what do you ACTUALLY use crypto for? because im starting to think its just a casino chip with a "future of money" story on top

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StoicCrypto

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Been in crypto for years now and had a slightly uncomfortable realisation this week. I sat down and worked out what I actually use it for, honestly:
1. Gambling - my casino bankroll lives in stablecoin​
2. Holding - a bit of BTC as a long-term bet I don't touch​
3. Trading - occasionally, badly​

And that's it. I have never once paid for a real thing with it. Not groceries, not a bill, not rent - all still boring old fiat. The "currency" and "future of payments" stuff I bought into years ago, I've never actually lived.

So genuine question, not baiting: does anyone here actually LIVE on crypto for everyday things? Or is "everyday spending" still a story we tell ourselves while it's really just a speculation-and-gambling asset?
 
you've just said out loud what 99% of the space wont. its gambling and speculation wearing a "payments revolution" hat. nobody you actually know pays for their weekly shop in bitcoin, and after 15 years of being told its two years away, they never will
 
hey speak for yourselves, i pay for LOADS with crypto. got a stablecoin card, tap and go, works anywhere visa does. bought my lunch with it today. this is a boomer cope from people who last checked in 2015 🤷
 
cryptowine said:
got a stablecoin card, tap and go
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The card is the important detail though, and it slightly undercuts the point. When you "tap and go" you aren't really spending crypto - the card sells your USDC for dollars at the moment of the swipe and the merchant receives normal fiat. They never touch crypto and often don't know it was involved.
That's useful, I'm not knocking it. But it's "I hold stablecoins and a card cashes them out per purchase", not the peer-to-peer digital cash dream. The dollar still has to reappear at the till for anything to actually happen.
 
Let me put some current numbers on StoicCrypto's instinct, because they back it up almost exactly. Stablecoins are a genuinely large market now - around $323 billion in total supply, roughly 316 million people holding them. But when you break down what that money is actually DOING, merchant payments - i.e. buying things - are only about 5% of stablecoin activity. Trading and DeFi are around 67%, cross-border remittances about 15%.

So the everyday-spending use case is real, but it is tiny. The rails move trillions of dollars a year and almost none of it is somebody buying a coffee. Your three-item list isn't a personal failing - it's the whole market in miniature.
 
hats the stat i was feeling without being able to name. 5%. so collectively we're a trading-and-gambling asset with a small payments demo bolted on the side, telling everyone the demo is the product. that reframes a lot for me honestly
 
You've invented money you can't buy a pint with, that needs a special plastic card to briefly become real money at the till, and whose single most popular use is losing it in an online casino. And you have the nerve to call the pound outdated. Extraordinary!!
 
wait so can i actually buy stuff with my crypto or does it have to turn into real pounds first?? 😭 asking for a genuinely confused friend (okok for me)
 
bitvadol said:
wait so can i actually buy stuff with my crypto or does it have to turn into real pounds first?? 😭 asking for a genuinely confused friend (okok for me)
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you still rofl bout your £12? lol dont bother. but if seriously your options are: a stablecoin card (overkill for a tenner), sell it back to fiat on an exchange minus fees, or hunt for one of the few places that take crypto direct. all more faff than its worth at that size. for a casino bankroll most people just leave it in stablecoin and cash out to fiat when they want actual spendable money. crypto for spending small amounts is genuinely more hassle than a debit card, thats just the honest truth
 
here in Brazil and specially in Argentina is very different because the local money it lose the value so fast that the people they actually keep the USDT like is a dollar in the pocket and they use it for real to save and to send to the family and to pay some things because is more stable than the money from the bank so for us the stablecoin is not a toy or a speculation it is actually the money that hold the value better than what we have and this is the part that the people in EU and the US they don't understand because their money is already stable so they don't need it bit for us who live with the inflation USDT is a real everyday thing not a future dream
 
Mario's describing the one genuine mass-market payment use case, and it's worth everyone reading it twice. USDT is used as everyday cash across Latin America - Argentina especially - and parts of Africa, specifically because the local currency is worse. A dollar-token beats a peso losing 40% a year.
That's the real product-market fit. Not replacing the euro or the dollar where those work fine, but replacing broken currencies where they don't. And note it's a STABLECOIN doing it, not bitcoin - bitcoin's far too volatile to hold your grocery money in.
 
Hexdek16 said:
Mario's describing the one genuine mass-market payment use case, and it's worth everyone reading it twice. USDT is used as everyday cash across Latin America - Argentina especially - and parts of Africa, specifically because the local currency is worse. A dollar-token beats a peso losing 40% a year.
That's the real product-market fit. Not replacing the euro or the dollar where those work fine, but replacing broken currencies where they don't. And note it's a STABLECOIN doing it, not bitcoin - bitcoin's far too volatile to hold your grocery money in.
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exactly, USDT already IS everyday money for a huge chunk of the world. the "you cant buy groceries" thing is such a comfortable western take from people whose currency happens to work. billions of people would love our problems 🤷
 
well i can actually give you that one, credit where its due. in a country running 100%+ inflation a dollar token beats the local peso, obviously.
but notice that PROVES my point more than yours. people there use it because their MONEY is broken, not because crypto beat a functioning currency in a fair fight. the day their peso stabilised they'd be back to it in a heartbeat. its an emergency exit, not a better front door
 
and the other thing is nobody want to spend bitcoin because if it go up later then you lose, is like famous pizza, the man he pay 10000 bitcoin for two pizza long time ago and now that bitcoin is worth many many millions so now everybody is afraid to spend and they only hold and wait, so how can it be a money if you are scared to use it, a real money you spend it every day but this one you must keep it and pray, so is not really a currency it is more like a gold or a lottery ticket that you are holding
 
yep the pizza guy is the whole argument in one story. 10,000 btc for two pizzas. everyone tells it as a joke but it's actually the reason nobody spends bitcoin - why would you buy a coffee with something you think is going to 10x? it's not money if you're too scared to cash it. thats a lottery ticket with a wallet
 
seems like we ended that bitcoin = a store-of-value bet you hold and specifically DON'T spend,
while stablecoins = actual usable money, but mostly for people whose real money is broken, or for moving cash across borders
and for the rest of us in stable-currency countries - a trading token and a casino chip with a great story attached

"currency of the future" framing was always the weakest part and i think i just needed to admit it
 
to be fair to the optimists, the plumbing IS getting built now. stripe merchants can take usdc, paypal runs its own stablecoin across loads of markets, US passed an actual stablecoin law last year so its got a legal framework, and the cards are getting smoother. so "spending it" is slowly getting less painful. but "the infrastructure exists" and "people actually use it for their shopping" are miles apart. right now its still overwhelmingly trading, gambling, and moving money across borders. time for coffee thing might come, its just not here, and pretending its here is why nobody trusts crypto people on timelines
 
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