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> 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

> 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.
    - romanoderoma 6y ago
      > Have you tried international money transfers? They transfer real money, immediately available upon receiving them. International money transfer follow international regulations, you can make them speedier by breaking rules, which is usually not what you want if you receive or send money abroad legally (imagine a mom receiving money from her son having to explain why she received it from unofficial crypto channels) International money transfer is insured, lost crypto are lost forever. International money transfer it's a highly regulated market users have the rights to be informed of the cost of the operation before starting it, costs also include exchange rates (the operator does the operation for you, you send X and the receiver receive dollars or pound or euros directly, crypto don't include that), taxes collected upfront (crypto skips that) and of course service fees. International money transfer also pass through IRS (or the equivalent agency there is in other countries) for amount higher than a certain threshold, to avoid money laundering. Crypto skips that. etc. etc. etc. That's why it costs more. But it is also more secure and less suspicious for the authorities. E-mail had no such downsides.
      - ric2b 6y ago
        > They transfer real money, immediately available upon receiving them. Just like a Bitcoin transaction (unless you're excluding it from "real money" because of it's low adoption, but that's not a technical limitation). > International money transfer is insured, lost crypto are lost forever. Is it insured against your own mistake when selecting the receiver or amount? I doubt it, and that's the only way you'll lose crypto during a transfer. > International money transfer it's a highly regulated market users have the rights to be informed of the cost of the operation before starting it, costs also include exchange rates (the operator does the operation for you, you send X and the receiver receive dollars or pound or euros directly, crypto don't include that), taxes collected upfront (crypto skips that) and of course service fees. Actually crypto can do all that (minus the taxes) and it's actually the standard, assuming you're exchanging between different crypto-currencies and not Bitcoin -> Euro. As for taxes it's just a question of making a wallet that automatically pays the correct tax to the taxing agency address. > E-mail had no such downsides. E-mail definitely also skips lots of steps of snail-mail: - It can't send any physical items - There's no government agency monitoring your mail for tariffs evasion or other unlawful activities. - You can't just say you don't want to receive ads by e-mail and then sue the companies that don't comply - There's no registered mail - Etc, we could probably come up with other limitations
Acrobatic_Road 6y ago
Don't get me wrong. Cash is great. But how do I quickly and securely do a long distance transaction in cash? Do you except people to wait for the postal service to deliver an envelope before they receive whatever they've payed for? >It requires a computer with a connection, they are ubiquitous I understand it, but it's still a very hard requirement In your example you are paying 4chan. You already have a computer with an internet connection. >But most of all, what do I do with the crypto if the baker doesn't accept them? You could sell the cryptocurrency for cash using localbitcoins. Or you could sell it for a gift card. Or you could anonymize the funds and give them to a trusted party to sell at a KYC exchange. Then the cash is withdrawn from the bank and delivered to your organization. As far as I'm aware, there isn't anything illegal about this. And of course, you could just spend the cryptocurrency as is if the merchant accepts it.
- godelski 6y ago
  > Do you except people to wait for the postal service to deliver an envelope before they receive whatever they've payed for? To be fair, it might be quicker to verify cash payment by mail than a crypto payment.
  - Acrobatic_Road 6y ago
    Definitely false. If you're using bitcoin and want to be uber-safe, then you should wait for six 10-minute confirmations. That's an extreme example though. In practice you can spend right after the first confirmation, which can be seconds to minutes for other cryptocurrencies.
    - godelski 6y ago
      I think you missed the joke about long verification times.
- romanoderoma 6y ago
  > But how do I quickly and securely do a long distance transaction in cash? Western union and other money transfer services have been doing it for decades. Many immigrants in my country use them to send money back home
xtracto 6y ago
This comment reminds me so much of the 90s video that was posted some time ago about how the internet was useless and online commerce was not going to work. Including the stupid idea of selling books. If you were in tech before ethernet and TCp/ip (ipx/spx, netware, ring networks, etc) you wouldnt believe hos far we will get. That's my view of blockchain. Naysayers are just people not knowing better or people with interests. Blockchain as a current tech may suck (shit... bitcoin is so inefficient...) but there's people doing R&D on this TCP to improve its efficiency and effectiveness.
- romanoderoma 6y ago
  > w the internet was useless and online commerce was not going to work. Except I had my first internet connection in 1994, have worked all my life to help companies transition to digital economy and I believed internet and e-commerce were going to work because they solved a problem Bitcoin doesn't > but there's people doing R&D on this TCP to improve its efficiency and effectiveness. 10 years after the only killer app for crypto is avoiding taxation and buying drugs online (if we exclude paying for ransomware, which I don't consider a killer app) 10 years after internet was born (some say it's 1983, some say it's 1990 when TBL release the first version of an HTTP server) had already changed the world and had many killer apps (email, FTP, NNTP, DNS, gopher among the more popular) P.s. my first experience with networking was in high school, a 1mb token ring local net in the computer science lab filled with IBM pcs with 4MB of RAM running OS/2 P.p.s. my first programs were written in Rexx and C
  - xtracto 6y ago
    Have a look at DeFi.
maxbond 6y ago
Additionally, what kind of solution to financial censorship perpetually logs all transactions for all to see?

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.
  - romanoderoma 6y ago
    > Have you tried international money transfers? They transfer real money, immediately available upon receiving them. International money transfer follow international regulations, you can make them speedier by breaking rules, which is usually not what you want if you receive or send money abroad legally (imagine a mom receiving money from her son having to explain why she received it from unofficial crypto channels) International money transfer is insured, lost crypto are lost forever. International money transfer it's a highly regulated market users have the rights to be informed of the cost of the operation before starting it, costs also include exchange rates (the operator does the operation for you, you send X and the receiver receive dollars or pound or euros directly, crypto don't include that), taxes collected upfront (crypto skips that) and of course service fees. International money transfer also pass through IRS (or the equivalent agency there is in other countries) for amount higher than a certain threshold, to avoid money laundering. Crypto skips that. etc. etc. etc. That's why it costs more. But it is also more secure and less suspicious for the authorities. E-mail had no such downsides.
    - ric2b 6y ago
      > They transfer real money, immediately available upon receiving them. Just like a Bitcoin transaction (unless you're excluding it from "real money" because of it's low adoption, but that's not a technical limitation). > International money transfer is insured, lost crypto are lost forever. Is it insured against your own mistake when selecting the receiver or amount? I doubt it, and that's the only way you'll lose crypto during a transfer. > International money transfer it's a highly regulated market users have the rights to be informed of the cost of the operation before starting it, costs also include exchange rates (the operator does the operation for you, you send X and the receiver receive dollars or pound or euros directly, crypto don't include that), taxes collected upfront (crypto skips that) and of course service fees. Actually crypto can do all that (minus the taxes) and it's actually the standard, assuming you're exchanging between different crypto-currencies and not Bitcoin -> Euro. As for taxes it's just a question of making a wallet that automatically pays the correct tax to the taxing agency address. > E-mail had no such downsides. E-mail definitely also skips lots of steps of snail-mail: - It can't send any physical items - There's no government agency monitoring your mail for tariffs evasion or other unlawful activities. - You can't just say you don't want to receive ads by e-mail and then sue the companies that don't comply - There's no registered mail - Etc, we could probably come up with other limitations

Acrobatic_Road 6y ago

Don't get me wrong. Cash is great. But how do I quickly and securely do a long distance transaction in cash? Do you except people to wait for the postal service to deliver an envelope before they receive whatever they've payed for? >It requires a computer with a connection, they are ubiquitous I understand it, but it's still a very hard requirement In your example you are paying 4chan. You already have a computer with an internet connection. >But most of all, what do I do with the crypto if the baker doesn't accept them? You could sell the cryptocurrency for cash using localbitcoins. Or you could sell it for a gift card. Or you could anonymize the funds and give them to a trusted party to sell at a KYC exchange. Then the cash is withdrawn from the bank and delivered to your organization. As far as I'm aware, there isn't anything illegal about this. And of course, you could just spend the cryptocurrency as is if the merchant accepts it.

godelski 6y ago
> Do you except people to wait for the postal service to deliver an envelope before they receive whatever they've payed for? To be fair, it might be quicker to verify cash payment by mail than a crypto payment.
- Acrobatic_Road 6y ago
  Definitely false. If you're using bitcoin and want to be uber-safe, then you should wait for six 10-minute confirmations. That's an extreme example though. In practice you can spend right after the first confirmation, which can be seconds to minutes for other cryptocurrencies.
  - godelski 6y ago
    I think you missed the joke about long verification times.
romanoderoma 6y ago
> But how do I quickly and securely do a long distance transaction in cash? Western union and other money transfer services have been doing it for decades. Many immigrants in my country use them to send money back home

xtracto 6y ago

This comment reminds me so much of the 90s video that was posted some time ago about how the internet was useless and online commerce was not going to work. Including the stupid idea of selling books. If you were in tech before ethernet and TCp/ip (ipx/spx, netware, ring networks, etc) you wouldnt believe hos far we will get. That's my view of blockchain. Naysayers are just people not knowing better or people with interests. Blockchain as a current tech may suck (shit... bitcoin is so inefficient...) but there's people doing R&D on this TCP to improve its efficiency and effectiveness.

romanoderoma 6y ago
> w the internet was useless and online commerce was not going to work. Except I had my first internet connection in 1994, have worked all my life to help companies transition to digital economy and I believed internet and e-commerce were going to work because they solved a problem Bitcoin doesn't > but there's people doing R&D on this TCP to improve its efficiency and effectiveness. 10 years after the only killer app for crypto is avoiding taxation and buying drugs online (if we exclude paying for ransomware, which I don't consider a killer app) 10 years after internet was born (some say it's 1983, some say it's 1990 when TBL release the first version of an HTTP server) had already changed the world and had many killer apps (email, FTP, NNTP, DNS, gopher among the more popular) P.s. my first experience with networking was in high school, a 1mb token ring local net in the computer science lab filled with IBM pcs with 4MB of RAM running OS/2 P.p.s. my first programs were written in Rexx and C
- xtracto 6y ago
  Have a look at DeFi.

maxbond 6y ago

Additionally, what kind of solution to financial censorship perpetually logs all transactions for all to see?