Using USDC to purchase weapons of any kind, including but not limited to firearms, ammunition, knives, explosives, or related accessories are prohibited by Circle’s terms.
Big deal?
I think yes. If you're American, you'd probably be very much triggered by something very obvious on that list and if you're not American, not being allowed to buy knives with USDC will certainly come off as insane to you.
Yet, this is what we have to deal with, when it comes to centralized businesses.
Today it's knives, but what will it be tomorrow?
How will the terms evolve and how might that threaten your accumulated wealth?
People vastly underestimate the importance of having sole control over one's finance, maybe because most haven't yet experienced what it's like to have everything forcefully taken away and deemed legal.
But we can bet what we have left as freedom that if we allow centralized stablecoins to become the default, with no strong, several decentralized alternatives, we will eventually get to find out for ourselves how it feels.
It may seem like we won the war against CBDCs on paper but the truth is that stablecoins, being dominated by centralized traditional businesses makes no difference, the same governance system controls it and last I checked, this is exactly what we can't have, especially moving into an era where finance is completely digital, what we popularly call the cashless economy.
It is beyond crucial that we get down to understanding the risk of letting ourselves trust putting our money or wealth into these centralized stablecoins, it isn't worth the convenience that may exist today.
It is things like this that makes me wonder what goes on in the minds of Bitcoin maximalists when they say that BTC is a store of value and not a payments currency, the whole digital-gold bullshit.
I have come across people saying things like “save in bitcoin, pay with USDC” and it's peak comedy because nothing about bitcoin makes it suitable for savings. If you're going to put money into bitcoin, you best understand that it is not a savings account and treat it accordingly. And making payments in stablecoins?
Well, you can pay for a lot of things except knives, apparently. The fact that we've lost our way so much that we no longer want to build towards a future where decentralized currencies and assets are leading payments is beyond disappointing.
The DeFi promise is taking back control of our finances and we best understand that centralized stablecoins are not DeFi.