Randomly reminder:
Main Ether exchange is registered in a barn in the woods in the middle of nowhere.
I've dealt with Polo for ages and have never had a problem with them.
And, there is another way of looking at this: proof that decentralization is spreading to the bricks-and-mortar world. When you think about it, there's no compelling reason (in the abstract) why a person who makes his or her living on the Internet should live in a big city. In fact, there's no compelling reason for a person to live in a big town!
This point has meaning to me because I currently live in Toronto, Canada. Like Vancouver, Toronto's real estate prices are climbing up the shiny spiral staircase of unaffordability.
Contrasts in point: A semi-detached Toronto house in a nice but not exclusive neighbourhood. Lot size about 20 feet by 140 feet. As a nice kicker, this house has a basement apartment - but that apartment means the owner will have no basement if that apt is rented.
http://www.remax.ca/on/toronto-real-estate/na-717-hillsdale-ave-treb_c3428834-lst/Now, a fully-detached house in Kapuskasing - a full day's drive away from Toronto. Lot size seems to be 65 feet by 90 feet. It has the same number of rooms as the Toronto house above, but a bigger lot. It has no basement apartment, but it does have a basement the owner can use.
http://www.truenorthrealty.ca/index.php?current=list&lstid=326List price for the Kapuskasing house? C$135,000. For the Toronto house? C$990,000. And given the hot-staircase nature of the Toronto real estate market, the Toronto house will likely sell above listing. On the other hand, there's a good chance that the Kapuskasing house will sell for a little below listing.
Now here's what's eating at me: someone, or a couple, who scraped up enough for a 15% down payment on the Toronto house could buy the Kapuskasing house
cash on the barrelhead and never have to worry about a mortgage. No 25-year millstone, only property taxes & living expenses. Toronto has hi-speed internet, but so does Kapuskasing. Neither have fiber-speed Internet.
So...if you make your living on the Internet, why not buy the cheaper domicile - especially if you can swing an all-cash purchase and never be tied to a mortgage millstone?
"Because you'd have to live in Kapuskasing!" True, but I put it to everyone that this answer is informed by cultural lag. At some point, the glaring price differential will overcome that cultural lag. And at that point, the folks who run a big swingin' cryptocurrency biz " in a barn in the woods in the middle of nowhere" will be seen as shrewdly ahead of their time!
