🎓 Dr. Freemo 🇳🇱 @freemo@social.cleverlibre.org

@mur2501 On what topic?

@omicron to some extent that is true here. That being that the credit score really isnt what people making loans look at, they look at your actual history.

@EmbraceTheGray@social.privacytools.io My credit history is great, and its really only a 7$ a month fee, which is stupid but its not enough money to even care about if it keeps my credit high. If i were to cancel it then it might only lower my score a few points, so bankruptcy isnt an issue either way.

@dajbelshaw They dont need it explained. Just as people dont need to understand the technicals of how a credit card works... All people need to know to use a credit card is to hand someone the card and go "use this". Crypto is no different.

We already have visa credit cards backed with crypto. We already have bank debit cards that store your money as crypto to back it. So there really doesnt need to be any understanding, they just tell their bank "keep my money as crypto not USD" and other than that everything is the same as before, except now they make 5x the interest plus whatever the value of the crypto itself rises. For those more technical though they can skip the bank entierly.

@dajbelshaw cant last forever, no, eventually it will stabalize. But considering we have the first test of replace fiat at a government level completely with crypto in a province in japan, paypal now accepts it, and dozens of major chains I think its clear its heading to the point where it will be as common as paying with credit cards in the very near future.

So I think you will see a **huge** increase in its value (investors might make 10x - 100x their investment if they get in now, if not more) before it stablizes. So while it cant last, I agree, we are a long ways away from it reaching that point.

Keep in mind crypto is breaking through to main stream adoption right at the same time we are in full recovering from COVID which is virtually over now thanks to the vaccines. So economic boom in general is happening that just further fuels the transition to crypto which was already booming.

@mur2501 Wasn't planning on it.

Ya know, the credit score system in america, while a good idea in principle, is really setup in such a stupid way.

One thing that really bugs me is one of the factors that effects your credit score is the age of your oldest account and the average age of your accounts. In other words if you cancel your oldest credit card, assuming thats your oldest account, your credit score will go down.

So for me my oldest account is 20 years old and its a really shitty secured credit card I got when I was building my credit. I had to pay 300$ to secure it (which i get back if I cancel) and it has only a 300$ limit, so it is useless to me. Moreover I have to pay 7$ every month to keep it. Worse yet the interest rate if i Put anything on it is insane. In every way its a bad investment and I should cancel it. But if I do that my credit will take a hit. So here I am forced to make a bad financial decision just to keep my credit score maxed out.... so fucking stupid.

@Hyolobrika

What I do is use a bank called revolut. They allow me to instantly exchange between fiat and crypto at no fee. This is my day-to-day spending. So i keep a few hundred as USD, then a few thousand as ethereum and only move my ethereum to USD when i need it. Then spend with my bank card.

If you want to spend with your crypto directly then you can use binance.com if your out of the USA to get a bank card backed by crypto, or you can get crypto.com as well. Or you can just use paypal or companies that take crypto directly.

As for actual cryptos that meet all your criteria, sadly we are still on our way to some of those goals with a clear path and timeline but not all there yet. The reason being the coins that truely match all your criteria are new and in development so not really supported to buy things which seems to be limited to only the most popular coins like ethereum or bitcoin. But they will be major players very soon.

Ethereum is probably your closest match as they are transitioning to proof-of-work so they will soon satisfy point and are ok-ish on your other points. However I'd keep an eye on cardano, it is still in development, though stable as a currency, and right out of the gate seeks to satisfy all your requirements. Just needs to get a bit farther along before it becomes mainstream enough hat you can buy things with it directly.

Keep in mind im investing, so im betting onw here things are going. I am not trying to say cryptocoins **are** mainstream yet, but they are very clearly breaking through to mainstream now and headed there quickly. So from an investment standpoint they are the no brainer choice. From a consumer standpoint they arent the best yet but are very quickly getting there.

@v4ngu4rd

@retiolus I agree entierly. Most people think bitcoin is kind of the default option and the way to go.

Though keep in mind popular perception is a bit misleading. The best way to objectively measure the popularity of a coin is to look at its market cap. Ethereum has a market cap of ~250M while bitcoin has ~1T.. So bitcoin is only 4x more popular than ethereum. Moreover I am certain that given enough time (years maybe) bitcoin will die and other cryptos will take its place. The reason being that bitcoin functionally and technologically speaking is archaic and offers none of the advantages of modern crypto like smart contracts.

I think the best proof of the fact that ethereum and other modern coins are on their way to replace bitcoina nd eventually kill it is to just look at the growth rate. Over the last 365 days Ethereum's price as went up 12.5x compare that to bitcoin over the same time period which increased only 7x

You will make money investing in bitcoin for sure, and that will continue for some time. But you will make a lot more investing in the rival crypto. So while you might hear about bitcoin more the truth is, the market knows bitcoin is not the long term winner here.

@v4ngu4rd I dont hold any monero, so I dont personally feel its a great investment choice. That said its price has spiked along with every other crypto the last 3 months, so i could be wrong. Obviously you invest in what feels right to you.

@v4ngu4rd Ok so as far as I'm concerned there are a few options here that I use, one depends on where you are located.. ill go through each and mention the pros and cons.

### The choices

**Coinbase** - This is the most popular of the options. Its main strength is that it makes it very quick and easy to deposit and withdraw cash. It uses ACH to link bank accounts so moving from crypto to cash is sort of instantaneous. While you can buy crypto with cash up to 25K per day instantly you have to keep the crypto in coinbase for a few days before transferring out, but the crypto starts earning its interest right away.

It also lets you exchange between cryptos and withdraw without any fees. Also if the crypto you buy has staking (it gains interest) they do this for you automatically when its in your account without the limitations of real staking (such as a cooldown period to withdraw after staking).

The big downside here, however, is that have a very limited set of cryptos you can buy and trade so if you want to deal in some of the less well known cryptos or tokens, or especially if you want to get in on new tokens just coming to the market then you dont have the option here.

**gate.io** - This is a proper exchange. To get money into the exchange you have to do a traditional wire transfer, which is the same way you get money out. Which means 1 - 3 days either way and is slow. On the plus side they have absolutely the largest variety of crypto coins and tokens to pick from. I find i use this service more than any others simply because more often than not its the only service I have access to that has the coin I need.

Fees are very low which is a plus, but since it is traded like stocks (you put a price limit) be careful you price your trade close to market price or else you can loose a big percentage just because you made a bad offer (selling a coin way cheaper than its worth).

Keep in mind also that you dont have to buy into this with fiat and do the wire transfer at all. If all you want to do is trade one crypto you already hold for another (say you bought them off coinbase for example), you can do that instantly. You can transfer your existing crypto into your gate account in minutes, trade it, then immediately transfer it back out, so it is very fast and affordable to exchange cryptos on the market.

**Binance** - This is similar to gate.io but I dont recomend it if you are in the US, its only really a decent option outside of the US and even then gate has a slight advantage IMO on the choice of cryptos. Basically in the US you are restricted to using binance.us which has a very small selection of cryptos, outside of the US you can use binance.com which has a fairly large selection of cryptos (though gate has a bit more).

The one advantage that might sell you on binance is they offer a credit card that is backed by your account. So you can literally spend cryptos anywhere a credit card is accepted. But I dont think they offer this on the US site.

**uniswap** - Uniswap is worth a mention because it is an exchange that exists entirely on the blockchain and is decentralized with no company controlling it or making profit off it. The way it works is people add "liquidity" to uniswap by offering pairs of tokens to the system and anytime someone makes a trade they get a percentage. So its a nice way to make a sort of "interest" off of your crypto. On the flip side you can use it to exchange your own cryptos with people without going through a proper exchange.

Two downsides to uniswap. First its only for exchanging ethereum or ethereum tokens, you cant trade ETH for bitcoin for example. However there are identical systems for other non ethereum chains that support tokens. For example BNB is a totally different cryptocurrency that like ethereum supports tokens. For exchanging BNB tokens you can use pancake swap.

One word of caution, uniswap and things like it tend to charge a flat rate between about 30$ to 50$ worth of crypto. Therefore it is only really an economic option when you are exchanging large quantities of coins.

**Trezor live** - One final mention. In the trezor live software that you use to manage a trezor hardware wallet (highly recommend you use one), there is a window where you can exchange tokens and coins with other people right in the GUI, you can also buy coins with your credit card in the GUI. So this isnt a bad option. However the selection is limited.

@v4ngu4rd

Oh and another question for me to be able to give you a good answer...

Do you plan to hold just one or two cryptocurencies? Or are you interested in holding a large variety of them for the purposes of investing?

The reason i ask is because there are different wallets (hardware, or software) that are suited for different scenarios.. hardware are way more secure but if you plan to spend your crypto like money they arent convenient they are more suited for storing large amounts (like a bank). I keep a software wallet with a tiny bit of just one crypto on my phone, this is my spending money. Then on my hardware wallet I have like 20 or 30 different cryptos stored and kept at home (with the backup in a safe at the bank).

@louiscouture I am kind of neutral to a store owner asking people to wear a mask inside.. His store his rules and in my mind he is making the rules he feels will get him the most customers, so its whatever.

But in principle the way I see it, each person should be worrying about their own protection. If you think masks are effective at protecting you wear a mask. If you think their only effective at protecting others, wear a face shield.. you have the means to cover up however you wish, thats on you, and not something you have a right to put a burden on others when you have the means to take care of yourself.

Generally I feel masks are overkill and idiotic outside of a few situations (for example if your going to interact with the elderly for an extended period of time, face to face, and interact directly a face mask makes sense. I also tend to feel that because of the unique situation of the general public in a epidemic where they wear a mask all day long that it in fact is likely to cause (indirectly mostly) the spread of the disease to be faster, rather than hinder it. There are several reason for this that I covered before but it basically revolves around the fact that while masks can be effective when used properly under strict rules (like never touching it, never pulling it down to your chin to drink, etc) these rules arent practiced by the public and thus increase disease spread. Moreover people wearing masks seem to feel more comfortable not abiding by social distancing which is more effective than the masks themselves.

@v4ngu4rd yes, but before i give a full answer what do you mean platform here? Are you talking about the buying/selling, the storage of it? the trading from one token to another? The using it to buy goods directly without needing to convert to fiat? Or all of the above? (generally each of these questions uses a different tool that all interconnect).

@retiolus No I don't The idea that it is bad for the earth is only true for the older cryptos, and most of those have migrated away from those techniques or are int he process of it. For example yes Bitcoin is horrible from a green perspective. While ethereum is still using old proof-of-work and for the moment is also horrible for the "earth" they are moving to proof of stake which is very energy friendly.

Likewise most newer coins like Cardano are proof of stake from the start, so this argument goes out the window.

That said I only hold coins that are either not proof-of-work or are int he process of migrating away from proof-of-work, so I'm good.

Man the crypto markets have been killing it for 3 months straight, nothing but up up up.. I made 3% on my investment overnight.

I feel like with the recent addition of crypto pay to paypal, plus Starbucks taking cryptocurrency and a few other major retailers this trends isnt going to change, if anything it is going to accelerate.

I really feel like we are on the verge of crypto breaking out to mainstream and seeing it as a payment method everywhere in the next year... Now is absolutely the time to start investing in crypto.

#Crypto #Cryptocurrency #investment #investing #money

@rlamacraft Yes you probably are, but my point is most of what your measuring likely is a one time expense that occurs the first time you call certain parts of the libraries after a page load.. After that it wont likely be so expensive.

If you do burn in before benchmarking you will likely measure a more realistic number as those few seconds should be a one-time deal.

What is the time the second third and 100th time you set the variable? Is it really 2 seconds every time?

@louiscouture I agree, but they are also less likely to take it to the same extreme as some americans too. They take it exactly as far as is reasonable.

Consider for example that half of ameicans during the pandemic were so extreme about it some wore double masks, I even saw some in full face shields. They would also harass, sometimes (rarely) to the point of violence anyone not wearing a mask. They would even deny non mask wearers access to stores. So this kind of represents the whole "some americans follow it but take it to an extreme"

On the flip side you have people who think the whole thing is some big conspiracy. No masks of course, but they also wont even social distance, or wash their hands, or take any precaution at all. And while I would say this falls under "lack of education" it isnt that simple. Many of these people were taught about viruses and washing your hands and what the peer reviewed research is... they just deny it and beleive its a conspiracy. Thats more of a paranoid delusion than education in some ways.

Meanwhile middle of the road people who take reasonable precautions and dont exaggerate the situation (like the nords) are a minority in america.