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OK but are there any secure BTC or alt coin wallets (even light wallets) that will work on feature phones or SMS? Very few people in in remote villages can affo

OK but are there any secure BTC or alt coin wallets (even light wallets) that will work on feature phones or SMS? Very few people in in remote villages can afford even the most basic Android smartphone. What incentive would they have to switch from M-PESA (or Alipay/wechatpay in Asia) that is already secure, cheap and widely accepted. Cryptocurrency is a fascinating technology and social experiment but so far has no unique use case other than speculation.

lawn 6y ago
Not that I know of. The real use-case is transferring to and from places that you cannot normally do. Smartphones are prevalent in Venezuela for example, but it's basically impossible to send money in or out unless you use cryptocurrencies. The charity eatBCH uses this to give food to Venezuelans for example: https://eatbch.org/ https://eatbch.org/. I think that's a pretty unique use case.
- jasonlaramburu 6y ago
  You can already send money from US to Venezuela using Moneygram and several other services cheaply. There are relatively few countries where sanctions prohibit Americans from sending money, and cryptocurrency would not make this legal.
  - lawn 6y ago
    You cannot send USD to Venezuela, only Bolivars, which isn't so good as hyperinflation will kill most of the value instantly. One of the point of cryptocurrencies is that some countries may think certain things are illegal, but that doesn't make them wrong. To me helping to feed starving Venezuelans by sending them help directly is morally right, even if it was illegal.
    - jasonlaramburu 6y ago
      I agree that the hyperinflation in VZ is a problem, but is that solved by Crypto? BTC's prices is highly volatile as well. In a bear market, there can be significant price slippage even while the recipient is waiting for a BTC transaction to confirm.
      - lawn 6y ago
        Highly volatile, absolutely. Yet it's nothing compared to hyperinflation. In May 2019 prices in Venezuela doubled in only two days... every day. While Bitcoin is volatile it's relatively stable compared to what Venezuela and Lebanon are going through today.
kainaloo 6y ago
allowing millions of people to actually own something for the first time ever.

lawn 6y ago

Not that I know of. The real use-case is transferring to and from places that you cannot normally do. Smartphones are prevalent in Venezuela for example, but it's basically impossible to send money in or out unless you use cryptocurrencies. The charity eatBCH uses this to give food to Venezuelans for example: https://eatbch.org/ https://eatbch.org/. I think that's a pretty unique use case.

jasonlaramburu 6y ago
You can already send money from US to Venezuela using Moneygram and several other services cheaply. There are relatively few countries where sanctions prohibit Americans from sending money, and cryptocurrency would not make this legal.
- lawn 6y ago
  You cannot send USD to Venezuela, only Bolivars, which isn't so good as hyperinflation will kill most of the value instantly. One of the point of cryptocurrencies is that some countries may think certain things are illegal, but that doesn't make them wrong. To me helping to feed starving Venezuelans by sending them help directly is morally right, even if it was illegal.
  - jasonlaramburu 6y ago
    I agree that the hyperinflation in VZ is a problem, but is that solved by Crypto? BTC's prices is highly volatile as well. In a bear market, there can be significant price slippage even while the recipient is waiting for a BTC transaction to confirm.
    - lawn 6y ago
      Highly volatile, absolutely. Yet it's nothing compared to hyperinflation. In May 2019 prices in Venezuela doubled in only two days... every day. While Bitcoin is volatile it's relatively stable compared to what Venezuela and Lebanon are going through today.

kainaloo 6y ago

allowing millions of people to actually own something for the first time ever.