real question because i don't know, what do people actually buy with crypto other than other money or illegal stuff? i presume paypal won't be happy with you buying/selling drugs with it

There are legit uses that enterprise companies are using today, but they are few and far between in comparison to day trading/speculation/etc. For example, moving money from different currencies usually requires foreign exchange fees which can be hefty - whereas if you buy some stablecoin in a local currency and then sell that stablecoin in the currency you want to have in your bank account, you pay tiny transaction costs and thats it. This is a real problem for companies who have operations in tons of countries, and have to manage bank accounts and local entities in all of those countries. Imagine reducing your profit by 1-2% just because you want your profits in ireland instead of mexico. Stablecoins make that into <0.5%, which is many millions.

https://a16zcrypto.com/posts/article/stripe-bridge-acquisiti... has some examples

To answer your question, I hardly buy anything with crypto because there's barely support... Hopefully this is a catalyst for change.

I feel like this is the wrong question to ask. Instead try "why would someone purchase with crypto over fiat?". I prefer to use crypto for international online purchases because the transaction and conversion fees from my native currency are way too high. With crypto it's a one off deposit fee and then gas is trivial these days.

Back when I carried it I would pay all my bills in it. Paid for most of my wedding tbh.

That said, I think Australia might be uniquely blessed by Livingroomofsatoshi. It basically bridges crypto to all our other payment streams.

Oh and grey market stuff all the time. Drugs that arent like, go to jail illegal but ship internationally direct from india. That sort of stuff.

Cross border money transfer is one reason. People in 3rd world countries don't want to hold their money in the country. Many want to get paid by stablecoins.

I have a virtual crypto card and gave it to my daughter and she added it to the Google wallet on her android. She uses it anywhere to buy anything. My bank didn't want to open bank account to minor. Everything was set up in 10 minutes. I transfer to her some random coins and it just works.

I also use it myself as a backup abroad when my regular bank foreign account doesn't work for any reason.

I got the card in the middle of the night in 10 minutes.

I think all that is simply awesome.

A long time ago someone bought a pizza.

Most large company entries into the crypto space seem to fizzle out and disappear due to lack of use, and how annoying it is to deal with currencies which fluctuate in value between the time you've spent them and the time the transaction is approved (I understand there are lightning networks), and then there's the issue with maintaining wallets.

It really just adds nothing but extra complexity to the existing electronic payment methods. And takes away tons of things like regulators, regulations, consumer protections, strong case law.

The only use-case I've heard for cryptocurrencies that doesn't just sound like a get-rich-quick-speculative-betting-scam is providing financial services to the un-banked.

Russians abroad use crypto to work around sanctions.

Coinbase and Venmo offer debit cards that you can fund with crypto. Coinbase offers to auto-sell crypto assets you choose to fund it. That means you can hold money in crypto and sell it off when you want to buy something. Be cognizant of taxes, but if you're willing to hold your crypto for a year then LTCG kicks in and you're getting taxed at pretty reasonable rates.

Investment accounts on the other hand take a while for sales to settle before your funds are available as cash.

Stablecoin payments are currently a hugely growing business, mainly for B2B payments as I understand it. I think its really hard for people who have absorbed 10 years of anti-crypto groupthink from HN to digest the fact that crypto is here to stay and is finding legitimate use cases.

Stablecoin payments really are just better: - Instant settlement - Extremely cheap - Extremely reliable - Highly programmable - Built on open protocols - International

There are no traditional banking systems that offer all of these properties!

If anyone is tempted to reply with "okay but that could have been done with a database" I would really encourage that person to try to think hard about why that didn't happen.

I bought a Go board and some stones from GoGameGuru back in the day. A bitcoin was only 200-ish Euros back then. Funny to think how much that's gone up.

https://www.bitrefill.com/

video games with https://www.kinguin.net/

there's lots of places to spend crypto if you look, and I don't feel like needing to associate my identity just to purchase digital goods. Crypto facilitates that. People forget it's even an option.

My golf instructor accepts bitcoin and provides a 50% discount for doing so!

I know quite some Russian companies using bitcoins t to trade with western companies. For example large ad networks and bookies that operate there and pay in bitcoins. Malta, Switzerland are quite popular for these constructions.

Gray market stuff.

Tax evasion mostly. Tokens are used to obscure movement of assets from both governments, but then you need to safely exit into real money in the recipient country, and preferably make them all clean and legal. Now you need to use some P2P exchanges, rely on some less reputable intermediaries, while PayPal will streamline the process.