Quote from: jrrsparkles on Today at 06:53:11 AM

Technically PayPal is holding the money not by yourself so it's no different from the traditional banking system but it was the beginning of digital payment era when people found that it's easy to make payments with PayPal than going through the banks and their complicated processing for every transactions.

Here you use the blockchain which is not just limited to cryptos so better use the term crypto.

My point was that there was "digital cash" before Bitcoin, and millions of people happily used it. In that context, Bitcoin had to offer something PayPal did not have, which is the ability to thwart government subpoenas into transactions. If Bitcoin was just a slow, expensive, clunky and risky version of PayPal, then nobody would want it and Satoshi would certainly have known that.

Quote from: NotATether on Today at 07:19:11 AM

Quote from: legiteum on May 07, 2024, 08:30:05 PM

The US at least, millions of Americans are paid every day for their work in untraceable physical cash, and there are no laws against it all of these years later.

Cash is traceable because the dollar notes have serial numbers on them. That's how they track down gun and drug sales for instance.

If you are talking about "most people" then you definitely aren't talking about rich people who have the money and the wherewithal to use offshore banks. Millions of Americans get paid physical cash every day for things like tips and service jobs. And the US government doesn't go after them because they don't have a specific reason (which they would need to take to court) and it's not worth their while to go to this trouble just to tax some hard worker person's... tips.

Quote from: m2017 on Today at 08:05:05 AM

Government policy in this regard is very clear - anonymity and confidentiality will be eliminated

But this is very specific: they want anonymity and confidentiality from valid court-ordered government subpoenas. The US government is actually supporting privacy against criminals, marketers and fellow citizens through various privacy laws.

Quote from: m2017 on Today at 08:05:05 AM

In current realities, privacy is primarily needed from government banditry (imagine blockchain in the hands of totalitarian governments).

I certainly agree that a system that allows people to evade the terrible effects of oppressive regimes is a very useful thing: but this is a very narrow audience of a few thousand people across the world, and not a problem most people have. Most people don't need to or want to go against their government--and most in the democratic world are happy its there to protect them from criminals.

Quote from: m2017 on Today at 08:05:05 AM

Quote from: legiteum on May 07, 2024, 04:32:26 PM

As for the longer term, this brings up an important question: why use blockchain at all?

Blockchain is well suited in conditions where “transparency” of any activity between all market participants is valued and respected.

Maybe, but Venmo originally touted an option to share every transaction you made with your friends, and this feature was very unpopular.

And you can create transparency much easier/faster/cheaper/better without blockchain.

Quote from: m2017 on Today at 08:05:05 AM

Are you suggesting we abandon this and take a step back? You can't put the jinnee back in the bottle.

Abandon? No. Did we "abandon" IBM mainframes designed in the 1980s? Not really: they are still in use today. But as a mainstream consumer phenomenon, I am predicting that blockchain will fade away.