Comment by berkes
4 hours ago
If you want to exchange, that is buy or sell, you'll need such a "centralized" exchange. Same for trading.
So even those that keep their assets offline on an airgapped machine in a nuclear bunker, will occasionally move crypto assets on- and off these exchanges. And especially when you hold the crypto truly offline, it's a hassle to get it on- and off exchanges. So you'll probably keep several months worth of sales or buys before moving it.
Point being: even those that still believe in the "decentralized" currencies will have some of their assets on "centralized wallets", even if only for a short time.
And yes, I am aware that one can "decentralized" buy and sell for and to fiat. And yes, I am even aware that sometimes in some situations, one can even avoid exchanging to/from fiat to pay rent or gas. But that's far from practical and probably never attainable.
Functionally, yes anyone wanting to trade will likely use a centralized service.
That's one of my main gripes with bitcoin and all the others today. I don't agree with some of the original bitcoin papers ideas and goals, but at least the idea if being peer to peer makes sense.
The fact that today both securing and using these "currencies" requires a centralized service completely ruins the point of them. At best they're faster than wire transfers, at worst they're just a means to gamble on less regulated assets.
They dont require centralized services to secure or exchange.
But centralized services make exchanging make it much easier for non tech-savvy people to use.
Right, and that was my point with exchanges and services functionally being required.
If these were ever to be used for common every day transactions it can't be limited to tech savvy people only. t which point even if I self-custody I'm still dealing with exchanges on the other end of every transaction. Its like self hosting email for security and missing that 80% of everyone is emailing you from Google servers.