I know lemmy hates crypto (and there’s plenty to hate) but this is why it’s important. We need a decentralized alternative to CBDCs

Yes it’s not the most privacy oriented, but it’s a very easy one to start.

You’ve said you want privacy and Wallet Connect. Wallet Connect is pretty much exclusive to the Ethereum ecosystem, which is the largest crypto ecosystem in terms of what you can do with your crypto. You can easily invest your crypto and earn interest on it, or gamble in online casinos, or invest in crypto companies. But it’s also not the most private system. For example, if you send money to someone, they will be able to see all your transaction history. There are privacy solutions within the Ethereum ecosystem, but they’re more complicated and I wouldn’t suggest starting out with those until you’re more comfortable.

If privacy is your main objective and you only want to be able to receive crypto and send it, you’ll want to look at the Bitcoin, Monero, or ZCash ecosystems. Bitcoin is not super private, but better than Ethereum. Monero transactions are all completely private, and ZCash lets you chose to send money privately of publicly. Another downside of these blockchains is you can only use their default coin (BTC, XMR, or ZEC).

If that’s the case you can just set up a new wallet. Crypto is different than web2 services (Google, Facebook, etc). You don’t have an “account” with a specific wallet. Your account is on the blockchain and wallets are just a frontend for accessing it. Multiple wallets can be used for the same account.* And it’s not like there’s a username and password stored somewhere. If you never used your account, it’s like it never existed.

So feel free to set up a new wallet if you want to get into crypto! I’d suggest Trust Wallet on mobile. It’s a pretty beginner friendly wallet.

*There are exceptions to this but for most wallets that’s the case

Are you trying to remember the name of the wallet so you can recover the funds? If you still have the seed phrase, it likely doesn’t matter what wallet you used. Most wallets support the same seed phrase standards.

Boo! Stamps are way more fun!

At this rate, everyone in Toronto will be homeless by 2050 /s

I don’t have any stats or anything, but I lived in China in 2018 and would see them on my way to work. Usually amputees dressed in very sad attire with a QR code on the ground in front of them. My coworkers told me not to give them money because all the money is going to organized crime groups that manage all the beggars in town. I have no idea if this is true, but I heard it multiple times

In China where digital payments are done mostly via apps like Venmo, there are beggars with QR codes in front of them. However they’re mostly being used by organized crime rings

CBDCs would grant immense power to the state. They would know every purchase you make and have the ability to block specific transactions or even freeze your account fully. It’s an authoritarian’s dream.

Stablecoins have drawbacks too, and the state could exercise control over them somewhat. But blockchains have more property rights and privacy (although not total privacy) built into it by default. It would be much more difficult for a state to overcome those hurdles.

Totally hear you — crypto isn’t perfect, and yeah, hoarding happens just like in any system. But that’s more a human problem than a crypto one.

Crypto is a tool, and how it is used is what matters. It can be used to speculate on ridiculous monkey JPEGs, or scam people or it can be used to send money across borders without middlemen, resist censorship, and invest without being subject to the big banks.

It’s not a silver bullet, but it does open up new possibilities that the current system just doesn’t.

Don’t worry about the downvotes bro. Lemmy has a knee jerk aversion to crypto, even though the ideals of the fediverse and the ideals of crypto are very much aligned

I know lemmy is super anti-crypto, but digital dollars are probably inevitable, and stablecoins are vastly preferable to a CBDC

Milei gets compared to the populist right in other countries a lot (Trump, Orban, etc) but he’s really a more old school libertarian. In a country as rife with corruption and financial mismanagement as Argentina, it seems like a bit of libertarianism was what they needed

To take the other side (not sure I agree):

Iran is unique in that it is run by a government that claims to be Islamic fundamentalists. This could make mutually assured destruction less effective if the ones launching the nukes truly believe that if they die in the retaliation they will go to heaven with their 72 virgins.

I’m not convinced that the Ayatollah is ok dying in the name of killing infidels, but I do see the merits of this argument.

There are multiple models for teaching that do something similar, let kids approach a subject when they’re ready. Yes, they goof off a lot early on, but eventually even STEM and literature call to them, and they pass equivalency exams in their late teens.

Can you link to some more information on this? I’m curious about alternative education models

If you want to use it in place of airlines, you need high-speed rail. Something that the US has basically none of

Something like 30% of the US lives in the strip between Washington DC and Boston. It’s absolutely achievable for the richest country on Earth to provide high speed rail in that section.

I know lemmy is quite anti-crypto, but CBDCs seem much more dangerous to me

This is definitely a scam. I guess it was inevitable these would come to lemmy, but it’s still a shame

I don’t like it. I might be able to get on board with read-access to my brain (especially if I end up paralyzed or something) if I felt the tech was secure enough, but I’d be very worried about abuse of write access (writing in loyalty to the community party, for example)