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"Blame the Money". No, money will always be used for crime as long as money and crime exists. People invent new crimes, People invent new money. Crime is the p
by rfd4sgmk8u 6y ago
"Blame the Money".
No, money will always be used for crime as long as money and crime exists. People invent new crimes, People invent new money. Crime is the problem, not the money.
I would argue that money that can be used in this context is extremely valuable, as it is beyond the state.
This is a very awful situation, and I feel for the victims, but the existence of cryptocurrency is not the problem, any more than cryptography is the problem wrt ransomware.
Tech can be used in many forms. Use it properly. Find and bring those to justice that do not. Don't blame the tools.
- vesinisa 6y agoYet, very rarely do we hear about cryptocurrency being used for anything but speculation and crime. In fact, those are the only two proven usecases for cryptocurrency. Money you can at least use to buy stuff, so it has a marked positive impact on the society.
- smhenderson 6y agoI live in the US and saw a BitCoin ATM in a gas station just the other day. I asked the cashier about it and apparently they take BC payments too. So, at least where I live, you can "buy stuff" with BC.
- scaladev 6y agoYou'll be waiting on that gas station for hours for the payment to go through.
- gruez 6y agoNot really. Your wait depends on the attached transaction fee and current network conditions. If you cheap out, then yes you have to wait, but it's also entirely avoidable.
- Datagenerator 6y agoThe original Bitcoin continued as Bitcoin Cash. Very low transaction fees and always included in the next block. BCH ftw
- specialp 6y agoYes which now stands at $37 on average which is probably more than you what you bought at the gas station. Ethereum fees are very high too. There are other currencies that are better with this. But currently my credit card does this at a fee of ~3% instantly.
- darkerside 6y agoPart of the problem is that the seller pays that, and not you
- arcticbull 6y agoThe average transaction cost is baked into sticker prices, so at the end of the day, it's the buyer who pays the transaction costs. It's like saying 'the merchant pays rent' - yes, in a way, but really no. The customers pay the rent for the merchant via mark-ups. However, there are a number of benefits; for one, average ticket size is about 20% higher for credit transactions vs cash (if I recall correctly) and merchants do not have to hold onto and manage piles of cash. This is a material cost savings. Further, of that 3%, about 0.1% goes to Visa, the rest goes to the issuing bank and covers the cost of rewards programs and loan origination. Generally speaking between 1 and 2% of that will be rebated to the buyer. For the remaining 0.9-1.9%, customers get benefits like insurance and the ability to issue chargebacks. In Europe, debit interchange is capped at 0.2% and credit at 0.3%, and they just don't have insurance or rewards. As it stands today if you wanted to transact in crypto, not only will you pay the $30 fee, you'll also be paying the mark-up for credit acceptance.
- CyberDildonics 6y ago> As it stands today if you wanted to transact in crypto, not only will you pay the $30 fee, Only bitcoin and ethereum have fees in this range. Other cryptocurrencies do not. https://bitinfocharts.com/comparison/transactionfees-btc-eth-doge-ltc-bch-xmr.html#3m https://bitinfocharts.com/comparison/transactionfees-btc-eth...
- 6y ago
- ryanlol 6y agoWhy would you need to wait for the transaction to confirm? That’s not how bitcoin payments work.
- dvdkon 6y agoThat's because cryptocurrencies are typically much better than conventional currencies for speculation and crime. Some "coins" are also usable as standard payment methods, but they're either on-par with conventional banking or just slightly better, not enough to make them the preferred choice for mundane transactions. The stigma also doesn't help.
- flatline 6y agoSpeculation is a huge use case. Bitcoin will never be practical for day to day transactions but it may be for a settlement layer - certainly Ethereum is proving that out right now. A few minute settlement time is a huge advantage over what clearing houses offer. The immutability of the block chain somewhat less so, but if you introduce third party trust and can settle things off chain in case of a dispute, well, I for once do see a practical use of crypto beyond black market transactions and speculation.
- jokethrowaway 6y agoWell, probably the settlement layer won't be BTC per se, but the incoming fork by the US government. When your economy revolves around an entity armed to the teeth you don't need consensus.
- random3 6y agoThese are a bit random. The church has many perceptions similar to this one.
- Consultant32452 6y agoDeflationary currencies encourage savings. The more the deflation the more the savings. Inflationary currency encourages consumerism. The more the inflation the more rapid spending. Each have their pluses and minuses. The USD is an inflationary currency and Bitcoin is a deflationary currency. Right now Bitcoin is extremely deflationary and so there is extreme savings, but that is not sustainable indefinitely. Whether it becomes more popular to spend Bitcoin after the value levels out remains to be seen, but deflationary Bitcoin will always tend to encourage savings more than inflationary competitors like the USD.
- psychlops 6y agoNot so fast, maybe he has a point. We should also fine the dollar in Bitcoin for all illegal transactions using the dollar as currency.
- albntomat0 6y agoYour argument ignores whether or not the technology makes the crime significantly more likely. Technology comes with negative externalities. The cryptocurrency world needs to accept that it does have negative externalities, and show that the benefits outweigh them, rather than pretending that they don't exist.
- celticninja 6y agoBy that reasoning computers make ransomware possible, cryptocurrency just makes it economically viable.
- albntomat0 6y agoYes, and it's pretty clear that computing as a whole comes with a huge amount of downsides (hacking, revenge porn, video game addiction, etc). It's also pretty clear that the overall benefits outweigh the downsides. I'm personally not convinced that the upsides of cryptocurrencies outweigh the downsides.
- suifbwish 6y agoI was surprised it wasn’t classified as some kind of counterfeiting scam tbh. When you mine crypto you are pretty much printing money. Sure yeah it takes proof of work/storage/stake ect but so does counterfeiting. The philosophical differences are kind of vague.
- dstick 6y agoAnd I would argue that the need for crime is the problem. You seem to happily skip this step as if crime is a given. Take away the need for crime, solve the problem. The answer is to get rid of poverty and unequal opportunities. I’m not saying it’s easy. But if you’re dissecting a problem, at least present all the pieces.
- grumple 6y agoWe do hold banks accountable for money laundering. Just because they figured out a technologically advanced way to do it doesn't mean it becomes ok.
- spinny 6y agoand banks get a slap on the wrist and do it again. it's not technology, it's friends in high places
- asdfasgasdgasdg 6y ago> No, money will always be used for crime as long as money and crime exists. This seems to fly in the face of the facts. Namely, that ransomware was virtually impossible to conduct before digital currency, due to the traceability of electronic money, and all current ransomware uses cryptocurrency rather than any other form of payment.
- 8note 6y agoCrime is just a delineation about who's allowed to exploit people for money. It's the exploitation that's bad whether it takes the form of scams or profits
- pyronik19 6y agoCareful there, you're getting awfully close to describing the tax man.
- 8note 6y agoIn a lot of cases I would say that's true. US taxes largely go to funding unnecessary military ventures and preparedness, not actually helping the tax payers
- bun_at_work 6y agoThis is a hot take. How does violence fit into this model? If someone is killed in a crime of passion, where's the monetary exploitation?
- hn_throwaway_99 6y agoRansomware literally would not be possible it today's world without cryptocurrency. I think that's plenty reason enough to blame crypto.
- spinny 6y agoeconomical crisis wouldn't exist without money, plenty of reason to blame money
- Thorentis 6y agoWhat else does cryptocurrency currently enable to the same degree (or close to) as crime? Speculative investment? We have the stock market for that. Pyramid schemes? Got plenty of thost. Burning through tons of energy for nothing but economic gain? Plenty of that around already. Store of value? Precious metals say hello. Seriously, I can't think of a single positive use case of crypto currency. So while it can be used for some things, it seems to me that the only concrete use case that is already happening, is crime.
- solarman5000 6y agoVechain is a good example, but there are many. Do your own research if you can manage to shed your bias
- sunshineforever 6y agoThwarting the immoral "drug war" seems like a pretty good use case.