In both cases the trading value of the currency has almost nothing to do with who originated it, and almost everything to do with how the general public feels about it.

Just like crypto, most "government" currencies are worth what they're worth only because everyone agrees that they are. That's called "fiat" currency. And that's why fiat currency exchange markets exist. The US Dollar hasn't been "convertible" (redeemable for a fixed amount of precious metal) since 1971, and many other world currencies were already backed in some way by the US Dollar at that time.

The real difference is in the supply.

Government fiat currency is difficult to counterfeit, although the government (or reserve bank) can always make more whenever they want. We trust them not to print more money, increasing the money supply and devaluing the currency. However, this is exactly what has happened sometimes in the past, and no doubt will happen again in the future.

Crypto currency is virtually impossible to counterfeit, and IIRC there's a finite (but not precisely known) amount of it that can be made, no matter who you are.

Personally, I still use physical fiat currency and no crypto. I'd like to use crypto, but regulation in my country makes it very difficult to use without registering your details with a central authority. And although everyone's pushing e-money options which are similarly tracked, thankfully I still have the option of using anonymous cash.

I don't do anything bad or illegal. I just believe that government and big business don't deserve to know everything I do in my life simply because they want to.

Crypto doesn't have value because tech bros say it does, that's not how it works.

It's my first actual visit, and I did what apparently is the obvious faux pas

I googled for dreadforum link, was pointed towards one shown at https://dreadforum.io/

I entered it into tor browser, no captcha was shown and I landed directly on the site/mirror.

The one post I read, something concerning validation and opsec on markets or dreadforum, had an explanation that if the text they wrote in hyphens differed from the url right under it I was already viewing a mirror, as they spelled out a link.

That was true, the url shown was darkmyurl dot com instead of the actual link spelled out hyphenated.

I was humbled, and have now learned that even asking for the true php keys from you right now is submitting to defeat. The only good opsec seems to be your own

Citizen Sniiiiiiiiiiiips!

depends. not universally, that's right. don't buy dogecoin for privacy.

Depends how you use it. And which coin - before Q day comes Monero is pretty private, but Bitcoin is transparent.

Praying for Georgia and Georgian people everyday for letting me stay effectively indefinitely. Otherwise, living like stateless person would've been terrible. Though, technically, despite everything I've posted on the internet, police is not very interested in me, my track record is clean and I can go back anytime, it's just that I'd really, really rather not...

It has some serious reliability and scalability issues as of last I checked, but yes, if you're a skilled programmer who can check for shit like this:

it's a good force multiplier.

Could use localbitcoin.com (or localmonero I guess), though it's been so long since I've been to those sites that I forget if/what kind of cut the website takes.

But yeah, dunno if you can avoid fees when cashing out to fiat. And if you're using non-kyc sites to swap Monero, they're likely taking some too, for the convenience and privacy (worth it imo)

Creating a market to exchange crypto and cash enables everyone’s use. Speculative markets are a natural feature of something new like bitcoin and would’ve happened regardless.

Be gay, do crime

I wouldn't say it has nothing to do with morals, since (at least hopefully) it's our morals that help guide us when making laws.

But yes, illegal does not necessarily mean immoral, and vice versa.

For laypersons: they put all the coins in a box and shake the box.

thats the point, its decentralized

anything is traceable IF you have a special position in the transactions

monero, as an example, lets you run your own node

so you have to put up with surveillance or put up with freedom?

I dont think the state should be able to trace transactions

Bitcoin energy use doesn’t scale with the number of transactions but based upon the competition for mining.

so basically, research the crypto you buy and practice basic cybersecurity?

sure, it wasnt designed for everybody, but that isnt a reason to smear it

the biggest contributor to crypto being despised by most people is the massive prevalence of scammers

At risk of being called a crypto bro or something (I'm really not, I learned all this shit years before everything turned into what it is), I'd like to play Devil's advocate here for the moment and ask how that's different from fiat currency?

USD is practically untraceable, and people are being scammed out of it constantly with no recourse.