Personally, I've always greatly valued privacy and decentralization, paying for everything with cash, even as doing so has been made harder and harder, as we push toward a fully cashless society. I made the decision long ago not to use a smart device, and instead have a PC and wired internet connection, as well as a land line phone. Additionally, I've long been a student of monetary theory. So the emergence of crypto in 2011 piqued my interest in a way that nothing else had for some time. And as I detailed in last week's post, I'm looking into putting crypto into regular use in my daily life. But I encountered a problem.
Now, I don't require payment methods I use to keep me perfectly anonymous, but if a cryptocurrency offers no more (and often, less) privacy than fiat currency, what makes it a crypto? And why would I want to use it?
I set out last week to begin the process of making a living as a content-creator, something I've been doing for free for 15+ years. My plan is to scale up my crypto income, and find a way to - privately - spend it on things I need, starting with lunch.
I have a Bitcoin wallet, but there's nobody near me selling meals directly for Bitcoin.
The Steem and Hive blockchains allow me to potentially earn cryptos and tokens for posting my original content, and curating that of others. I have the mechanisms in place to transfer and convert into Bitcoin, by far the most used and accepted of the cryptocurrencies.
But that still doesn't get me lunch.
Several shops within walking distance of my house accept debt and credit cards in exchange for groceries and produce, which I can prepare into a delicious lunch. A few of these shops also accept fiat cash. Unfortunately, none accept Bitcoin yet.
I need a way to convert my Bitcoin into fiat cash, spend my balance with a debit card that converts to digital fiat, or use it to buy a prepaid credit card. THEN I can buy the groceries and prepare the lunch.
It seems that at least one of these routes should be possible, but my research - and appeals to the community - have thus far found nothing that respects privacy.
I can easily convert between currencies, and I can buy and sell various precious metals, and as long as I don't go over $3000 at a time, I remain anonymous. But as soon as I want to include cryptocurrency in my life, I have to give up my privacy, and use the centralized entities I'm trying to move away from?
I'm one of the world's billions of unbanked humans, many of whom also don't have recent government-issued ID. Currently, we use the local fiat cash to get things we need we can't produce ourselves. As governments everywhere move to eliminate cash forever, most of these 2 billion will be forced to accept whatever digital fiat replacement is offered, since they don't have the ID or bank account to use cryptos.
I'm not eating a crypto lunch quite yet, but we're no further behind than we were! We've defined exactly what we need to complete the chain from Bitcoin to sandwich, and getting more eyes on the problem. Maybe somebody with a keen mind who sees this will know of a product or service that will do what we need, or open up options. Maybe something is being worked on right now, or just being launched?
Until then, we'll continue to gather cryptos toward the lunch, and seek help from within the community.
Last week's Hive post brought in $5.29 ($2.68 for the author). This was paid out as 5.613 HIVE and 1.339 HBD (which was converted into HIVE). The Steem post brought in $0.32 for the author, paid out as 1.442 STEEM and 0.29 SBD, converted into STEEM.
BTC: 0
HIVE: 11.226
STEEM: 2.878
CAD: 0
USD: 0
Thank you to those who pitched in with an upvote!
All you need to do is follow along, enjoy the weekly adventure. But hopefully readers and curators will provide some crypto, to make the whole process happen! Here are a few ways to do that:
While we're waiting for lunch, here's an appetizer of fresh salty french-fries...
