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Here's a problem that blockchain solves - financial censorship. If you want to buy a 4chan pass, you'll find there is no option to pay in EUR or USD. Cryptocur

Here's a problem that blockchain solves - financial censorship. If you want to buy a 4chan pass, you'll find there is no option to pay in EUR or USD. Cryptocurrency only. Is this because 4chan is operating an illegal business? No. It's because they cannot process payments using the traditional means. Controversial websites get financially censored all the time. Here are a few that come to mind: Kiwi Farms, Wikileaks, Backpage, 8chan, Bitchute, American Renaissance. I'm sure other commentators can chime in with more. Calling blockchains a solution to nothing is pretty offensive to the those who rely on it to pay their expenses without another realistic option. Not to mention, anonymous cryptocurrencies such as Monero protect both the recipient -and- the sender from financial censorship. I wouldn't want to end up on a public list or have my bank account closed for donating to a controversial person or organization. And Monero could not provide the excellent privacy that it does without a distributed ledger authenticated by proof of work. When a Monero user spends money, he randomly samples the blockchain until ten dummy transactions can be found and combined with his real transaction in a construct called a ring signature used to obscure the true sender. This only works because the user can secure his own copy of the blockchain. If he had to ask someone else for those dummy transactions, that someone else could use process of elimination to identify the authentic transaction in the user's ring signature.

stagas 6y ago
I would say this its biggest advantage. It doesn't have to be a controversial or fraudulent transaction. Regular digital money ownership and exchange, especially across countries, is severely policed and most of the time impossible for a huge portion of the population, not because they're criminals, but because they happen to be living in or coming from a place where these freedoms are just not there. Cryptocurrencies take away these and numerous other problems that are caused by ordinary financial institutions and the way societies are structured.
- aww_dang 6y ago
  Agreed. The tech is there, but gatekeepers have set up shop around the last mile. Onerous regulations like KYC surround exchanges in the first world. In regions with tight capital controls, it can be even more difficult. The people who stand to benefit the most have the biggest hurdles to adoption.
  - BTCOG 6y ago
    Exchanges are not a part of Bitcoin, and should not exist. Not your keys, not your money. KYC is an invention by financial systems that have nothing to do with Bitcoin and it's intended use. Nobody holds custody over Bitcoin but the privatekey owner. KYC/AML are scams. They do not exist within Bitcoin. This is simply speculators adhering to a financial system that does not control them. There is absolutely no need at all to ever adhere to KYC/AML as they exist in traditional banking, and not in Bitcoin. Folks that don't understand how to use Bitcoin outside of that traditional system for some reason are constantly pining for regulation. This is anti-Bitcoin.
    - fossuser 6y ago
      KYC and AML exist for a reason - investigating and stopping massive amounts of financial crime. People want to convert between fiat currency and BTC, that’s why they end up interacting with these regulations. You can’t currently live only using BTC, but even if you could, the public ledger of every transaction would make it pretty easy to figure out your scheme and come after you anyway whenever you tried to convert the money to actually do anything.
      - aww_dang 6y ago
        BTC is a poor candidate for day to day transactions. I'm not sure it can ever reach that level of adoption under the current conditions. Lightning network has been a Rube Goldberg machine of complications. There are other altcoins like NANO which are a better fit for actual transactions. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVNyr4Q3jq4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVNyr4Q3jq4 Agree that there's no way to reach a 100% homogeneous cryptocurrency economy and that exchanges are necessary. As an example, taxes are always paid/priced in the state's currency. Even if we could reach that point, I doubt it could be done by an entire economy switching their billing over to BTC overnight. Exchanges facilitate adoption.
romanoderoma 6y ago
> Here's a problem that blockchain solves - financial censorship. Cash is still better This argument comes up everytime blockchain are discussed, but I don't believe it is true I could theoretically pay 4chan using crypto money,but I argue this is not a solution First of all, it's not the straightforward, very few people on average can do that on their own It requires a computer with a connection, they are ubiquitous I understand it, but it's still a very hard requirement But most of all, what do I do with the crypto if the baker doesn't accept them? I have to change them into a fiat currency valid in my country and I have to do it in my name (or the company name) because it's illegal to do it in some other people name it's also illegal in many countries if you are a company use a third party to shelter the origin of the money (you pay X who then donates to WikiLeaks) at that point we are back at square one
- ric2b 6y ago
  Your point is that the lack of adoption makes it an incomplete solution, right? It's a valid point, but it's like saying e-mail in the 90's was not a good replacement for mail because if you want to forward it to your aunt you still need to print it out and mail it. If adoption improves those problems go away.
  - romanoderoma 6y ago
    > If adoption improves those problems go away My point is also that adoption won't improve because the benefits are limited and most of the times there is no benefit at all e-mail solved a problem: communicating rapidly sending letters was slow, costly and error prone sending an e-mail was immediate, free and if it got lost re-sending a copy was effortless
    - nojster 6y ago
      Have you tried international money transfers? Bank to bank this can take 3-5 business days (agreed, western union can be faster, but less convenient) and, depending on your payment processor, can easily cost 15% on the transferred value. So I argue that, similarly like with the mail to email example, money to emoney is faster, cheaper and safer.
djhaskin987 6y ago
I'll tell you something else monero does, is hide the miners. You can't tell who mined the coin. This sounds like a good thing until your AWS access key gets stolen and a thug steals hundreds of thousands of dollars of compute time on your account in hopes of mining a tenth of that in monero coin.
xg15 6y ago
> Kiwi Farms, Wikileaks, Backpage, 8chan, Bitchute, American Renaissance Kiwi Farms: "Kiwi Farms, formerly known as CWCki Forums, is an American Internet forum dedicated to the discussion of online figures and communities it deems "lolcows". The targets of threads are often subject to doxing and other forms of organized group trolling such as ongoing harassment and stalking, including real-life harassment by users."[1] Backpage: "Backpage was a classified advertising website that had become the largest marketplace for buying and selling sex by the time that federal law enforcement agencies seized it in April 2018. [...] Backpage's adult services sections became the subject of an investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, [...and other agencies] over accusations that the website knowingly allowed and encouraged users to post ads related to prostitution and human trafficking, particularly involving minors, and took steps to intentionally obfuscate the activities."[2] Bitchute: "BitChute is a video hosting service known for accommodating far-right individuals and conspiracy theorists."[3] American Renaissance: "American Renaissance (AR or AmRen) is a monthly white supremacist online publication founded and edited by Jared Taylor. It is published by the New Century Foundation, which describes itself as a "race-realist, white advocacy organization"."[4] That's all a little more than "controversial" - most of this stuff is plainly illegal and has led to real-life harm. There were good reasons why those sites were "censored". [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiwi_Farms https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiwi_Farms [2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backpage https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backpage [3] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/BitChute https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/BitChute [4] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Renaissance_(magazine) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Renaissance_(magazi...
- DuskStar 6y ago
  As far as I'm aware, only Backpage could be described as "illegal" instead of just "distasteful" or "unacceptable", and there's some controversy over whether Backpage was actually in the wrong there. (Supposedly they were very cooperative with the feds to track down sex traffickers and underage prostitutes)
  - xg15 6y ago
    Well, Wikipedia at least has this: "Its CEO, Carl Ferrer, pleaded guilty to charges of facilitating prostitution and money laundering, acknowledging that "the great majority” of the adult advertisements on Backpage were actually advertisements for prostitution." So there seems to be admission that the site's main purpose was prostitution and money laundering, whether or not the other accusations are true. As for the other sites, I don't know the intricacies of US law, but "it's technically not illegal" is usually a bad way to make a case. Those are communities dedicated to cyberbullying, extreme-right wing views and white supremacy. All those things are documented to have cost lives and in many countries are either already illegal or close to becoming that. In any case, those are not the noble dissidents in authoritarian countries that Blockchain advocates usually argue with.
TomSwirly 6y ago
> financial censorship. Or what civilized people call "preventing money laundering". What you are saying is that blockchain allows you to break the law.
- drenvuk 6y ago
  Don't combine money laundering with denying services to people who do things that are distasteful certain other groups. Legally free speech, pornography and weed payments are also banned on platforms that go through the normal payment processing routes. The weed issue is because of federal laws but I don't know the full reason behind the other bans. One quick example: Patreon vs Sargon or Patreon vs artists that produce works with nudity. In these cases, things users were banned for did not happen directly on their platform and weren't even mentioned on their platform. I list them because they're easy to google but there are others. Do you consider those situations to be something other than censorship?
cryptonector 6y ago
I'm skeptical that blockchain cryptocurrencies can ever be politically acceptable if they were to provide real anonymity, but anonymity in online financial transactions is about the only problem they have a hope of solving.
orev 6y ago
You are talking about cryptocurrency, which is only one use of the blockchain concept. So far there does not seem to be any other use of blockchain except for cryptocurrency, despite so many organizations trying to figure out something else to use it for.

stagas 6y ago

I would say this its biggest advantage. It doesn't have to be a controversial or fraudulent transaction. Regular digital money ownership and exchange, especially across countries, is severely policed and most of the time impossible for a huge portion of the population, not because they're criminals, but because they happen to be living in or coming from a place where these freedoms are just not there. Cryptocurrencies take away these and numerous other problems that are caused by ordinary financial institutions and the way societies are structured.

aww_dang 6y ago
Agreed. The tech is there, but gatekeepers have set up shop around the last mile. Onerous regulations like KYC surround exchanges in the first world. In regions with tight capital controls, it can be even more difficult. The people who stand to benefit the most have the biggest hurdles to adoption.
- BTCOG 6y ago
  Exchanges are not a part of Bitcoin, and should not exist. Not your keys, not your money. KYC is an invention by financial systems that have nothing to do with Bitcoin and it's intended use. Nobody holds custody over Bitcoin but the privatekey owner. KYC/AML are scams. They do not exist within Bitcoin. This is simply speculators adhering to a financial system that does not control them. There is absolutely no need at all to ever adhere to KYC/AML as they exist in traditional banking, and not in Bitcoin. Folks that don't understand how to use Bitcoin outside of that traditional system for some reason are constantly pining for regulation. This is anti-Bitcoin.
  - fossuser 6y ago
    KYC and AML exist for a reason - investigating and stopping massive amounts of financial crime. People want to convert between fiat currency and BTC, that’s why they end up interacting with these regulations. You can’t currently live only using BTC, but even if you could, the public ledger of every transaction would make it pretty easy to figure out your scheme and come after you anyway whenever you tried to convert the money to actually do anything.
    - aww_dang 6y ago
      BTC is a poor candidate for day to day transactions. I'm not sure it can ever reach that level of adoption under the current conditions. Lightning network has been a Rube Goldberg machine of complications. There are other altcoins like NANO which are a better fit for actual transactions. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVNyr4Q3jq4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVNyr4Q3jq4 Agree that there's no way to reach a 100% homogeneous cryptocurrency economy and that exchanges are necessary. As an example, taxes are always paid/priced in the state's currency. Even if we could reach that point, I doubt it could be done by an entire economy switching their billing over to BTC overnight. Exchanges facilitate adoption.

romanoderoma 6y ago

> Here's a problem that blockchain solves - financial censorship. Cash is still better This argument comes up everytime blockchain are discussed, but I don't believe it is true I could theoretically pay 4chan using crypto money,but I argue this is not a solution First of all, it's not the straightforward, very few people on average can do that on their own It requires a computer with a connection, they are ubiquitous I understand it, but it's still a very hard requirement But most of all, what do I do with the crypto if the baker doesn't accept them? I have to change them into a fiat currency valid in my country and I have to do it in my name (or the company name) because it's illegal to do it in some other people name it's also illegal in many countries if you are a company use a third party to shelter the origin of the money (you pay X who then donates to WikiLeaks) at that point we are back at square one

ric2b 6y ago
Your point is that the lack of adoption makes it an incomplete solution, right? It's a valid point, but it's like saying e-mail in the 90's was not a good replacement for mail because if you want to forward it to your aunt you still need to print it out and mail it. If adoption improves those problems go away.
- romanoderoma 6y ago
  > If adoption improves those problems go away My point is also that adoption won't improve because the benefits are limited and most of the times there is no benefit at all e-mail solved a problem: communicating rapidly sending letters was slow, costly and error prone sending an e-mail was immediate, free and if it got lost re-sending a copy was effortless
  - nojster 6y ago
    Have you tried international money transfers? Bank to bank this can take 3-5 business days (agreed, western union can be faster, but less convenient) and, depending on your payment processor, can easily cost 15% on the transferred value. So I argue that, similarly like with the mail to email example, money to emoney is faster, cheaper and safer.

djhaskin987 6y ago

I'll tell you something else monero does, is hide the miners. You can't tell who mined the coin. This sounds like a good thing until your AWS access key gets stolen and a thug steals hundreds of thousands of dollars of compute time on your account in hopes of mining a tenth of that in monero coin.

xg15 6y ago

> Kiwi Farms, Wikileaks, Backpage, 8chan, Bitchute, American Renaissance Kiwi Farms: "Kiwi Farms, formerly known as CWCki Forums, is an American Internet forum dedicated to the discussion of online figures and communities it deems "lolcows". The targets of threads are often subject to doxing and other forms of organized group trolling such as ongoing harassment and stalking, including real-life harassment by users."[1] Backpage: "Backpage was a classified advertising website that had become the largest marketplace for buying and selling sex by the time that federal law enforcement agencies seized it in April 2018. [...] Backpage's adult services sections became the subject of an investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, [...and other agencies] over accusations that the website knowingly allowed and encouraged users to post ads related to prostitution and human trafficking, particularly involving minors, and took steps to intentionally obfuscate the activities."[2] Bitchute: "BitChute is a video hosting service known for accommodating far-right individuals and conspiracy theorists."[3] American Renaissance: "American Renaissance (AR or AmRen) is a monthly white supremacist online publication founded and edited by Jared Taylor. It is published by the New Century Foundation, which describes itself as a "race-realist, white advocacy organization"."[4] That's all a little more than "controversial" - most of this stuff is plainly illegal and has led to real-life harm. There were good reasons why those sites were "censored". [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiwi_Farms https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiwi_Farms [2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backpage https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backpage [3] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/BitChute https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/BitChute [4] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Renaissance_(magazine) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Renaissance_(magazi...

DuskStar 6y ago
As far as I'm aware, only Backpage could be described as "illegal" instead of just "distasteful" or "unacceptable", and there's some controversy over whether Backpage was actually in the wrong there. (Supposedly they were very cooperative with the feds to track down sex traffickers and underage prostitutes)
- xg15 6y ago
  Well, Wikipedia at least has this: "Its CEO, Carl Ferrer, pleaded guilty to charges of facilitating prostitution and money laundering, acknowledging that "the great majority” of the adult advertisements on Backpage were actually advertisements for prostitution." So there seems to be admission that the site's main purpose was prostitution and money laundering, whether or not the other accusations are true. As for the other sites, I don't know the intricacies of US law, but "it's technically not illegal" is usually a bad way to make a case. Those are communities dedicated to cyberbullying, extreme-right wing views and white supremacy. All those things are documented to have cost lives and in many countries are either already illegal or close to becoming that. In any case, those are not the noble dissidents in authoritarian countries that Blockchain advocates usually argue with.

TomSwirly 6y ago

> financial censorship. Or what civilized people call "preventing money laundering". What you are saying is that blockchain allows you to break the law.

drenvuk 6y ago
Don't combine money laundering with denying services to people who do things that are distasteful certain other groups. Legally free speech, pornography and weed payments are also banned on platforms that go through the normal payment processing routes. The weed issue is because of federal laws but I don't know the full reason behind the other bans. One quick example: Patreon vs Sargon or Patreon vs artists that produce works with nudity. In these cases, things users were banned for did not happen directly on their platform and weren't even mentioned on their platform. I list them because they're easy to google but there are others. Do you consider those situations to be something other than censorship?

cryptonector 6y ago

I'm skeptical that blockchain cryptocurrencies can ever be politically acceptable if they were to provide real anonymity, but anonymity in online financial transactions is about the only problem they have a hope of solving.

orev 6y ago

You are talking about cryptocurrency, which is only one use of the blockchain concept. So far there does not seem to be any other use of blockchain except for cryptocurrency, despite so many organizations trying to figure out something else to use it for.