Was having a discussion with someone getting who is getting into BTC the other day about the 'living on crypto' movement.
Mostly about the people who want to get paid in BTC / crypto and only spend BTC / crypto staying away from banks.
We went around and around for a while as to where his line was vs. mine. And it does bring up some interesting points. If you are getting paid in BTC and send it to BitPay / Conbase and convert it to their debit card and spend from there are you 'living on crypto'? How about Bitrefill and other places you can get gift cards from BTC / crypto?
Was an interesting discussion as to where we stood. And was just wondering how everyone else thinks.
Gift cards? Debit cards? Get paid in BTC and convert to USD (or whatever) and put into your bank?
-Dave
If you get paid in crypto, and you convert that crypto to your local currency and store it in a bank, and then convert JUST ENOUGH local currency back to crypto each day to cover your daily expenses, and use a crypto based debit card to pay for things... then you are NOT "living on crypto". You are NOT exposing your income to the volatility that comes with holding crypto and the issues that can arise when you want to pay for something, such as it costing twice as much crypto today as it did yesterday.
On the other hand, if you are paid in crypto, and you hold that revenue in crypto as you spend it, and you seek out merchants that accept crypto when possible, then it doesn't matter to me that you are using a crypto debit card in situations where crypto is not accepted. You are still "living on crypto".
I think of it this way:
Imagine I'm a citizen of the United States. I earn U.S. dollars from my employer. I hold my revenue in U.S. dollars (in my wallet, in my bank acount, in my investments). I spend U.S. dollars where I can. Now, I go on vacation to Europe for a month. While I'm in Europe, I use my U.S. based credit or debit card to pay for hotels, food, transportation, entertainment, etc. The merchant receives Euros, but the transaction processor converts to U.S. dollars at the current exchange rate and withdraws U.S. dollars from my bank account. Am I "living on U.S. dollars" (my source of revenue, my holdings, and what I see disappearing from my account)? Or am I "living on Euros" (even though I wasn't paid in Euros, I'm not holding Euros, and my bank account shows no Euros at all)? In my personal opinion, in that situation, I'm living on U.S. dollars.