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Its hard to see the value of bitcoin from the point of view of a decently well off westerner which most of us are here. We have access to currencies that are re

Its hard to see the value of bitcoin from the point of view of a decently well off westerner which most of us are here. We have access to currencies that are relatively stable even with inflation and access to banking which allows us to store our money securely and gives us access to investments around the world. We can also swap money for other currencies, with some fees, but its still doable. Now imagine you dont have access to a bank, you only get paid in cash and your currency is constantly inflating and you have no investment options to counteract that inflation. If someone is supporting you that lives somewhere else they have to pay fees on top of and takes days for the transfer to arrive. Then you have bitcoin which can accessed with a simple smartphone and can be sent anywhere in the world for a few dollars and takes around an hour. And you aren't constantly losing money holding onto it since its not constantly inflating. This is why people pay 100% premiums for bitcoins in countries whose currencies go to crap and why its hard for us to see why this is useful when we hold USD and Euros

0bsidian 9y ago
I can definitely see the utility in a censorship-resistant digital medium to store wealth. To me, this latter use case has a lot of potential to serve the unbanked (as well as the banked). Some use cases I can think off the top of my head: (1) You are from Syria and need to flee war and escape into Europe – however bank transfers into Europe are almost impossible if you are a common Syrian. Bitcoin allows you to take your wealth with you, in your brain, as you escape across the border, by just memorising your twelve word private key. (2) You are from Venezuela or Zimbabwe – The government has issued capital controls and is devaluing currency by the day. You transfer your wealth into Bitcoin in order to offset capital erosion due to hyper-inflation. When the situation stabilises, you transfer your Bitcoin back into fiat. (3) You are Saudi billionaire Al-Waleed bin Talal. The government freezes all your assets in a political coup. If you have a portion of your wealth in Bitcoin, you could protect them from government expropriation and anonymously transfer them to associates or family members abroad. (4) You are whistleblower Julian Assance and have been cut off from the financial system as a way to censor your speech. Bitcoin allows you to have an unbreakable digital "Swiss bank account" that the authorities are not able to reach. This reminds me of Peter Thiel's recent words about Bitcoin: "it's like a reserve form of money, it's like gold, and it's just a store of value. You don't need to use it to make payments." Reference [1]: https://www.cnbc.com/video/2017/10/26/peter-thiel-says-people-are-underestimating-bitcoin.html https://www.cnbc.com/video/2017/10/26/peter-thiel-says-peopl...
- candiodari 9y ago
  In other words: (1) tax evasion + capital controls evasion (2) tax evasion (3) tax evasion (4) justice system evasion I mean I get that the laws bitcoin evades quotes here are "unjust". They are still the law, however. Some states have unjust laws, and middle eastern muslim states, well the democracies there make dictatorships elsewhere look good ... Mostly you're complaining that the moral system popular in the US doesn't just apply everywhere. Fact is it doesn't, and imposing it (which is what bitcoin does), is considered not moral. If you want to allow this, why bother complaining about a 10% tax rate for the ultra rich ? Or highly illegal drug (e.g. GHB, and other rape drugs) ? You can't have one without the other, and ...
  - 0bsidian 9y ago
    >I mean I get that the laws bitcoin evades quotes here are "unjust". They are still the law, however. That fact that injustice is the law does not make it moral (e.g. Nazi Germany). Feel free to continue siding with the dictator, I will be cheering the people trying to fight what's "unjust" (as you admit).
    - candiodari 9y ago
      I just wanted to point out that you essentially want a way to avoid laws you consider unjust. The price, of course, is that the 1% pay 10% less tax.
exelius 9y ago
If I get paid in cash, how do I upload my cash via my mobile phone to buy bitcoin? Or would users need a bank still? Bitcoin (used as a proxy for the block gain/cryptocoin in general) does not remove the need for banks or financial governance. It is simply a new mechanism through which a bank could be built; but governments can (and should/will) pass laws regulating it.
- cdiddy2 9y ago
  Its true there is still some need for someone to have access to a bank or someone to physically bring in bitcoin to a country. But with services such as localbitcoins where you can find people near you to trade cash for bitcoin and bitcoin ATMs(not usually run by banks) you can get pretty far without a bank.
  - exelius 9y ago
    Ok, so who operates localbitcoins? How do we know they’re not just funneling us to a set of local agents that have really high prices? The replacement of “centralized trust” is not “trust anyone”. But I’m still not convinced any decentralized trust systems available today can deal with the governance problem: Who gets to make the rules, and why them? We’ve just replaced the relatively-transparent Federal Reserve with a group of shady mining company CEOs controlling core whose main cash flow is likely laundering drug money (we don’t know for sure though because they don’t ask questions). I don’t think that’s an improvement for transparency.
    - cdiddy2 9y ago
      "relatively-transparent Federal Reserve" - thats crap. All bitcoin are open to see and track and all the code is open source and you can start mining if you want to, albeit at a loss. The federal reserve is the opposite of transparent.
    - cdiddy2 9y ago
      also, if you dont like te way bitcoin is being run then just fork it, bitcoin cash did just that because groups couldnt agree on if they wanted small blocks or large blocks.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

0bsidian 9y ago

I can definitely see the utility in a censorship-resistant digital medium to store wealth. To me, this latter use case has a lot of potential to serve the unbanked (as well as the banked). Some use cases I can think off the top of my head: (1) You are from Syria and need to flee war and escape into Europe – however bank transfers into Europe are almost impossible if you are a common Syrian. Bitcoin allows you to take your wealth with you, in your brain, as you escape across the border, by just memorising your twelve word private key. (2) You are from Venezuela or Zimbabwe – The government has issued capital controls and is devaluing currency by the day. You transfer your wealth into Bitcoin in order to offset capital erosion due to hyper-inflation. When the situation stabilises, you transfer your Bitcoin back into fiat. (3) You are Saudi billionaire Al-Waleed bin Talal. The government freezes all your assets in a political coup. If you have a portion of your wealth in Bitcoin, you could protect them from government expropriation and anonymously transfer them to associates or family members abroad. (4) You are whistleblower Julian Assance and have been cut off from the financial system as a way to censor your speech. Bitcoin allows you to have an unbreakable digital "Swiss bank account" that the authorities are not able to reach. This reminds me of Peter Thiel's recent words about Bitcoin: "it's like a reserve form of money, it's like gold, and it's just a store of value. You don't need to use it to make payments." Reference [1]: https://www.cnbc.com/video/2017/10/26/peter-thiel-says-people-are-underestimating-bitcoin.html https://www.cnbc.com/video/2017/10/26/peter-thiel-says-peopl...

candiodari 9y ago
In other words: (1) tax evasion + capital controls evasion (2) tax evasion (3) tax evasion (4) justice system evasion I mean I get that the laws bitcoin evades quotes here are "unjust". They are still the law, however. Some states have unjust laws, and middle eastern muslim states, well the democracies there make dictatorships elsewhere look good ... Mostly you're complaining that the moral system popular in the US doesn't just apply everywhere. Fact is it doesn't, and imposing it (which is what bitcoin does), is considered not moral. If you want to allow this, why bother complaining about a 10% tax rate for the ultra rich ? Or highly illegal drug (e.g. GHB, and other rape drugs) ? You can't have one without the other, and ...
- 0bsidian 9y ago
  >I mean I get that the laws bitcoin evades quotes here are "unjust". They are still the law, however. That fact that injustice is the law does not make it moral (e.g. Nazi Germany). Feel free to continue siding with the dictator, I will be cheering the people trying to fight what's "unjust" (as you admit).
  - candiodari 9y ago
    I just wanted to point out that you essentially want a way to avoid laws you consider unjust. The price, of course, is that the 1% pay 10% less tax.

exelius 9y ago

If I get paid in cash, how do I upload my cash via my mobile phone to buy bitcoin? Or would users need a bank still? Bitcoin (used as a proxy for the block gain/cryptocoin in general) does not remove the need for banks or financial governance. It is simply a new mechanism through which a bank could be built; but governments can (and should/will) pass laws regulating it.

cdiddy2 9y ago
Its true there is still some need for someone to have access to a bank or someone to physically bring in bitcoin to a country. But with services such as localbitcoins where you can find people near you to trade cash for bitcoin and bitcoin ATMs(not usually run by banks) you can get pretty far without a bank.
- exelius 9y ago
  Ok, so who operates localbitcoins? How do we know they’re not just funneling us to a set of local agents that have really high prices? The replacement of “centralized trust” is not “trust anyone”. But I’m still not convinced any decentralized trust systems available today can deal with the governance problem: Who gets to make the rules, and why them? We’ve just replaced the relatively-transparent Federal Reserve with a group of shady mining company CEOs controlling core whose main cash flow is likely laundering drug money (we don’t know for sure though because they don’t ask questions). I don’t think that’s an improvement for transparency.
  - cdiddy2 9y ago
    "relatively-transparent Federal Reserve" - thats crap. All bitcoin are open to see and track and all the code is open source and you can start mining if you want to, albeit at a loss. The federal reserve is the opposite of transparent.
  - cdiddy2 9y ago
    also, if you dont like te way bitcoin is being run then just fork it, bitcoin cash did just that because groups couldnt agree on if they wanted small blocks or large blocks.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]