It includes but doesn't necessarily mean those things. It also means "off the books", "under the table", "unofficial", legal status unclear, or innocuous practices that are technically illegal but everyone does it. This is a way of life for most people in those places.
Yes, I agree. Right now Monero is just an intermediary tool to get fiat. What I'm saying is where will the cash market go as it continues phasing out? Probably stable coins like USDT and USDC at first. We already see this. But when regulations start tightening around those, and freezing becomes much more common, there are not many options left aside from Monero.
I can only think of one other; DAI. It is permissionless, but it is backed in large part by permissioned stables that could destabilize it by freezing any collateral DAI holds. Also, as chain analysis industry grows, and tools for them improve, there will be a greater need for privacy and anonymity which DAI does not provide.
I don't think it is likely that Monero will ever be adopted at large, but a significant chunk of the economy outside of white markets seems very plausible imo.
Or whatever Monero-like crypto that may usurp it in the future that has the same properties; private, anonymous, fungible, untraceable, cheap to transact, and permissionless
To be honest, I don't really understand stable coins , they still have to be exchanged for cash on an exchange like any other crypto right? What is the purpose of them other than to remove problems with speculation? Maybe you can explain that to me please?
No, stable coins don't have to be exchanged for cash you can send them directly to people or swapped. Much easier to move than digital fiat rails. They have no privacy or anonymity, but most people don't care about that 🤷♂️ They are pegged to $1 USD so are very popular in the global south in countries in Asia, Africa, South America, etc. because their local fiat currencies are much worse in comparison.
You can also use them to "lock-in" your bull market gains if you're a trader and expecting your shitcoins are going to crash soon.
Most stables are permissioned and centralized; USDT/USDC your transactions can be frozen. It is still pretty rare occurrence but becoming more frequent. DAI is the only major one that is permissionless if you use it on ETH.
Another big problem is USDT and USDC collateral cannot be audited by anyone and supply is centralized. Tether can arbitrarily print new stable coins on a whim. People using them just have to take their word that they are good for it. Obviously I have no trust in them at all, but I can understand why some people find them useful in the short term for certain things.
Thanks for the explanation. Seems its essentiually the same as changing crypo for fiat on an exchange (but more like a lightning channel for it). Ie a bit more convenient, delayed cash out. As you say anything that requires a similar level of trust as centralized exchange is unappealing. Might as well just use paypal.
I don't think these people really "cash out" their stables for fiat. They hold them and use them like just like cash to buy, sell, and trade. Even at businesses and shops around them.
Which businesses and shops accept stable coins? I figured at some point you have to change them for fiat unless the only thing you want to buy is black market goods.
You can search for some examples at cryptwerk.com, but the list is quite incomplete there.
many of these use just bitpay ( eg scan) thats just the same as using a crypto > fiat exchange. Scan don't even see the crypto, only the fiat. Its all fiat an KYC.
I don't see bitpay as often as coinpayments, cryptomus, bitcart, whitebit and others that just allow you to send crypto directly from your own wallet to the specified address.
you have to signup and register to use coinpayments, its not permisionless, its custodial.
cryptomus is the same. The whole point of crypto is to have permissionless direct payments, not to rely on 3rd party buinesses providing custodial services . So again, I ask where can buy something with crypto directly online as per the orginal vision of Satoshi, with no custodial third party ?
Bitcart is fully self-hosted. Servers Guru uses it, as an example.
https://bitcart.ai
Fully self-hosted and open-source, servers.guru uses it, as an example.
Local shops and businesses. It's very common everywhere in those places.
Still, your address isn't tied to your name (and it won't if you do everything right) and if your balance doesn't exceed six figures (which it shouldn't if you do everything right) then you're much less likely to be noticed by Tether than by your local bank/govt in case of paypal.
But what can you actually BUY with stable coins (or any crypto) apart from a vpn subscription?
Servers, domains (although that's more rare), virtual numbers (even esims), refills or vouchers for many existing services, and, in some countries, there even are proxy stores that allow you to buy anything physical from ebay/amazon without disclosing your payment data to them.
AFAIK there is no possibility of targeted freezing of USDT-TRC20 transactions on the token smart contract level.
Is there any proof that it can ever be done on the Tron network?
You might be right, but I don't know enough about Tron to say. If it is impossible to freeze on Tron I would like to know too
I think USDT is pretty popular on Tron iirc
Ok. I studied the USDT contract again and it looks like yes, the contract owner has a possibility to blacklist individual Tron addresses as well. Nasty. https://tronscan.org/#/contract/TR7NHqjeKQxGTCi8q8ZY4pL8otSzgjLj6t/code
Ok well damn. In that case I think DAI is the only major stable coin smart contract on ETH that cannot be frozen. Maybe Solana has one? Not sure. But if the chain itself is freezable than the smart contract doesn't matter afaik. If you find another lmk
I mean, Tron chain itself is not freezable, it's in the smart contract logic. Same picture for USDC. But yes, I have no idea what to use instead of USDT-TRC20 yet, and Ethereum chain is too greedy in terms of fees IMO.
Solana tokens are all freezable by design as far as I see.
I wasn't implying Tron was freezable I was speaking about blockchains in general. Yea, ETH too expensive to use all the time or for small amounts. You can use DAI on ETH L2s but those are all ruggable (but still permissionless. i think?). I'm just barely starting to look into Solana, but I think you are right.
You can also weigh the risks and just continue using USDT on Tron for now. Not ideal, but I think freezes are still pretty rare so very unlikely to happen to you (but they are getting relatively more frequent). I wouldn't keep any major amounts on it though of course.
I see what you mean about when cash disapears monero may be all thats left for the black market, and if that can never be exchanged for digital fiat on an exchange (which it likely won't) then white market goods (say food ) may start to appear on black markets, else those selling balck market goods won't really be able to live of their profits. But still purchase of other things like utilities, cars and houses aren't really possible that way . Black market sellers will still struggle to spend their monero profits on things they actually need. Fiat isn't going to disappear, but when paper cash disappears, maybe what happens is that black markets just shrink or disapear as crypto becomes pretty useless for buying things you need to live off. Some may see this as a good thing. Of course any country who doesn't get rid of cash or legalises monero as currency could cash in on this, as El Salvador is doing with bitcoin. Then again they risk get invaded or overthrown in a coup de tat via the US foreign policy. As we have seen in many countries that have attempted to change their currency or petro dollar to something else. eg Libya..
I think the lessons from history is whenever governments grow more restrictive, what was once allowable white market activity, now rushes out of it into black markets because prices rise (and thus profits rise - think of large black markets that arose in USSR). Like a hand gently cupping water versus a fist squeezing it. So ironically, if black markets and Monero usage remain small, that is probably a good thing because it means white markets havent grown too restrictive and oppressive.
Yes, for those reasons you say I doubt any country will adopt Monero in any real sense. It is against government interest of power and control. Smaller governments are easy centralized targets. There was a head to cut off. There is no one to go threaten or invade to shutdown Monero. The same reasons they tried and failed to dispose of torrents.
'I don't think it is likely that Monero will ever be adopted at large, but a significant chunk of the economy outside of white markets seems very plausible imo.'
I believe silk road markets are already preferring use of Monero over bitcoin. And I expect they would also prefer cash over bitcoin too!
When society will be cashless, it will not be possible to cash out, so eventually, Monero will be used in a shadow circular economy and this shadow economy will probably become bigger and bigger :wink_wink:
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