RE: I Got Flagged Three Times Yesterday. Did You?
there's just no way that $0.40 jump or drop in price is going to be worse than $1000 drop.
What your conversation partner might have been getting at is this: You can lose more money by investing $7,000 in Steem at $1.50 and see it drop to $1.10 than you would be investing $7,000 in Bitcoin and seeing it drop to $6,000.
For Steem, it's a 26% drop in value which would cost you $1,866 (if you sold).
For Bitcoin, it's a 14% drop in value which would cost you $1,000 (if you sold).
I think I get what you're saying. I have one stock that I bought 10 shares of. I don't even remember why. I saw it drop from $1.00 to $0.50. That means if I were to sell it today, it would be a $5.00 loss. I really don't care. At the same time, I could have a stock that tripled in price. But if I bought say 10 shares at $1.00 each (for consistency), then I would still only have a $20 profit. It's not nothing, but it's not going to pay the bills. So the actual dollar amount does matter.
The real issue that I think we should be talking about is that in the USA a majority of the transactions are conducted in US Dollars. They also need to be able to pay their bills and can't wait around for a currency to go back up in price. Therefore, businesses need a cryptocurrency that is stable or fixed in its price.
That's why SBD was so important for Steem. It was created to be a stable coin that would allow businesses to accept it in exchange for goods and/or services and the business would know that the value of that cryptocurrency would be the same tomorrow as it is today. They don't want to gamble and hope that it goes up. They want to know they'll be able to sell and use that money to pay their bills.
That's my two cents. Find a currency that's stable or fixed so you can have predictability of outcome and then businesses will be much more likely to start using it. Hopefully there's one that gets some mass adoption before the crypto Dollar. Otherwise, that thing will just take over.
Do you see a crypto dollar happening, though? I've read about people talking about any of a number of countries creating their own versions of cryptocurrencies, but I'm not sure the appeal for the governments. They're not going to want to decentralize, and it's not like the crypto, yet anyway, is competing that much with their own currencies, simply because they can't be used everywhere fiat can be used. If you already control the currency, aren't you already basically ahead of the game?
And for that matter, the money is already digitized. We don't really use cash or coin for our purchases, at least not regularly. Okay, I'll just say I don't and most people I know don't.
I think the main issue about the conversation is that "my conversation partner" was combining both investments and business together and saying it was all the same thing.
If I have something that costs $1.42 and I sell it for 1 STEEM (that's what it's trading at right now), then I'm okay. If it drops to $1.22, as long as my margin is still good, then selling it for 1 STEEM still works. If STEEM goes up 20 cents, I'm still okay, for the most part.
If I sell something for a one tenth of a bitcoin ($740) and it goes down $1,000 then I've just sold it at $640. Again depends on my margin, but I'm probably thinking more about changing the price every day because it's still a larger fluctuation at a tenth of the cost.
So, anyway, I thought the conversation was taking one topic and arguing it with another. I do appreciate all your input. You have a better way of explaining things in a way that I can understand. :)
Short answer: Yes.
Long answer: Yes, absolutely.
Expanded answer: Yes, the government already controls the money supply (well, the Fed does, but that's another story), but they wouldn't mind having even more control. If the currency is entirely digital, and if it can be tracked completely, then they can know where every dollar is going, and if you make a transaction, or earn money from something, they could tax you on it right away. They could even take it from your wallet without your permission. A government crypto currency would be the antithesis of decentralized. It would be more centralized than we've ever seen. Yes, governments want crypto currency, and the USA will introduce one.
Note: Just my opinion. Do your own research.
Regarding businesses and crypto:
The point is that businesses need to know how much money they'll be getting. Most can't just be accepting less money than the sale price. It's not good business. Most companies would have a difficult time absorbing a 14% drop in their revenue on sales. It might be ok one time, but if it happens repeatedly, it can be difficult to survive. Certain industries have less wiggle room than others.
Back to Costco: I believe they operate on something as low as a 14% margin. I could be wrong, but at one point I believe it was that low. Granted, they make most of their profit from selling the memberships, but if a company isn't selling memberships, they need that margin to stay whole. (unless they're liquidating something to free up space for merchandise that's moving).
Am I on track here at all?
Okay, just looked up their gross profit margin and Costco is consistently operating below 14% and up until May of this year, was below 13% more than they were above. I thought I'd heard it was even smaller than that, but that doesn't appear to be the case.
The fact that they do sell memberships is why they can go with the smaller margins, yes, and it puts some downward pressure on the cost of items they sell, too, since there's all kinds that would love to be sold by Costco but can't because they can't afford to cut into their own profit margins.
Hey, you're the man when it comes to opinions and research. You've provided great reasons for why they might do it, too. It's almost like you've been sitting in on some meetings or something.
That's really sad, though, if/when they do it. Using a blockchain to basically ensure their total control and monitoring of your every move. I'm going to have to leave planet earth because there won't be anywhere else to escape from them in the world.