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And... * Porn * Donations to wikileaks * Pot * Sending money to Venezuela * Leaving Venezuela with your wealth intact * Payments without giving all transa

by lawn 8y ago

And... * Porn * Donations to wikileaks * Pot * Sending money to Venezuela * Leaving Venezuela with your wealth intact * Payments without giving all transaction info to the credit card companies * Digital payments for the unbanked All legal usage that makes sense.

ceejayoz 8y ago
All of those items can be done pretty trivially without cryptocurrency (with the sort-of exception of Venezuela, but taking money out of the country is not a legal usage in either case).
- lawn 8y ago
  Except credit card companies don't want to touch porn sites (they have to pay a huge markup and go through other middlemen) or pot companies (who accept cash but it's not digital). PayPal froze the donations to wikileaks. That's not possible if you donate using Bitcoin. The corrupt government in Venezuela may deem it illegal but it's not immoral to want to flee the country with your wealth. This is much easier with Bitcoin as you can just remember or write down your seed. The point is cryptocurrencies does this all better. And your definition of "pretty trivial" is for the most part ignorant.
  - ceejayoz 8y ago
    That's quite a few moved goalposts.
    - lawn 8y ago
      Granted the Venezuela example was a bad example of a legal use. Everything else stands though.
      - ceejayoz 8y ago
        Your markup/middleman argument pretends that Bitcoin didn't fairly recently have massive fees for transactions - for a while, one's $10/month Pornhub subscription would've cost $40+/month. (Side note: said monthly subscriptions are another challenge here for crypto and porn...) Cryptocurrency stored on an exchange can be frozen, just like one's PayPal balance can be. Wikileaks takes PayPal (and credit card, bank transfer, checks, etc.) donations currently on their site.
        lawn 8y ago
        Bitcoin's developers have refused for years to do what's necessary to avoid high fees like that. Luckily there are other cryptocurrencies, like Bitcoin Cash, which consistently have < 1 cent fees. The infrastructure for automatic payments isn't there yet that's true. There's no reason why it can't be done though. I also have recurring payments for my email service, VPN, VPS and domains which I pay using cryptocurrencies. To be fair the point of cryptocurrencies isn't to store them on an exchange (although you can) as some of the benefits are then lost. That Wikileaks take other options doesn't retract from the point that there are clear benefits for them to accept cryptocurrencies.
floatboth 8y ago
The last one is complete bollocks. https://www.reddit.com/r/Buttcoin/comments/9jv70b/butter_tries_bank_the_unbanked_spiel_for_the/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Buttcoin/comments/9jv70b/butter_tri...

by lawn 8y ago

ceejayoz 8y ago

All of those items can be done pretty trivially without cryptocurrency (with the sort-of exception of Venezuela, but taking money out of the country is not a legal usage in either case).

lawn 8y ago
Except credit card companies don't want to touch porn sites (they have to pay a huge markup and go through other middlemen) or pot companies (who accept cash but it's not digital). PayPal froze the donations to wikileaks. That's not possible if you donate using Bitcoin. The corrupt government in Venezuela may deem it illegal but it's not immoral to want to flee the country with your wealth. This is much easier with Bitcoin as you can just remember or write down your seed. The point is cryptocurrencies does this all better. And your definition of "pretty trivial" is for the most part ignorant.
- ceejayoz 8y ago
  That's quite a few moved goalposts.
  - lawn 8y ago
    Granted the Venezuela example was a bad example of a legal use. Everything else stands though.
    - ceejayoz 8y ago
      Your markup/middleman argument pretends that Bitcoin didn't fairly recently have massive fees for transactions - for a while, one's $10/month Pornhub subscription would've cost $40+/month. (Side note: said monthly subscriptions are another challenge here for crypto and porn...) Cryptocurrency stored on an exchange can be frozen, just like one's PayPal balance can be. Wikileaks takes PayPal (and credit card, bank transfer, checks, etc.) donations currently on their site.
      - lawn 8y ago
        Bitcoin's developers have refused for years to do what's necessary to avoid high fees like that. Luckily there are other cryptocurrencies, like Bitcoin Cash, which consistently have < 1 cent fees. The infrastructure for automatic payments isn't there yet that's true. There's no reason why it can't be done though. I also have recurring payments for my email service, VPN, VPS and domains which I pay using cryptocurrencies. To be fair the point of cryptocurrencies isn't to store them on an exchange (although you can) as some of the benefits are then lost. That Wikileaks take other options doesn't retract from the point that there are clear benefits for them to accept cryptocurrencies.

floatboth 8y ago

The last one is complete bollocks. https://www.reddit.com/r/Buttcoin/comments/9jv70b/butter_tries_bank_the_unbanked_spiel_for_the/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Buttcoin/comments/9jv70b/butter_tri...