• LainTrain@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    7 days ago

    Sure the currency itself isn’t resistant to a run on itself but having some wealth in the currency will cushion a run on the real IRL banks for fiat currency.

    • Aceticon@lemmy.world
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      7 days ago

      Except that it’s so incredibly volatile that from one months to the next you literally don’t know if your crypto wealth will be worth twice as much or half as much.

      If what you’re trying to protect yourself from is runs on banks, you’de be better of with gold, works of art, even stocks (which are less volatile than crypto) or, even simpler, spread your money over several banks, ideally in more than one country.

    • Cethin@lemmy.zip
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      7 days ago

      Sure. Diversifying is good. There’s no need for crypto for that. Gold or other assets would protect you equally as well.

      If the advantage of crypto is something provided by many other things, without the disadvantages of crypto, then crypto shouldn’t be desired.

      • LainTrain@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        7 days ago

        Gold or other assets don’t necessarily protect you when you own them through government and more broadly not-wholly-independent-from the-government-financial-institutions, unless you have gold bars at your house, and even then, it’s not something you can transfer for payments easily.

        On the other hand cryptocurrencies are wholly independent from any institution whatsoever - truly for people by the people - and ones like XMR are actively resistant to them altogether. I don’t think Trump is going to be like Hitler, but if he were, I’d bet on something the government can’t really easily seize like a distributed decentralised ledger rather than a house or gold that can’t be liquidated quickly or transferred for another currency if I was e.g. a targeted minority.

        • Cethin@lemmy.zip
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          7 days ago

          Yeah, that’s obviously what I meant; having them in your possession. Yeah, crypto has the advantage of being easy to transfer. That’s the one advantage, with a ton of negatives.

          I don’t know if I’d say they’re independent from other institutions. Sure, they technically aren’t required, but the way they’re liquidated is largely through a small handful of institutions, which is essentially the same as a bank. If those run out of money then you’re largely fucked, just as with a fiat currency. There’s also the issue these are for-profit companies with no regulations requiring them to pay you if you want to cash out. If they see the price crashing, they’re just going to close their doors and keep their money.