Is crypto currency really that big? I've been under a rock....
Consider that it's largely unregulated FinTech, so while the average consumer perception may be fairly low, the insane amounts of money that exists in that sector ensures that there's definitely the capital to throw into stunts like this.
At the local convenience store near me, which is not exactly frequented by stock brokers and white collar types, there is a crypto currency ATM. Just stick your credit card and buy some after you've picked up your spam and microwave burrito. That should tell you something about how big it's gotten.
Same thing at the decades old liquor store around the corner from me (and not the fancy wine and cheese shop a half mile away).
As the aphorism goes:
A few years ago I had a cab driver telling me all about how it was the right time to buy bitcoin. No disrespect to the cab driver, but that is exactly when I knew that it was not the right time to buy bitcoin.
Crypto ATMs are not new - and the transaction fees are usually pretty high as well. I would say they're mostly predatory, to be honest, and functionally not that much different on a consumer level from scratch tickets, which largely explains their placements.
It's my mistake though: I should have said that the consumer perception is low
information. In other words, thanks to the skyrocketing valuation of btc and the headlines & hucksters, people know what it is, but not very many people are really that keyed in to the best way to use it (if there are any, which I'm not sure about either).
So, sure, most people "know what crypto is" - but I suspect many regard it as digital gold, if you will: an asset that has value (if you ignore volatility). Just like NFTs, which are little more than rebranded Beanie Babies, if you remember that craze.
That said, there is serious money behind a lot of these operations, which is how we wound up with Crypto dot com getting the naming convention over Staples.
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However Robin Lopez has the best take on this, I think:
https://twitter.com/rolopez42/status/1461001498196905992
Topic: Staples Center renamed to Crypto dot com (Read 4105 times)