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Whether you agree with the use cases or traction they're gaining doesn't negate that there's a lot of others that do find them useful.

by flarex 7y ago

arcticbull 7y ago
That's totally fair and I only call it out because in my original post I said "other than speculation and money laundering" (which I freely admit is a big use case) and you provided me a list dominated by speculation and money laundering.
- flarex 7y ago
  Maker and Compound both support interest and borrowing which are what you'd find in a traditional bank (at much worse rates). The money laundering argument could be applied to anything that can't be controlled by governments. Unfortunately there are many countries where monetary policy is oppressive so Defi finance is a legitimate alternative. Just because technology can be abused doesn't mean that it shouldn't be used. See the internet etc.
  - bananabreakfast 7y ago
    You're completely missing the point raised though. They said there are no real uses of this technology outside of speculation and laundering and your response is that tools for speculation and laundering are useful. That's not really what the argument is here. The argument is that this technology is being touted as diverse and widely popular when it in fact is not and mostly only used in circular use cases involving itself.
    - flarex 7y ago
      No I just said you can use it for saving and borrowing which have nothing to do with speculation or money laundering. Also it’s impossible to tell what percentage of transactions are related to money laundering in crypto and you can’t outright dismiss legit use cases because of this.
- rolltiide 7y ago
  The opposite of anti-money laundering (AML) isn’t actual money laundering AML implementation is a poor and misapplied user experience that is usually done as an excuse to prevent money laundering. Many services apply it arbitrarily with no scrutiny and use it to steal users funds. Unclear regulations per country dont help and unscrupulous actors take advantage. Onchain and noncustodial services are either exempt or function autonomously, removing this particular duty of the state. They also typically have unlimited amounts that you can move, compared to arbitrary monetary amounts that centralized systems impose. “DeFi” efforts are being made to make the experience of using onchain noncustodial services as fast or faster than offchain custodial services and a lot of progress has been made towards that. Regarding the actual money laundering everyone’s afraid of, even the strictest regulations never actually prevented that while taxing all business and financial institutions. The Patriot Act wouldn’t have flagged any of the 9/11 transactions, HSBC still laundered billions for the actual cartel, minorities go to jail for accidentally using over $10,000 in cash, and even Al Capone could have passed the KYC part of AML regulations, so who is this for? Any way its going to be moot and already is for a lot of people.

Whether you agree with the use cases or traction they're gaining doesn't negate that there's a lot of others that do find them useful.

by flarex 7y ago

Whether you agree with the use cases or traction they're gaining doesn't negate that there's a lot of others that do find them useful.

arcticbull 7y ago

That's totally fair and I only call it out because in my original post I said "other than speculation and money laundering" (which I freely admit is a big use case) and you provided me a list dominated by speculation and money laundering.

flarex 7y ago
Maker and Compound both support interest and borrowing which are what you'd find in a traditional bank (at much worse rates). The money laundering argument could be applied to anything that can't be controlled by governments. Unfortunately there are many countries where monetary policy is oppressive so Defi finance is a legitimate alternative. Just because technology can be abused doesn't mean that it shouldn't be used. See the internet etc.
- bananabreakfast 7y ago
  You're completely missing the point raised though. They said there are no real uses of this technology outside of speculation and laundering and your response is that tools for speculation and laundering are useful. That's not really what the argument is here. The argument is that this technology is being touted as diverse and widely popular when it in fact is not and mostly only used in circular use cases involving itself.
  - flarex 7y ago
    No I just said you can use it for saving and borrowing which have nothing to do with speculation or money laundering. Also it’s impossible to tell what percentage of transactions are related to money laundering in crypto and you can’t outright dismiss legit use cases because of this.
rolltiide 7y ago
The opposite of anti-money laundering (AML) isn’t actual money laundering AML implementation is a poor and misapplied user experience that is usually done as an excuse to prevent money laundering. Many services apply it arbitrarily with no scrutiny and use it to steal users funds. Unclear regulations per country dont help and unscrupulous actors take advantage. Onchain and noncustodial services are either exempt or function autonomously, removing this particular duty of the state. They also typically have unlimited amounts that you can move, compared to arbitrary monetary amounts that centralized systems impose. “DeFi” efforts are being made to make the experience of using onchain noncustodial services as fast or faster than offchain custodial services and a lot of progress has been made towards that. Regarding the actual money laundering everyone’s afraid of, even the strictest regulations never actually prevented that while taxing all business and financial institutions. The Patriot Act wouldn’t have flagged any of the 9/11 transactions, HSBC still laundered billions for the actual cartel, minorities go to jail for accidentally using over $10,000 in cash, and even Al Capone could have passed the KYC part of AML regulations, so who is this for? Any way its going to be moot and already is for a lot of people.