RE: Do You WANT to Spend Your Crypto?
I've bought comics from @cryplectibles using Steem. Transaction was smooth, but it was very much the blockchain equivalent of a verbal agreement since there was no middle man like with PayPal or eBay to handle problems if they had cropped up. Fortunately, @cryplectibles is an honest seller (as are you), and I'd have no problem buying from either one of you in the future.
The biggest problem with spending crypto, as I see it, is the massive market swings in value. If you set a price at $10 and I give you $10 in cash, then I've spent $10 and you've earned $10. That's the same yesterday, today, or tomorrow.
On the other hand, if I pay you $10 in Steem, the value could jump sharply the next day, meaning I've actually given you the equivalent of $12, or the value could decline, meaning you received the equivalent of $8 for your item. This market volatility is likely the biggest obstacle facing consumers who want to spend crypto, and businesses who want to accept it as a payment type.
The adoption of a token that is worth a given amount of a certain crypto is probably the easiest work-around. Just like money printed before the creation of the Federal Reserve stated on face they were worth the equivalent of some value of precious metal like silver or gold, these tokens would work the same way: a $5 token would be worth the equivalent of $5 worth of Steem, whether Steem was trading at $1 or $7.
I've no idea if such a thing is workable with crypto, since the draw for many people is its non-reliance on any adopted standards, but I don't see widespread adoption of crypto payment services until this issue is tackled. :)
Well stated and makes a ton of sense. The insane swings definitely contribute to the problem of it not being used more.
It's a catch 22. Crypto is unlikely to see mainstream adoption while the volatility is there. The volatility is unlikely to be addressed until we start to see mainstream adoption.
This is pretty much how I feel. I wanted to add my own personal psychology though is I am more willing to spend "cheap" crypto (like STEEM) than BTC.
This is a weird way of looking at it and I know it isn't logical but in my mind I think FOMO is less with the cheaper cryptos because even at $4 it is still obtainable for 1 STEEM, as opposed to thousands for 1 BTC. There's some word for it that escapes me -- something about "digit preference" or something like that, where a person wants a whole amount of something. It's such a noob and illogical way of looking at BTC but I do think it matters to people.
I just bought my first Litecoin back last week when it went down and I don't want to spend it lol and I'm not even a LTC fan.
So what this says to me is a spendable crypto ideally should be affordable for people and make whole number amounts easily. That's what I suspect will be good for adoption. I do think STEEM is good for this. Just my opinion!
That's exactly what bitshares is. Sounds like something you might like. I need to look into it more myself. Perhaps with my next mining payout :)