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So... sending money to where your own government forbids you to send it? It sounds like you're admitting that the point of cryptocurrency is simply to break the

So... sending money to where your own government forbids you to send it? It sounds like you're admitting that the point of cryptocurrency is simply to break the law, while pretending like the purpose is much bigger.

derefr 5y ago
There is more than one "law." Each fiat ecosystem is its own system of financial law, each mutually-incompatible with any other fiat ecosystem. Cryptocurrency gives an alternative arbitrator that allows for these mutually-incompatible systems of law to be bridged. Also, to be clear, in the example I mentioned, the government of the US does not forbid trading with Nigeria/Liberia/etc. Traditional money-transfer services (Paypal, Western Union, most savings banks, etc.) are just unwilling to do it, because of the frequency of those transactions being scams. But this prevents people who "know what they're doing" (like people employing people in those countries!) from having any means to send money there. This is a gap in the market, in some sense, but it's one that couldn't really be filled by any other fiat "retail" solution, as that solution would then be what scammers use to bilk people. So you really need something that's "complex and finance-nerdy" in the way that crypto is, to ensure that it's hard enough for regular people to use it to transfer money, that scammers just don't bother to try talking people through it. (Such a product would then never find product-market fit, as it would have no retail customers. Only a system run "for its own sake", like cryptocurrency systems are, can really be a good base platform to enable such transfers over the long term.)
- jtbayly 5y ago
  Wait, so BitCoin's benefit now is that it's too hard to use? lol edit: And that's why it can't be used for scams! Oh my. I'm not sure what universe you live in, but it's different from mine.
  - derefr 5y ago
    Crypto is too hard to use — or more specifically, requires too much financial and technical acumen to understand — to make it profitable for someone to operationalize a mass-market "volume" scam (a scam involving stealing small amounts of money from a large number of people) based on it. "Volume" scams are the really successful scams — the ones that fly under the radar for years/decades because no individual person is ever out for enough money to make large institutions upset to the point of pursuing them. Tons of "volume" scammers get their start every day. The opposite kind — the scams where large sums are stolen from relatively small numbers of people — are flashy, but ultimately futile, as high-value scammers almost always get caught, and quickly.
- conradev 5y ago
  Does Wise (fka TransferWise) send money to those countries?

derefr 5y ago

There is more than one "law." Each fiat ecosystem is its own system of financial law, each mutually-incompatible with any other fiat ecosystem. Cryptocurrency gives an alternative arbitrator that allows for these mutually-incompatible systems of law to be bridged. Also, to be clear, in the example I mentioned, the government of the US does not forbid trading with Nigeria/Liberia/etc. Traditional money-transfer services (Paypal, Western Union, most savings banks, etc.) are just unwilling to do it, because of the frequency of those transactions being scams. But this prevents people who "know what they're doing" (like people employing people in those countries!) from having any means to send money there. This is a gap in the market, in some sense, but it's one that couldn't really be filled by any other fiat "retail" solution, as that solution would then be what scammers use to bilk people. So you really need something that's "complex and finance-nerdy" in the way that crypto is, to ensure that it's hard enough for regular people to use it to transfer money, that scammers just don't bother to try talking people through it. (Such a product would then never find product-market fit, as it would have no retail customers. Only a system run "for its own sake", like cryptocurrency systems are, can really be a good base platform to enable such transfers over the long term.)

jtbayly 5y ago
Wait, so BitCoin's benefit now is that it's too hard to use? lol edit: And that's why it can't be used for scams! Oh my. I'm not sure what universe you live in, but it's different from mine.
- derefr 5y ago
  Crypto is too hard to use — or more specifically, requires too much financial and technical acumen to understand — to make it profitable for someone to operationalize a mass-market "volume" scam (a scam involving stealing small amounts of money from a large number of people) based on it. "Volume" scams are the really successful scams — the ones that fly under the radar for years/decades because no individual person is ever out for enough money to make large institutions upset to the point of pursuing them. Tons of "volume" scammers get their start every day. The opposite kind — the scams where large sums are stolen from relatively small numbers of people — are flashy, but ultimately futile, as high-value scammers almost always get caught, and quickly.
conradev 5y ago
Does Wise (fka TransferWise) send money to those countries?