It doesn't matter for English website because you usually send out emails with "Hi Joe".
Once you internationalize you will need this because in German it's an absolute no go to address a stranger by their first name (at least for B2B services).
And internationalization is on the road map for a lot of companies.
Huh I didn’t know that! So does it mean that websites internationalize even the salutations? Do they replace “Hi Joe” with “Good day Mr. Brown” in Germany?
It depends. If it started in an english speaking country, then more than likely not for a long time. If it started in a germanic one, it'd almost 100% be the last name.
It has less to do with where it started and more with the language and what field the business is operating in.
I was working for a UK steel supplier and they would address all their email recipients with their first name. We had to change this when internationalizing into German. If you want to sell to Germans you are much safer to use a more formal tone.
Slightly related to that is the formal and informal you that exists in a lot of languages.
I was also working for a German fashion startup mostly targeted at young women. In German it was fine to address everyone by first name and the informal you, but when translated the page to French, we could keep the first name but had to change the informal you to the formal one.
You may wanna read up on honorifics [0]. That stuff is cultural and you'll be persevered as unprofessional or even non-trustworthy by failing to properly use it.
Devil's advocate: They'll also "survive" being "misgendered." Maybe embarrassing/rude event, to be avoided if possible, but not everything has to be "systemic -ism."
I have weekly 1-on-1s and I do enjoy them. I work for a big-ish company and half of the team works remote full time.
Similar to other comments, we chat a lot about personal stuff and crack some jokes. But I also make an effort to note down things that I want to ask about. Sometimes it's about what the vibe is on the business side, sometimes it's about my career or feedback on what I did recently and sometimes I ask mundane things such as "do we have a stock image account for my presentations".
I always wonder with these things: what is the deadline after which you are allowed to say "There is no value".
It has been almost 14 years since the inception of Bitcoin. There is nuance to this timeline that's why I usually use the launch of Ethereum as a starting point (~7 years If I recall correctly). Nevertheless so far nothing substantial running in production has come out of it Blockchain technology.
The typical response then is "well it takes time there is a lot of potential". I mean yeah but if you compare it to something like contactless payments or ride sharing apps these products have moved a lot faster and now have high user adoption.
So again: At what point can we just ignore all these Blockchain prophets that say "just wait the innovation is around the corner". 10 years, 20 years?
Technically 25 years since Hashcash was first proposed. I'd argue it could have had value sticking to that original application in preventing network spam, but instead it turns out people are more interested in storing the proof-of-work tokens on a blockchain and selling them, as if collecting and trading postage stamps had become more widespread than actually sending mail with them, to the extent that at least some people and a few entire countries proposed replacing currency with postage stamps.
Something arbitrary with no value went from a random Internet forum to $300b market cap and a legal currency for a nation-state. That’s something!
I don’t know what’s would be a better outcome.
Did you expect it to be world reserve currency in a decade? Replace the 5000 years gold? Upend the global banking system? Render the IMF obsolete? Make nation-states think twice about waging war without taxation?
I mean - surely you aren’t comparing these world-shattering outcomes to a mobile app that doesn’t make money after that long!
I should have said "Blockchain applications outside of cryptocurrency" but as you seem to equate the two let's talk about that.
A good metric is: "people are using it".
That is not the case for any cryptocurrency (yes and that includes El Salvador). I frequently wire money across borders and cryptocurrencies are still completely useless for it despite it being the number one use case that is shouted from the crypto rooftops.
So you're left with: "It made a ton of money for rich and a few lucky middle class people" and "some quasi dictator implemented it as an additional currency without a mandate".
They reached out to Lufthanse asking them. They responded: "Luggage trackers are electronic devices so they have to be turned off when the luggage is checked".
It is unclear wether they really understood how AirTags work and that they are not active trackers.
There are a bunch of other magazine echoing this response but I have yet to find an official statement by Lufthansa explicitly banning AirTags.
Translation of the cited statement by the Lufthansa spokesperson:
“Baggage trackers belong to the category of Portable Electronic Devices and are therefore subject to the Dangerous Goods regulations issued by the International Civil Aviation Organization for carriage in aircraft. Accordingly, the trackers must be deactivated during the flight due to their transmission function, similar to cell phones, laptops, tablets, etc., if they are in the checked baggage.”
Part 2E makes a battery handling label exception for button cells, quote: "except that button cells installed in equipment (including circuit boards) need not be considered."
While this is packaging guidance, and not airline guidance, I expect it's the same rule, for the same reason.
This section makes it even more confusing to me, since I thought that the whole cell phone transmission restriction theater had been removed a few years ago. Was that only within the US and I've been violating EU regulations for years?
I don’t think this is about transmission. Rather, it is probably to reduce the risk of thermal runaway of lithium batteries, which can cause fire and explosion.
The regulation also states that such devices “should be carried as carry-on baggage”, that is, in preference to checked baggage, presumably so that the devices are less prone to damage, and cases of malfunction and fire will be more quickly detected.
That article, while interesting, does not address button batteries. Maybe I missed it. I found it interesting that you can ship any amount of lithium batteries as cargo.
I upvoted you anyway, because by design, button cells have limited potential to cause damage when they short. Yes, they heat up, but they have very little energy to begin with, and a large amount of metal surface area which keeps thermal runaway in check.
Did you bother to check? AirTags doesn't have any battery by itself, they use replaceable CR2032, which are most commonly lithium. Although alkaline alternatives exist.
Actually, 2G does interfere with aircraft communication, I don't think it is the case for other bands.
You may already have heard the interference. Just before the phone rings, you may hear some a characteristic beeping sound on your headphones or speakers. And guess what, pilots hear it in their headsets too, aviation headsets are just regular wired headsets. I fly small planes and I hear it regularly. No big deal, it won't turn off the engine or anything like that but it is still a minor distraction, and it may affect communication.
I remember about 20 years ago, after the usual announcements, the pilot clearly said something along the lines of "someone has his cell phone turned on, please turn it off, I won't move before it is turned off".
So no, it is not just theater, maybe modern aircraft have a way of shielding pilot headsets from passenger phones, or maybe it is less of a problem with the phasing out of 2G, but it has a real effect I experienced first hand.
I'm surprised that anyone who believe that any passenger could mess with airplane communications by not turning their phone off would accept to take that risk and board a plane at all :)
- I specifically mentioned 2G networks which AFAIK iPads do not even have, not WiFi or Bluetooth
- It can't "take down" aircraft communications, but it can be an annoyance to the pilots, which can be a problem in an emergency situation. It is a little thing, but aviation safety is a result of a lot of little things. Accidents rarely have a single cause. For example the worst accident in the history of aviation: the Tenerife disaster where two B747 ran into each others during takeoff is the result of a long and improbable chain of minor problems, some of them related to radio communication. Cell phone interference won't be the main cause of an accident but it may be a contributing factor.
- Do you really need to have your phone switched on? It won't work at cruise altitude anyways, and during take off and landing, you probably don't need another distraction.
So yes, having cell phones turned off make a lot of sense, it is a rule that has a small positive effect on security with almost no downside since you can't use electronic devices during take off and landing for other reasons (distraction) and you can't use your cell phone during cruise either because the network doesn't support it.
So when has this actually happened? There is a roughly zero percent chance that on any given flight, instructions to disable your phones are followed 100%. So, I think it's reasonable to suggest that literally every commercial flight flown in the past 15-ish years has done so with some device onboard that isn't in airplane mode.
Given that - why aren't airplanes constantly falling out of the sky? If this is the situation on every single flight, why isn't what you are suggesting actually happening?
edit: a downvote isn't exactly an answer, and I think it's a fair question. If the assertion is that cell phones etc cause serious problems for aircraft operations, then why are we not seeing it actually happen? Or are we saying that everyone on the flight is, in fact, turning every single electronic device they own off, every time, every device, for every person?
What I meant is that we are not talking about absolutes here. There will be some cell phones turned on, sure, but the less there is, the less likely it is to become a problem.
And one of the reasons airplanes are not constantly falling out of the sky is that there are thousands of little rules and safety considerations at every level. Software, hardware, pilot training, ATC, and some of them affect passengers directly. For example one not so obvious rule is that the cabin lights are turned off at night during landing, the reason is to make sure the eyes of passengers are accommodated to a dark environment in case of an evacuation. Rules related to electronic devices are in that category.
Rules are much less stringent on general aviation, but general aviation is also much less safe than commercial aviation. Cessnas don't fall out of the sky constantly but they do it more often than Boeings. The ratio is about the same as motorbikes vs cars.
I repeat, cell phones won't make planes fall out of the sky by themselves! But if the plane is already in the unlikely situation where it is about to fall out of the sky, everyone needs to be fully alert to respond to the situation, and the authorities concluded that it is better without beeping cell phones. Has it saved lives? We don't know, but if we waited for someone to die to implement safety policies, we would have a lot of dead people.
The rules may change, in fact they are changing and cell phones are allowed in some flights, but please follow the damn rules, there are here for a reason even if it may not be obvious. Flying is intrinsically dangerous: deadly speeds, deadly heights and deadly outdoor conditions. And yet commercial aviation is one of the safest means of transportation, the likes of the FAA and EASA are doing at least some things right.
And on a more personal, subjective note: I think it is a good thing to disconnect once in a while.
Funny how people without actual first hand experience with the issue defiantly ignore then attempt to refute every point you made.
A lot of people are ignorant of spectrum allocation, and sideband interference. Twenty years ago I had an old Samsung flip phone (2G/3G). I could tell every time a text came in when I was sitting at my computer, because the speakers would let loose with a tell-tale 'bzzzt bzzzt bzzzt' before the phone could finish handling it and displaying that I had a text. The handshake with the tower would be picked up somewhere in the audio path.
OK so here's my first-hand experience. In the 20+ years that personal cell phones have been commonplace, zero flights have experienced an accident as a result of that cell phone use. The FAA has also walked back the ban on use of personal electronic devices.
I appreciate that you feel strongly about this, but the world has done the experiment millions of times over a couple decades. We do not have to wonder about the outcome, the work was already done. Nothing happened.
So, neither reality nor the current stance of the FAA are in alignment with your assertion. "Funny how people..." indeed.
Hehe, why do you assume the lines are a problem, when the physical comms system ends in a big antenna? Of course modern airliners have wiring that is all “properly” shielded.
> It doesn’t cause any problems.
Isn’t that a funny response to a pilot’s first hand account that a problem exists?
Just so there's no confusion on this, the cell phone rule is FCC, not FAA. It's not about interfering with the aircraft, it's about causing problems with cell networks.
Well, they used to come scream at you if you were reading a Kindle during takeoff, so that part has relaxed at least
So far as I know you're supposed to put your phone into airplane mode to turn the cellular radio off, but they don't seem to care if you use bluetooth any more
The reason for that one I've heard from pilot friends is just that they want you upright and alert during takeoff and landing. I've been told to stop reading a book during a landing once. But imagine most of the flight crew don't want to deal with the potential fights from telling someone to put away a non-cellular device.
I seem to remember from "Cockpit Confidential" that things could get thrown around in the air during a bumpy landing, causing a risk of head injury to passengers. This includes books.
I'm usually playing games, reading or watching videos during takeoff and landing. Nobody has ever told me not to. Why would I need to be alert? Do they think I'm not going to notice if the plane suddenly starts falling off the sky?
I'm the opposite, basically never sleep on a plane.
But I've seen many people asleep during landing and turbulence, and can't remember a single instance of the attendants even attempting to wake them up. They would go open the windows and taking care not to bother them.
I don’t envy you, my wife is the same, so those long flights (Germany <--> South Africa) are pretty hard on her. And yeah, as long as you are visibly belted, they don’t bother you.
i fly exclusively delta, and i always get asked to turn airplane mode on and any services that transmit audio are explicitly banned while on board (Discord, teams, etc.)
This hasn't been the case for over 20 years on most planes and the onboard phones were so expensive that only business or 1st class passengers would even consider using then. As usual, their convenience was valued more than everyone else's. I'm sure nowadays if a 1st class passenger got on a call over the in-flight wifi, the staff wouldn't bother them either.
With the ubiquity and generally reasonable pricing of in-flight WiFi, I'm actually a bit surprised that you don't see more people jabbering away. I've never bought WiFi myself and I suspect there are quality issues and I assume some ports may be blocked, but I haven't seen many people obviously on active calls at all.
If you have to ask this question, it is a sure sign you are not sufficiently socially calibrated to interact with other people on an air-plane. I advise you to invest time into better understanding your fellow humans by learning about psychology.
Yelling would be an overreaction, likely leading to further escalation and diminishing the chance of achieving the goal of stopping the maladaptive behaviour. GP acted correctly to suppress the impulse, I guess in the end he did nothing, which is the next best course of action. Adults are supposed to treat the problem situation in a calm manner and implicitly point out the established social boundaries (this works better if your personality is more masculine than feminine): interrupt the talking person and get his attention, kneel down to the same eye level, state clearly what can be observed what he's doing (having a conversation, perhaps talking loudly), what the effect is (annoying the other passengers), and remind him that calls are not allowed by the relevant authority (flight crew). Firmly direct him to end the call right now. Throughout the conversation keep stern demeanour, keep eye contact and the same level of volume when you speak.
If he complies right away, then mission fucking accomplished, requite by showing approval (nodding, making a slightly more friendly face), or perhaps even something expressing gratitude if that's appropriate in your culture.
The argument "not on a call, this is FaceTime" in an attempt to shift away from the central point of the conversation. Do not let him pull you into his frame. Simply ignore this sentence, keep referring to the call as a call. If he's stubborn, or ignores you, or wants to have a quarrel, then it is okay to metaphorically lose the fight. Walk away and inform the flight crew instead, it's out of your hands now. In the end, it is a certainty that you will win, even if the talking person turns out to be highly neurotic or narcissistic and throws a tantrum.
Pointing out disrespect is not likely to work, the talking person has already shown he does not care. However, shaming is more likely to work, it is a powerful social tool and it is very much appropriate to use here. You could say that all the people around are affected (insert hand gesture here) and they do not approve of what the talking person is doing.
What should not be done is body contact other than touching the shoulder to get attention; trying to take the headphones or mobile device; talking down (literally and figuratively). Do not ask, beg or demand, instead use the appropriate word that comes closest do instructing or directing, use the imperative verb form in your language.
> Firmly direct him to end the call right now. Throughout the conversation keep stern demeanour, keep eye contact and the same level of volume when you speak.
I'm not quite sure the other person is the one whose social calibration is off. This would be incredibly patronizing behavior unless you're speaking to a literal child. Besides, "Why don't you?" was obviously a throwaway half-joke.
Supposedly not putting in airplane mode will also wreak havoc with cell towers when flying low enough to cause interference and hella-frequent base station handovers.
Though I've found the latest generation of planes to be pretty much faraday cages, with most planes I'd believe it.
The main reason for what you call "theater" is possible interference with ILS. And saying mobile phones or other devices are not in the same frequencies, does not cover the scenarios of misbehaving/cheap or uncertified devices.
MythBusters dismissed it a few years but forgot to consider misbehaving/cheap or not certified devices. And I would not trust two hipsters to be the certification committee for commercial airliners... -
The more predominant issue is keeping anything with a lithium-ion battery in checked luggage. They'll crack down on anything from laptops to hearing aids.
CR2032 batteries that are in airtags are NOT lithium-ion, they're non-rechargeable and are usually Lithium/Manganese Dioxide [1] (lithium metal). I believe they're fine to have in checked luggage if contained inside some equipment (like the airtag). [2] Look for PI 970
If transported by themselves, they're cargo aircraft only.
They're fine to have in checked luggage (under some restrictions). But the device containing them must be completely switched off, according to the rules. That is at issue here.
Both lithium-ion and lithium metal batteries that are installed in devices are allowed in checked baggage in the US and most other places. The devices must be powered off. What that means is a bit ambiguous as most modern laptops, tablets, and phones have some components powered any time a battery is installed.
The regulation specifically states that "the devices must be completely switched off (not in sleep or hibernation mode)", and mobile devices normally all have a way to completely shut them down, with no components remaining active. The only exception I'm aware of are wireless earbuds (e.g. AirPods). Presumably you're not allowed to have those in checked baggage.
I would wager most people don’t realize that to completely turn off their iPhone they must adjust their settings to not use Find My even when powered off.
So electrical engineers could just use a MCU let it power itself of during flight, use passive components (discharging capacitors) to trigger a wakeup after a set time and you are good to go?
So do cargo monitoring (temperature/tilt/vibration/tampering) devices, which are in a lot of commercial cargo - especially vaccine shipments, but any sort of sensitive equipment being air-freighted.
So do wireless earbuds, watches both smart and "dumb", hearing aides, sport sensors including chest heartrate monitors and bike sensors/computers, travel alarms, book lights, e-readers, keychain flashlights, film cameras, and probably a million other things Lufthansa has never cared about for several decades.
The vast majority of electronic devices are "soft" power now, and an e-reader with a 2000mah lithium ion battery is as "powered off" as an Airtag with a sub-3-gram battery. Airpods - no "completely" switched off mode, same for their case.
There's also never been a single case of an Airtag shorting or smoking or failing in any way that would endanger an airplane, and CR2032 batteries can't generate enough current, or contain enough energy, to pose a hazard.
For decades the airline industry had no problem shipping exothermic oxygen generators with little or no regulation (because it suited them well, as they needed to do so for logistics, as the generators are for emergency passenger oxygen) until it caused multiple commercial plane crashes. If you think Lufthansa is suddenly concerned about safety here, I have a bridge I'd like to sell you.
This is about them not wanting the public to see:
- that their luggage isn't on the plane with them, and generating a fuss at the gate / in the plane
- that their luggage is in a specific place/airport and come calling for it or say "I can see exactly where it is, stop lying to me, it's at airport _____, send it to me"
- their stolen luggage ending up at an employee's home, or the warehouse of a theft ring run by luggage handlers which the company is ignoring
- their "lost" luggage ending up at a warehouse where it is then sold by the pound to companies that sort through your luggage and ebay anything of value
They really hate that customers now have the power to see that they're being lied to and/or stolen from, and be held accountable.
Except that Lufthansa simply replied by citing a ICAO regulation - no more, no less. They have not "banned AirTags", they simply stated an existing regulation that applies to any aircraft.
Whether they actually enforce that regulation in any way remains to be seen, but they couldn't have given any other answer (or else risk being investigated by civil aviation authorities for not properly observing existing flight safety rules).
If you want to convince anyone that they should allow lithium batteries with some particular characteristics to be used in devices that are not turned on, you don't have to convince Lufthansa or any other airline, you have to convince the ICAO and/or national civil aviation bodies, since it's their rule that Lufthansa was citing.
Dear god, get a grip. Somebody asked Lufthansa specifically about AirTags and this is their response about AirTags based on current regulations. I'm sure if you asked about lithium-based whatever else, you'd get the same answer because the same regulations apply.
It's FUD because OP cannot possibly know that "This is about them not wanting the public to see". That's pure speculation, and it fits the FUD definition perfectly.
And given that United, for one, gives me the exact same information (as far as I can tell) in their app about the location of my checked luggage as their computers have, it seems unlikely that one of their partner airlines would explicitly scheme to prevent people from knowing where their checked luggage is.
As others have said, this seems a case of AirTags possibly don't comply with long-established rules for checked luggage but, like a lot of the rules for electronics on commercial airplanes, the letter of these rules is broken in various ways probably tens of thousands of times every day.
Lufthansa gave a non-answer, and there's nothing in their comment suggesting they've banned airtags in checked luggage. They will also have an impossible time enforcing it.
The site "covering this" is focused on creating travel content to push credit card affiliate links. They (like most) benefit from clickbait articles that will get picked up around the web, giving them backlinks to improve SEO ranking for a competitive niche.
I'm not super familiar with these systems, but don't they send out beacons using something like Bluetooth Low Energy or some similar protocol? That wouldn't be just passive and turned off unless something external powers it (like NFC could be argued to be).
(Which is not to say that it's therefore a valid argument by this airline, but the title seems accurate if the trackers are sending out signals actively and that's what's prohibited.)
AirTags doesn’t report its location, the iPhone or other iOS devices report nearby AirTags. That’s the difference between an active tracker that has its own cellular connection.
For aviation regulations there is no different between an active or passive tracker, the rules are not about takers.
The rules are about there being a lithium battery in it (there is) and whether it has a radio transmitter (it does, airtags transmit Bluetooth signals).
Lithium batteries are not allowed in checked baggage. Transmitters are allowed only if turned off.
Don't the premises "AirTags are only allowed in checked bags if they're turned off" and "AirTags can't be turned off" lead to the conclusion "AirTags aren't allowed in checked bags"?
Sure. Just like a bazillion other coin cell powered nrf52 devices. Or like a coin cell powered digital watch. Would an F91-W be allowed in checked luggage? Perhaps not, not unless there is a specific exception. And if you ask some policy communication employee, they won't make up exceptions, they'll apply the rules at hand.
AirTags are pretty much active devices, they transmit data all the time. If some iPhone happens to receive that data, iPhone relays it to Apple servers and adds coordinates where it received data.
I recently quit being an independent contractor after 5 years and returned to being an employee. Let me outline my experience going from employee to contractor and back.
In general: I have been a software developer for 14 years. I love writing code but I also like to figure out the root of the problem and come up with the best solution. I started freelancing in Germany and continued to do so in the UK and the US.
The initial reason to go solo was mostly feeling based. I imagined being super flexible about what I could work on and wanted to have more time off even though it was unpaid. Additionally I thought I could spend some time to specialize in a field in order to get higher rates and maybe come up with a product idea. I also justified this move to myself with "I at least gotta try it". I was lucky to find a client pretty quickly and enjoyed the networking and finding follow up opportunities.
However a couple of things became pretty clear to me very quickly: the easiest way to work as a freelancer for me was to basically continue to work as a generic software engineer that knows $language for a client 5 days a week and then invoice them. I didn't really spin up additional income streams and I didn't even take more time off.
However there were a few things that kept me from returning into a regular job: The increased income (in my first year my income effectively increased by 50% even though I was doing the same work), the opportunity to switch "jobs" more often without it being perceived as being a flaky employee (this one is kind of a hack but nobody ever questioned why I was only working for 3 months for a particular client).
Things ultimately changed after I moved to the US because the calculation now wasn't only about pure money. I also would have to factor in health insurance cost (in Europe this is essentially the same wether you are freelance or not), there are other benefits like 401k contribution and employee stock buying programs that I needed to consider. But ultimately I was missing working on projects long term rather than just coming into a company churning out code. I also enjoy not having to write invoices anymore or doing a more complicated tax return or figuring out what kind of insurance I need. I am also glad that there is now basically no need for me to do any kind of marketing or sales related work.
In total I had 9 full time clients and a few short term projects (1-2 days). The short term projects were some of the worst days as a freelancer because the project was timeboxed and every time I scrambled to deliver on time.
In general I would say if you are an hourly/daily rate based contractor the only two reasons that I saw as an advantage was: more money and seeing more different projects. If you are willing to put up with the admin overhead of going solo I definitely recommend it, especially if you have a talent or are willing to do marketing and sales related tasks. I suggest however to be honest with the income calculation. If you compare your current job to something like 220 billable days as a freelancer (not unrealistic) you are going to see a big increase. But if you take into account the benefits and compare this to a competing employment offer, the income difference might not be as big.
If I buy an NFT that grants me access to a very exclusive conference, how can I be sure that security will actually let me into this conference? Or how can I be sure at the time of purchase that the conference will actually happen?
You would need to have a preexisting trust relationship with the issuer of the NFT. If it was originally minted with a keypair known to belong to the conference organizer or a trusted third party TicketMaster, then it'll probably be honored at the venue. If not, caveat emptor.
As a buyer, you could validate the authenticity of a ticket from a reseller, so getting a counterfeit from a scalper wouldn't be a worry. I think that's it, though
No, it's not, but each ticket issuer would need to design and implement their own authenticity check mechanism.
I think you misunderstood the tone of my original comment, which was that NFTs introduce an extremely marginal benefit for the ticketing use case while bringing in all the negative aspects of something based on a permissionless blockchain AND still requiring a trust relationship with the issuer to be established out of band.
> I think you misunderstood the tone of my original comment, which was that NFTs introduce an extremely marginal benefit for the ticketing use case while bringing in all the negative aspects of something based on a permissionless blockchain AND still requiring a trust relationship with the issuer to be established out of band.
Fair point, I didn't see that.
I would however make the argument that in reality NFTs wouldn't introduce any benefit.
Digital tickets and a centralized software that takes care of reselling completely solves the issue of fake tickets (at least on the technical side). None of this requires NFTs.
It’s so frustrating having these discussions about energy consumption.
If you make a statement about the absolute energy consumption of a PoW blockchain, the first response usually is “But this other thing consumes way more energy!!!!”
In order to compare the consumption of the network to anything you will need to calculate it by some unit of utility. Transactions is the only metric that makes sense.
Having lived as a foreigner in other countries I can say: The US is worse than most of them. In other countries you at least get a bank account without the equivalent of an SSN.
I have to concede that actually is one of the use cases for cryptocurrencies or more concretely: stable coins.
I guess using cryptocurrencies make sense if you are completely left to your own devices and can't rely on the government for help.
I'm just worried how this will turn out long term:
- Is using a cryptocurrency run by a company registered in Hong Kong, backed by a bank on the Bahamas really that great of an idea?
- Are large parts of the population able to store their assets correctly. Are they storing their coins on their own wallets or are they using exchanges. If they use exchanges, does the government have an interest in letting them do whatever or are they imposing sanctions? If they store their coins in their own wallets, is the majority of the population able to properly secure their assets?
- Will mining operations have an impact on the existing infrastructure if it becomes to profitable. I can totally see mining operations by powerful individuals prioritizing their profit over a nearby town's electricity needs.
But most importantly: what will happen if the value of cryptocurrencies decreases or even crashes? I don't see regular people highly invested in crypto just walking away from a crash.
Also - to preempt any statements about USDT having a higher backing rate than most banks... US banks have something USDT doesn't - FDIC account insurance. When it comes to banks the buck doesn't stop with the bank - it stops with the US government.
AFAIK there are no FDIC insured stable coins - there's apparently USDF[1] which is being promoted by FDIC insured banks but the coins themselves aren't subject to FDIC insuring and could quite possibly either bankrupt the backing entity or be abandoned in the case of a bank run.
In that case, and with the caveat that deposit insurance is wired and uncertain at the best of times, that makes stablecoin a regulated bank.
This makes it for for the user. I don't see how a bank can comply with banking law though. How does a bank prevent criminals, sanctioned orgs, money launderers or whatnot from using it?
It's possible that regulators will leave a loophole like this in play. They aren't always sharp.
What that is, is a bank where account are a wallet. It's still a USD bank account.
When you think about it, banks simply agree to transact with each other and thereby offer a payment network. When you have a Chase bank account what your balance is showing is how many "Chase dollars" Chase is owing you. Those dollars can be redeemed 1:1 for physical dollars.
>If the total outstanding coins isn't fully backed by real USD, then that bank will eventually run.
Well, the way banks operate they also only need to keep a fraction of their deposits liquid and immediately withdrawable. However, there is one big difference here. The Fed is actually the one providing the inter bank payment infrastructure with so called bank reserves which can only be held on servers owned by the Fed. A lot of the QE stuff is just there to make treasuries as liquid as deposits. It's not money printing. It's more like lending liquid money in bank accounts that isn't locked up via a certificate of deposit.
The big problem that Tether and so on have is that the central bank isn't on their side. So the only safe investment is just plain dollars. Running an unregulated bank is going to backfire at some point.
One version of a stablecoin is. There are lots of other forms (ex: algorithmic stablecoins) that are transparently backed by other assets that you yourself can audit.
UST is an algorithmic stablecoin and briefly de-pegged when it had a "bank run", but the incentives to keep it pegged ultimately won. As long as LUNA doesn't go to 0, then UST should always re-peg (theoretically).
What's interesting with most stable coins is that you end up trusting a third-party anyway, so a blockchain or a trustless technology serves no purpose there, if you just trade in this cryptocurrency. Technically (not legally) speaking, the USDT mentioned in the article could be replaced by another token pegged to the USD delivered by a company based in the US and allowing Lebanese clients to transact in it, everything via a regular website and database on which transactions would happen.
In these unstable countries you can see people walking away from cash. How much inflation in the US and around the world will people tolerate before diversifying into crypto. Looks like the ball is already rolling.
The market cap for bitcoin is only a trillion, once it's up to around 100 trillion the price will be a lot more stable just like the dollar itself.
> How much inflation in the US and around the world will people tolerate before diversifying into crypto.
Diversifying from cash (which is impacted by inflation) into (most) cryptoassets with such volatilities doesn't make sense. People who have cash rather than appreciating assets want zero risk and some idea of how much they'll still have in one year. Cryptoassets don't provide that.
> once it's up to around 100 trillion the price will be a lot more stable just like the dollar itself.
Why? You seem to imply that USD is stable because of how big it is. I'm not sure where you get that from. The Fed targets a 2% inflation, so by definition, when it doesn't fail, the USD is stable.
If market cap is really the relevant metric, then you might as well compare BTC and CHF, and you'll reach your threshold faster.
USD is manually managed to ‘tax’ holders 3% per year in the form of inflation. It is stable, but you do pay for that stability.
Bitcoin on the other hand is not centrally managed for better or worse. It relies on a broad number of holders to ensure stability. Any small crytpo currency is a lot more volatile due to whales rocking the boat. At 100 trillion, there are no whales big enough to move the market significantly on their own.
> At 100 trillion, there are no whales big enough to move the market significantly on their own.
So you're saying that if the market cap of BTC increases, that necessarily means that whales have less power. I could sympathize with this argument if that a bigger market cap entailed that BTC would be well spread among independent actors (that would thus compensate each other's behavior), but there's no evidence for this. Wealth inequality is increasing in a lot of places, why do you think it's not the case for BTC? Of course we can't know given the pseudonymous nature of the ledger, but I wouldn't bet on this.
Now, even if I grant you that, that's just one cause of instability, and there are many others. When Elon Musk influences the BTC/USD rate using social networks, he's not acting as a whale, he's just acting as a celebrity. It's also unclear how BTC will perform through the next financial crisis, but I don't think it'll be the last asset people will sell during a panic.
Practically speaking, there's also little sign of the volatility of BTC going down. So either its usage is not spreading, or its stability has little to do with how spread it is, but you can't have both.
> Is using a cryptocurrency run by a company registered in Hong Kong, backed by a bank on the Bahamas really that great of an idea?
No, but I've never had Binance or Localbitcoins steal my money, Paypal and banks have done so, and I've been using both for around the same time.
> Are large parts of the population able to store their assets correctly.
With great power comes great responsability.
> Are they storing their coins on their own wallets or are they using exchanges.
Usdt over binance (0 fees) seems to be popular with a lot of people that don't want to deal with bitcoin's swings. Most people aren't using USDT real (-ish[0] erc20) wallets because it costs $30 to $60 to send anything. USDT over Bitcoin Lightning (already in the works) will fix this.
> If they use exchanges, does the government have an interest in letting them do whatever or are they imposing sanctions?
Lightning will fix this, it will make exchanges not hold any coins at all, thus they will be unseizable as everything will be done over Lightning,
> If they store their coins in their own wallets, is the majority of the population able to properly secure their assets?
I expect aunt Jane will be using a centralized entity that can recover her funds for her, young people, like anyone under 40 will use Lightning and enjoy their freedom.
> Will mining operations have an impact on the existing infrastructure if it becomes to profitable.
Lightning, halving cycles, etc will reduce mining, though maybe not fast enough if you're thinking in terms of climate change. Reminder that the US military is the single largest polluter in the world, not Bitcoin.
> But most importantly: what will happen if the value of cryptocurrencies decreases or even crashes?
Bitcoin will never crash, when enough people use it, but it might crash a few times before we get there (e.g. covid crash).
[0] It's realISH because ERC20 runs on Ethereum, which is not a real decentralized system like Bitcoin, and the upcoming switch to Proof of Stake switch will only make it more centralized/brittle.
Lightning is a very bad solution for a problem that should not exist. It fragments people from being on the actual bitcoin network to being in tiny side channels that still need to sync with the main chain. It solves the problem of someone being able to send a hundred small transactions to the same person, which is a use case that never happens.
Bitcoin is only congested because it has the bandwidth of a 28.8 modem (700KB blocks every 10 minutes)
Once you internationalize you will need this because in German it's an absolute no go to address a stranger by their first name (at least for B2B services).
And internationalization is on the road map for a lot of companies.