Paul Krugman Accidentally Made A Case For Bitcoin Cash By Trolling Ripple
The distinguished US court US economist, having exclusive access to democratic world leaders, does not in any way lack words to describe the cryptocurrency phenomenon: from useless to fraud, not forgetting evil, antisocial, worthless, impractical, bubble. He wildly praised bitcoin core (BTC) price haircuts, thereby approving being wiped out and worse. In yet another way to troll XRP and BTC enthusiasts, he tweeted chiding: ”If a digital currency isn’t actually used for any transactions, is it, you know, actually a currency?”
It is interesting to know that Mr. Krugman has backed into the main argument for bitcoin cash the same way a proponent will. He hasn’t mentioned the fourth largest decentralized currency by market capitalization. Still, the bitcoin cash clan maintains that for a cryptocurrency to exist in any way, it must be used. If not used, then such a currency is rather an exercise in greater fool game theory.
Mr. Krugman’s sarcastic and complacent take is related to Nathaniel Popper’s “Here’s Some Cryptocurrency. Now Please Use It,” that was published in The New York Times recently. Mr. Popper examined Ripple’s recent press barrage, shoving its XRP in front of an audience from Los Angeles (Ellen DeGeneres) to New York (Stephen Colbert). The audiences hosted giveaways that amounted to more than $30 million…just for two shows.
“Now comes the hard part,” Mr. Popper explained, “persuading people to use XRP for something other than speculative trading. It is an issue facing most of the still-young cryptocurrency industry. Digital tokens like bitcoin and its many imitators (like XRP) were designed to make electronic transactions of all sorts easier. But today almost no transactions are happening, other than on virtual currency exchanges where people bet on their price.”
Mr. Popper notes how many “people who bought the digital tokens created by these projects did so in the belief they will one day be used for real transactions of some sort. If the projects want to keep those investors from selling, the projects have to convince them the tokens will have some long-term value.”
XRP’s campaign to convince users about the functionality of the currency might be less than a philosophical harkening back to crypto’s rebellious roots. projects might “be subject to restrictions on trading and movement, making it even less likely that people will use tokens for their intended purposes.” Mr. Popper insists that it is something that Ripple’ executives are eager to avoid by all means. They’ve tried so hard to separate the company Ripple from the currency XRP, with an obvious irony, “its efforts to promote XRP could demonstrate how reliant XRP is on Ripple.”
