Hurry Up Cryptos : Hard CASH Use Is Dying
I like Hard CASH. The stuff that you can hold in your hand. Coins, Paper, Plastic Notes it doesn’t really matter what physical form it takes. If I am making a small purchase I want to use Hard CASH. I don’t mind using Electronic Bank Transfers if I am paying an electricity bill or a car registration because my name is on those things already, but if it’s a Pizza or a Coffee or something requiring some discretion I don’t really want or need that showing up on my bank statement.
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But Hard CASH use is dying. As much as I despise Fiat Currency and look forward to the day when Cryptos are widely accepted as a form of payment I will miss Hard CASH when it’s gone. I have had a few experiences lately where I have received an unusual response when paying with Hard CASH. The other week we were out for dinner at a newish hipster type restaurant and when it came time to pay the young waitress stuck out the electronic swiper thingy. When I insisted I was paying with Hard CASH she gave me this unbelieving look that only a young Millenial could give and said “Old School” to me. It caught me off guard.
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Then tonite I was down at the BBQ Chicken takeaway place and the middle-aged guy taking my order did a similar thing with the electronic swiper thingy. As I held my $50 note up to him I pre-empted him and said “I’m Old School mate” with a smile. Then I followed it up with “Never give up your cash” to which he smiled and told me that 2 out of 3 customers are not using cash any more…..and this is at a BBQ Chicken takeaway! So I was caught off guard again.
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Are we getting so complacent these days that the general population don’t even care about privacy and anonymity anymore? Are we happy for the Banks and Governments to see where every cent of ours is going? Now before you come at me with your anti-Crypto argument about everything being trackable on the Blockchain, yes sure, many Cryptos are trackable. But go have a look at Monero or any of the dozens of Privacy coins on the market before you try that old Chestnut on me.
Crypto technology and the user-friendly Wallets needed for mainstream adoption need to get a wriggle on because at this rate we will be cashless in a few years and there will be no going back. It won’t be long before these restaurants and chicken shops stop accepting cash as a payment method altogether. After all, it’s easier for them not to have to carry a float and secure all those bills from theft. It can happen soon and the mainstream won’t care. Only crusty old farts like me who want to keep paying Hard Cash will be left as bag holders for these old fiat currency notes.
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In the weed industry in California, its still all cash with no sign of change. No one here is using crypto for transactions, its literally dead presidents only. Bars in Laytonville have cash counting machines to lend to customers for the transactions that happen at their tables.
I do like using plastic for any taxable event. Its way easier than actually doing any accounting. Since most of our work is more than 300 miles from our residence, all our expenses are corporate. So there is some value there. Our savings are in benjamins and PM's. Crypto is cute but I don't trust my own phone remotely.
What about when weed is legalised?
The banks have closed down a couple dispensary's accounts, even just this fall in San Diego they all got raided again. Certainly every grower fears the reality of Jeff Session's Civil Asset Forfeiture (aka Police pension funding), no one, literally no one trusts the cops.
My wife happened into a Bank of America the first day of the new year, said there was a line of people with just shy of $10 000 in cash each. So its not everyone that avoids the banks, but almost no one is using a bank account for the actual product transactions (some medical dispensaries from before did use a checking account but only one ever paid with a check for a delivery, the rest were in cash).
Some beggars now have the electronic swiper thingy:
I would say "it's Orwellian" except it's non fiction. The ramifications are immense, humanity may be sleep walking into tyranny. It does not bode well for sovereign or civil rights, let alone any hope of privacy or anonymity, both of which are now almost redundant concepts due to the status quo of contemporary human behaviour. I wonder what impact it will have on precious metals? Will they still be useful for barter trade or simply be added to the pile of contraband that only criminals would traffic in and thus subject to civil forfeiture.
Jello Biaffra was kind of influential to me in my 20s and I saw him do a live spoken word performance once at the Enmore that I still remember to this day. One of his other great quotes from the 90s was "Don't hate the media, become the media" and was one of the inspirations for me in the early internet days. He was well ahead of his time.
I don't know what the future is for PMs. I think they will be valuable regardless of what happens, but if we lose the crypto revolution I can see PMs being targeted along with cash in the aftermath.
Well spake, both of you.
JB made some great hypothetical statements, good for reflection. BTW: I have a near mint vinyl copy of "The last temptation of Reid" complete with "Lard Illustrated" broad sheet liner notes.
This is an interesting view, cash as the bridge between tracked electronic payments and private electronic payments.
I stumbled across your blog last night and read some of your past articles. Really good stuff. I really appreciate your levelheaded approach and wish I had come across your blog last month when you said you were taking a lot of profits off the table. I got a little greedy and kept all my winnings on the table and now am paying the price for it a bit.
But, it's all a learning experience and I'm still way up overall, so no complaints. Just wanted you to know that your words and actions are helping me to reframe my desires for what I want from this space and how I can go about executing that.
Keep up the great work and thanks!
Thanks. This is the nicest comment I think I've ever got. I am really glad you are getting some value out of my posts. Stick around because I'm getting the hang of things now and I've got a few big ideas bouncing around in my head, but I want to get them right before posting.
You're very welcome! I will definitely be checking in on your blog as a regular thing and look forward to hearing your ideas and experiences as they crystallize.
I agree with the idea that banks - or anyone else for that matter - do not need to know our personal spending habits, and fiat currency, for all its faults, does not attach our identity to the notes we hand out at, say, the local coffee shop. (That's the beauty of the better cryptos, as well as precious metals.) I appreciate your informative posts.
As my awesome mother in law says..... all those "club cards" and membership apps and thingies- How do you think they track you even when you pay cash, and figure out how to market even more of their crap to you?? They know who you are and what you're buying.
Just a thought, lol. Our identities are not attached to cash notes, that is true... But if you are entering your phone number or signing in to programs like loyalty rewards and club cards at places, well... they still are tracking you. And who knows how hackable all those databases are, who knows what exactly they really do with all that data? Oh well. I am paranoid I guess. So is my mother-in-law. There are many reasons we get along, lol. Got to laugh at the world sometimes, or we'll all go crazy. :)
Just because you're a bit paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you :)
I think there is plenty of evidence that for-profit companies are already mining customer data for targeted advertising. I don't think targeted specials and targeted pricing is too far off either.
@buggedout , Lol, yeah I hear you. I like cash, too! But it is goig bye-bye. One thing I would LOVE, love LOVE to see -- a marketplace of some sort here on Steemit and even someone who creates an app to allow users to accept payment for goods/services locally in SBD or Steem. I would totally support that. In the meantime...... yeah I try to use cash when I can, too, and I also get lots of funny looks from time to time, so I feel ya, lol.
I totally agree. I wrote about the SBD being adopted for mainstream use but that was before it broke the peg. We need to get that critical mass of people on here so we can start trading in our local areas and get some merchants on here too. I imagined a day when merchants would make posts about their weekly specials and interact with customers through the site. It seems so far away....
I count a lot of money in my business and my hands always feel disgustingly dirty afterwards. I always feel the need to wash my hands then before eating. That makes me concerned about the use of cash in food handling businesses. Card (or crypto) use seems much more hygienic than having the same hands handling money and preparing my food.
This is true. Cash is dirty and definitely wash your hands after handling. Really I just want to own my own data and retain privacy. Hard CASH is how it's done right now but hopefully privacy Crypto will do the job in the future.
In both my situations above, the person accepting payment were NOT the handlers of the food, so hygiene was not the driver for using electronic payment.
Thank you for this topic
Definitely become paying for purchases, meals, electricity and water bills.
There is an electronic payment there is a kind of facilitation but when you sense that you are an observer everywhere you are attracted to it, you catch some kind of anxiety
@buggedout . I share your fears about having the government knowing about our spending habits . thank God for the creation of private coins for those off book transactions. While I do love cryptos, it has its limitations for example how do you pay for goods and services in areas with no Internet connection if cryptos are all you got.
The internet is pretty pervasive these days, with wireless coverage and hot spots even in remote areas. It would be cheaper for a lot of businesses to provide a wireless access point than a cash facility in the future I would expect. We're not there yet but we're heading that way.
Recently I visited a two day coin show in south of Netherlands and you will not believe it but most accepted only cash! Even Emporium stand. I did not have that much on me so ended up frutrated not being able to buy some coins that day. However I did buy them later online. So guess coin people are OLD SKOOL !
The old "Sound Money" crew who are into Precious Metals will the last bastion for hard cash I am sure.
I really appreciate your take on this and I'm with you 100%. The physical nature and qualities of cash (though inconvenient they maybe in certain ways) are important ones that shouldn't be overlooked or undervalued. I think even when things do eventually become almost entirely digital there will still be certain niches and categories of people who will still find ways to transact with it.
It's also quite bothersome to hear that the employees at these restaurants you visited are being indoctrinated to frown upon cash, because the credit card device is more economical for the business owners. It's as if they're part of a great movement to make using cash somehow immoral. It's another ridiculous attempt to limit our freedom to choose because it's more convenient for banks and megacorporation to get paid faster.
I don't think they're indoctrinated. They're just young and naive and don't know any better. They like their technology and have never lived through fascism or communism and the cold war ended before many were born, so they don't see the downside of centralised power.