CNN heralds a cashless society, as Bitcoin and the cryptocurrency world are getting mainstream help with infrastructure and onboarding! Legacy (fiat) financial corporations see cryptos as the future, and PayPal is following Square in setting up ways for users to buy, sell, and trade crypto on their services. This is expected to bring in untold billions of profits, which will come from fees and exchange rates paid by the user. So is money actually being made, or just taken? And who is doing the taking? The financial giants, as usual. This move does NOT increase the privacy of cryptos, nor does it increase their decentralization! This is exactly the opposite direction crypto wants to be going. This is turning crypto into just another fiat instrument to be used against the people.
PayPal has long operated as a bank when it wants to, and not as a bank when it doesn't want to. That's how they get around banking regulations, which already allow financial abuse of the public. Square (and other digital fiat payment platforms) have grown unchecked in the wake of this new and uncharted financial paradigm.
I would know. I used PayPal for 15 years and it was the only digital payment method my business offered. I paid tens of thousands of dollars in fees, and received literally zero customer support. In fact, the only 2 things PayPal was good for, was receiving funds, and giving them right back to customers who filed a chargeback. Even if I had proof of shipping, PayPal always ruled in the favour of the customer, which many fraudsters soon realized, and it was open season on any seller accepting PayPal. Year after year, I lost money to fraudulent chargeback scams, and there was nothing I could do about it. PayPal loves it - they get paid no matter what, and by buying out competitors (with my funds), they cornered the market, ensuring I had to continue using them.
Now, PayPal (and others) intend to pull the same crap in the cryptocurrency world.
In today's article by CNN titled Cash is Slowly Dying, the state's propaganda outlet announced that "it's no longer about the Benjamins" and that companies like PayPal will serve as the world's financial backbone from now on.
Cryptos are mentioned in the latter half of the short article, in the context of being accepted by PayPal and other corporations as an exciting profit vehicle. (No mention of the fact these companies have been actively fighting AGAINST cryptos for the past 10 years.)
We're going the wrong way!
Cryptocurrency is supposed to bring privacy and decentralization to currency and financial transactions. If cryptos aren't private or decentralized, what makes them cryptos, and not just another virtual currency, like FaceBook's proposed Libra or Walmart's "Currency 202"?
As I've highlighted in my ongoing Crypto Lunch series, there is STILL no way to use cryptos privately or decentralized! That's a big problem!
How are cryptos supposed to onboard the billions of unbanked, if PayPal is doing it first, and better? Will they not capture this market, like they've captured so many others? Will they not operate as a bank when they want to, and not as a bank when they don't want to? Will they not monopolize the market by destroying or buying all competition? And will they not profit at the market's expense, driving up the cost of doing business?
It may already be too late, but the crypto world might have one last chance to get private and decentralized - and to build infrastructure people can actually use - or be swept into the dustbin of history, as unregulated financial giants swarm into the sector with billions of freshly created fiat dollars to buy up everything and everyone.
This is our stand, our moment. Why do we hesitate as the state systematically envelops and dominates cryptos, ensuring they can't threaten the fiat control system?
DRutter
