{"id":35038,"date":"2022-01-12T18:57:37","date_gmt":"2022-01-13T00:57:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/?p=35038"},"modified":"2022-03-06T20:28:29","modified_gmt":"2022-03-07T02:28:29","slug":"so-why-have-confidence-in-cryptocurrencies-ctd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/2022\/01\/12\/so-why-have-confidence-in-cryptocurrencies-ctd\/","title":{"rendered":"So Why Have Confidence In Cryptocurrencies?, Ctd"},"content":{"rendered":"

The question<\/a> continues to ring true, at least in my ears.<\/p>\n

But for all the hype, there\u2019s scant evidence that digital currencies stand on the threshold of some kind of mainstream breakthrough. While a recent Pew Research Center survey found that 16 percent of Americans have used cryptocurrency in some way, most buy it as a speculative investment, not for its originally intended purpose \u2014 as a way to pay for goods and services.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not happening,\u201d Dan Dolev, a financial technology analyst for Mizuho Securities, said of the notion that crypto is replacing cold hard cash. \u201cI wouldn\u2019t even try to quantify it because it\u2019s so insignificant. People are buying crypto because they think it can only go up. Or because they\u2019ve heard it\u2019s the future. Or because they don\u2019t know why they\u2019re buying it.\u201d [WaPo<\/strong><\/a>]<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

For all the hype, yes, I think it’s true: hype. This continues to exhibit the signs of, well, to be quite frank after 30 years of investing or more, a pump and dump<\/em> scheme. One red flag is the appearance of a lack of utility, as in either no real product or a very questionable product, and as I’ve noted before, I fail to see the unique and indispensable utility cryptocurrency brings to the financial landscape. The other big red flag? The big talkers talking it up:<\/p>\n

Billionaire tech executive Michael Saylor has called bitcoin \u201cthe seminal invention of the human race.\u201d His website describes it as \u201ca bank in cyberspace\u201d offering a \u201csimple, & secure savings account to billions of people.\u201d He recently claimed ownership of 17,732 bitcoin worth about $740 million.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Simple & secure, yet it depends on the continued existence and availability of the Internet. The latter is a big question mark, isn’t it, and there are times when I wonder if the Internet is really worth its trouble. He glosses more than one crack in the cement. And it appears he doesn’t do it well:<\/p>\n

But one thing Saylor cannot do with bitcoin is pay for the $18 shrimp cocktail at Tony and Joe\u2019s Seafood Place several floors below his penthouse apartment on Washington\u2019s Georgetown waterfront. Though Tony and Joe\u2019s has an ATM that can convert cash into bitcoin, the restaurant won\u2019t accept it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would take Monopoly money before I took cryptocurrency,\u201d said a manager, who declined to give his name.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Whoever this manager is, he may not have Saylor’s billions, but he’s the one who has to make his business run. I find it telling that he, along with millions of other people, aren’t interested in cryptocurrency as a basic currency, but only, if even that, as a wildly speculative investment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The question continues to ring true, at least in my ears. But for all the hype, there\u2019s scant evidence that digital currencies stand on the threshold of some kind of mainstream breakthrough. While a recent Pew Research Center survey found that 16 percent of Americans have used cryptocurrency in some \u2026 Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35038","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35038","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35038"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35038\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35451,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35038\/revisions\/35451"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}