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matheusmoreira parent
The idea is to not convert it into fiat. Create a parallel economy where monero is the actual currency, not some intermediary currency. Price things in monero.
vintermann
Where would the trust come from? I mean the trust that people really do what they say they're going to do in the real world - like ship you the goods, do the work you paid for, don't immediately kick you out of the servers you paid to access etc. A shadow economy doesn't run itself, who's going to stick their neck out to even try to make it work?
miki123211
Crypto lets you decouple trust from ownership, that's one of its main selling points.

You can have a Visa-like network that supports chargebacks, but design it in a way that the dispute arbitrators cannot seize your money. If you report a transaction, they can either decide to release the money to the merchant or return it back to you, but the contract logic prevents them from doing anything else with that money. If both sides agree that the transaction has successfully taken place, it can be released automatically, despite the arbitrators' wishes.

This is something you can't do in trad fi, so we use laws and legal contracts as "hacks" to make it somewhat possible.

conception
This sounds terrible outside for very rare edge cases. It adds so much friction to disputed transactions. And in the end rather than beholden to the law you’re beholden to a third party arbiter. Sounds terrible in a sector rife with grifters and scams.
matheusmoreira OP
That's a completely separate issue. It's got nothing at all to do with the currency being used. USD has exactly the same problems, as does every other currency on earth.

Society's answer to that is violence. More specifically, the threat of violence. If people don't do what's expected of them, at some point people with guns will show up and the violence will commence, and it will continue until the desired order is restored.

Stuff like laws and courts are just extra steps towards that violence. No matter the context, the threat of violence looms eternal and that's what makes people behave reasonably.

tsimionescu
There is no threat of violence if the trading parties maintain anonimty. And even if they don't, there is little realistic threat unless the victim can prove to authorities who the offending party was.
ifwinterco
Where does the trust come from for transacting in dollars, or Spanish pieces of eight? I'm not saying the monero economy is likely but there's absolutely no reason why it couldn't theoretically happen
kasey_junk
Courts, law enforcement and contract law. All of which will take a dim view of using a currency which appears designed wholly to make their function harder.
fluoridation
>Courts, law enforcement and contract law.

That's the wrong answer. The existence of tokens predates the existence of government. It's the next step after barter. The correct answer is reputation. A vendor who cheats his customers builds up a bad reputation, and the only way he can keep doing it is by changing customer bases, for example by moving to a different town. Think of the traveling snake oil salesman who moves on once people realize his remedies don't work.

kasey_junk
The courts etc are there so we don’t have to create a posse and ride out to find the snake oil salesman. You _can_ have commerce without them but it’s much higher friction. So if a crypto wants me to abandon the existing systems it needs to show it creates less friction.
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ifwinterco
A crypto advocate would argue smart contracts can fulfil that role, but also that applies in developed countries but not in the countries where the vast majority of the world population lives.

I think if a true crypto economy does emerge anywhere it's likely to be Nigeria, Lebanon etc - places with a significant population of educated entrepreneurial people but where the state is run abysmally and you can't rely on those institutions anyway

kasey_junk
It seems to me that the crypto absolutists have it backwards. You can’t solve the problem of failed states by changing the technology of currency, because the state is there to solve for the counterparty risk at the point of exchange.

The alternative to governments monopoly on violence for enforcement, no matter if you exchange in monero or giant stone discs, is broad use of vigilante violence.

So while crypto seems like an interesting technology for moving money around, it seems like it doesn’t solve for the point of exchange problem and thus crypto that focuses on making that difficult for government mediation are bound to be only useful for illegal activities.

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meowkit
That is not where trust in the dollar comes from.

It comes from stability. Predictability.

Courts and law enforcement certainly provide these things, but they are not required. The inherent design of blockchains makes them trustworthy (an oversimplified statement), which is even better.

kasey_junk
Blockchains don’t, and can’t, solve for the risk of the off chain component of an exchange.

The transactions aren’t atomic so someone is taking on counterparty risk. One of governments prime responsibilities is dealing with that risk, no matter the currency in question.

aaomidi
I think crypto already exists as a parallel economy. Especially between certain states.

You use monero not to exchange for fiat but, for example, oil.

fruitworks
It's developed naturally through reputation systems, escrow, etc.
wkat4242
Yes and some VPNs can be paid in monero

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