I was at the veterinarian with my dog and the person in front of me paid $400 in cash. She was short some change and ran out to her car for it. I mentioned to the vet assistant that I hadn’t seen that much cash in a very long time. She said people pay cash sometimes, but not often at all anymore.
When the woman got back from her car she talked about her paying in cash. She said she sets money aside to pay for the vet and has paid up to $3800 in cash. She also insisted she didn’t sell “feet pics” which I found oddly specific that she threw that out for no reason.
Seeing $400 really isn’t much cash, but my reaction struck me. Digital currency is already very much the norm in Canada. I’ve had the same $150 in my wallet for a year now. The ease of value transfer with Interac, whether it’s bill payments or peer to peer, has already built a system. Canadians have a fairly performant system built on top the banks we already have our money in. I pay my kid’s weekly allowance in an e-transfer. This is a norm now. I’m not advocating for the big banks at all. Canadians just have a product that has gained traction and built momentum.
What’s the point of cryptocurrency in Canada then ? Whether you think it’s a scam or not, I don’t think there’s a big spot for it in Canadian society at the moment. Compared to what’s already in place from the established and safe institutions, cryptocurrency is slower, harder to use and more difficult to cash out. Regular people just aren’t going to pick it up any time soon.
I used to think that cryptocurrency was an interesting project that might become something special. A project that could add to the greater good. I don’t think that anymore. The list of cryptocurrency scams, frauds and thefts grows exponentially. For me, the negatives have tainted something that could have made things better for everyone. Cryptocurrency has become a financial vehicle that is there to make money for some people, usually the already rich, and strip it from unwitting others. I thought it was going to unfetter society from big banks, but that’s definitely not the case.
I titled this “First Post” because it’s probably going to be the first of many posts about my thoughts on cryptocurrency. This post is a vague start, but a start is what I was looking for at the moment.