this post was submitted on 24 Jul 2024
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Smart move for any liberated, international organization. Esp as inflation continues to impoverish people. Move into the future.
Bitcoin's value is significantly more volatile than the US Dollar.
Not to mention the obscene fees with using it. Crypto is rife with issues.
Volatile means that in the short term, some may win, and some may lose.
The multi-year trend though, still beats inflation hands down.
What if I want to buy a cheese sandwich today with BTC?
A cheese sandwich can remain the same fixed price in dollars for years, with only the relatively slow change in actual value due to inflation.
I've seen BTC swing 10% in 24 hours. Does the cheese-sandwich-maker have to look up the rate this instant and calculate a spot price for me?
Will they have more or less dollars at the end of the day, when they need to pay their bills and buy more cheese from their suppliers?
"Just buy cheese from someone who takes BTC", doesn't help, it just kicks the can further down the road.
"Just add a bit of a buffer in the price to take fluctuations into account", means that I go buy a cheese sandwich with dollars from next door because it's 50 cents cheaper for the same thing.
As an investment vehicle, BTC is doing hot laps of the track, but until its volatility issues are sorted and it becomes "boring", it's not going anywhere as an actual currency.
If you want to beat inflation, dump the money in a high-yield savings account, or a 401k, or a stock index, or any of the other options that have something resembling banking protection/regulation. There are so many better options than a speculative investment that you lose entirely with a social engineering attack or a SIM swap.
Lower risk, lower reward. Keep in mind that 401k is not 100% guaranteed either.
SIM swap? You mean like SMS 2FA? (don't use SMS 2FA, BTW).
Anyway, if your risk scenario includes a "wallet inspector", you definitely shouldn't buy Bitcoin, or carry money around.
Nobody is going to SIM swap you unless you have a shitload of crypto and let everyone know about it. It's not an easy attack, so it would have to be targeted. Pretty easy to not be a target (not having millions of dollars of crypto on a wallet helps).
I want to have a shitload of crypto and let everyone know about it... where do I post my receiving address...? 😅
Anyway, my point was more about not using a SIM as a security mechanism, ever. It wasn't designed as one, and still isn't.
As for being a target... something like 2 years ago, I had a chance to get a glimpse at a C&C panel for some malware. It didn't bother checking your balance, just vacuumed all and every password from every app on an infected phone, along with all sorts of data about the phone, SIM, SIM2, etc. Cloning a SIM is so easy, they'll do it just to get your $50 worth of NFTs.
I… can’t tell if this is sarcasm?
I don't think it is.