Title: Dear all,<p>I am aksing myself if cryptocurrencies provide ANY &quot;real-economic value&quot; AT ALL! I would be glad if anybody could convince me of APPLICATIONS where cryptocurrencies provide any real-economic value.<p>My thoughts:<p>- By &quot;real economic&quot; value creation I consider eg the introduction of the &quot;SEPA Instant Credit Transfer&quot; schemes (pan-European credit transfers in &lt;10 sec). This creates real economic value by minimizing both (i) speed and (ii) fees. This really benefits general society.<p>- Q1. What is the benefit of using cryptocurrencies over such schemes? I see none. On the contrary, cryptocurrencies add an ADDITIONAL (and therefore, if not yielding a benefit, by definition unnecessary) LAYER.<p>- Q2. Why should cryptocurrencies exist at all? Every country already has its native currency. Why introduce another one? (In fact, why MULTIPLE ones?) Suppose you want to transfer USD--&gt;EUR. Why transfer USD--&gt;BTC--&gt;EUR instead? This incurrs (i) 2 instead of 1 currency trafo risks and (ii) 2 trafo fees.<p>- Q3. &quot;Smart contracts&quot;. All (democratic) countries have courts in place to settle legistlative disputes between two parties. What&#x27;s wrong with this arrangement. Again, blockchain-based &quot;smart contracts&quot; would just an ADDITIONAL (unnecessary) LAYER.<p>Conclusions:<p>- ALL you need for the creation of future &quot;real-economic value&quot; is the INTERNET. Currencies are in place. Legislative institutions are in place. You just have to further digitize. There is no need to add additional (unnecessary) cryptocurrency layers.<p>Comments:<p>- I am not anti-crypto (owned quite a bit until I came to above conclusions, and definitiely consider it valuable at least from a academic perspective). I just can&#x27;t see how &quot;it is useful&quot; beyond &quot;speculation&quot;.<p>- I don&#x27;t accept explanations like &quot;Bitcoin is Gold 2.0&quot;, &quot;Hedge against inflation&quot; unless they are really founded. To me these sound just like made-up hype narratives.<p>Best regards
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