't do that as well as humans can, and won't for some time.

I feel the main pain will be legislative, not tech. Liability is always a huge debate.

No doubt. We already had a guy fall asleep, drunk, behind the wheel of his Tesla and it slowed down on the Bay Bridge and blocked traffic. He thought it would drive him home. I pity the person who buy's Waymo's first offering and crashes it.

 

[iaresee]

Wouldn't the other side of the argument say that it's already fiat-like because of inbuilt tech, and that it just has to become more popular?

But what backs it? Non-fiat currencies are usually backed by something, it just isn't physical. In the case of Bitcoin its worth is based purely on how much people speculate its worth to be. That's not a fiat or non-fiat currency -- it's a bet.

It seems somewhat quite popular for the exchange of nefarious goods and services, wouldn't the argument be that it just needs to be more popular so I can use it to pay for sandwiches?

Not really. Several companies have tried to treat is a legal tender for goods and services. Most recently Stripe has pulled out of this plan. The grift to use it has risen substantially -- certainly an interesting outcome of having to rely on non-regulated exchanges for processing if you don't want to build the considerable infrastructure to do it yourself. It is clearly popular, yet it's untenable for using to buy a sandwich.

I do speculate that BitCoin will probably not be the thing that lasts (arguments I hear seem to be too much computation & time, as well as not anonymous), but blockchain tech seems to hold promise for fiat-like currencies and beyond.)

I don't disagree with this.

 

[lauke-lux]

I know. But G66 doesn't offer the kind of sales discounts that Americans get who can order directly from FAS. Nor can we take advantage of the exchange rate of the dollar. We could if we could order directly from FAS as well. Which we can't using credit cards, as it shows we're European. I tried to order once using a US mail address, FAS still cancelled my order. Which is why I joked that if FAS were to allow paypal, G66 would go bankrupt as Europeans would order en masse from FAS directly instead.



You also pay taxes on interest you earned from your bank account. From money you already paid your taxes for. You also pay VAT taxes over fuel duty tax, as the price of your average tank of gas consists of price of gas + fuel duty topped off with VAT. And you pay inheritance taxes over stuff the deceased already paid tax for in the past, be it their own money, or the stuff they bought.

When it comes to collecting money the government doesn't care that you already paid your taxes. If they can come up with more ways to squeeze you they will.

Don't know how it's in your country but in France all this tax intake has been subcontracted to firms that narrowly scrute every package that comes into the country by airplane or by surface vessel/CT. You'll pay :
- shipping costs, close to 100 Euro from the states
- importation rights about 10%
- VAT 20%
- a fee for the firm, about 50 Euros

I can assure you that the "cheap" US Axe Fx will become more expensive than the actual G66 rates. To this don't forget the everlasting service of G66. My unit needed service lately, it is 5 years old; I only paid the shipping costs to Germany, all the work : checking + ventilator replacement + return shipping costs was taken into account by G66. I'm not sure I even would want to buy one in the US you know.

The only way to prevent these expenses would be to have a friend that's moving from the US to Europe and that can include and declare the unit as personal equipment in the packlist of the container or transportation cases with his removal. Anything else is hopeless or very risky.