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Worth pointing out: notwithstanding the many and recurring howls of "Bitcoin is useless", "Show me an actual use case" often heard on HN, here is an actual exam

Worth pointing out: notwithstanding the many and recurring howls of "Bitcoin is useless", "Show me an actual use case" often heard on HN, here is an actual example of a straight donor-to-receiver transaction where someone contributed to something he really likes and wants to support, and no third party being able to prevent it from happening or skim any of it. If only for this specific use case (e.g. donate to wikileaks), there is actual intrinsic (and social) value in Bitcoin

martin_a 5y ago
You know, you can always do a bank transfer. I don't think anybody would stop you from donating to some FOSS project and it's free to do that. But yeah, if you want to donate to $shadyorg, somebody might stop you or come after you. Don't see how Bitcoin is better in this regard.
- ur-whale 5y ago
  > But yeah, if you want to donate to $shadyorg Because there's obviously a clear and universal agreement on what falls in the $shadyorg bucket. Like when Visa and their cronies decide to cut off donation to an org they don't like just because. Must be nice where you live https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASzFs4_4kvk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASzFs4_4kvk
  - arcticbull 5y ago
    I personally feel that Visa and other major transaction providers should be treated as critical infrastructure and either nationalized or regulated such that they are required by law to process every legal transaction. However it does not therefore follow that making your own money that consumes as much power as Poland (60 days of power for the average US household per transaction) or generates as much e-waste as the Netherlands each year is a better solution in any way. Certainly not while miners re-activate shuttered fossil fuel plants and burn Kazakh coal. It's an abject, unmitigated disaster. All while processing the transaction volume of a small Costco. If anything it distracts from actual solutions.
    - ilammy 5y ago
      People have trouble coming to an agreement with their neighbors — and here you are asking for all countries of the world to decide how they are going to legislate multinational entities like Visa in simple, straightforward, and mutually fair way. And United Nations is going to ensure that no country can forbid Visa to operate on its territory. Each country is surely going to legislate within its borders, but outside it's quickly turning into the international law territory. And the great secret of international law is that there isn't any. Bitcoin at least provides actually internationally enforceable operation framework. You cannot unilaterally alter the deal.
      - arcticbull 5y ago
        You've created quite a strawman here. None of that is really necessary. Each individual country can legislate how they want Visa to operate within their borders and Visa can take it or leave it. Most major countries or regions have their own payment rails, and if Visa wants to play, they'll have to play by the rules. It's not nearly as hard as you make it out to be. No UN needed.
        ilammy 5y ago
        For each individual country in isolation – relatively easy, yes. What’s hard is universal consensus. If organization X is considered shady by country A, but totally legit in country B, then Visa operating in both countries A and B cannot allow transfers from B to A. Regardless of what country B and its residents think, Visa would get into trouble with country A. Country B cannot legislate Visa to ignore the laws of A, and there is no recourse for residents of B.
        arcticbull 5y ago
        Universal consensus isn't required. It's up to individual countries to decide how they choose to run their payment networks and if that means you cannot transfer between countries, that's a choice they make. They can just achieve this with local or regional subsidiaries, as they already do. Multinationals already handle this exact situation all the time. Marijuana is a federal crime in the US and basically everywhere else on Earth, but you can buy pot at Canada's government-run pot dispensaries online with your Visa, Mastercard and American Express cards. Like at http://ocs.ca http://ocs.ca
- 3r8Oltr0ziouVDM 5y ago
  >You know, you can always do a bank transfer. Lol. In my country there is no easy way to do an international bank transfer. Crypto is literally the only solution I can imagine if I want to donate a few bucks to a FOSS project, all other options would be too much effort and too expensive.
_dain_ 5y ago
Point taken, although there definitely are third parties who skim off the top (transaction fees).
- doomroot 5y ago
  10 cents?
  - askonomm 5y ago
    Sending money from one EU bank to another costs nothing at all.
    - doomroot 5y ago
      How about $1 billion? Irreversibly, in 30 mins, for 10 cents? Doubt it.
      - arcticbull 5y ago
        Irreversibly sounds awful lol. However, that aside, how many people do you know with this particular problem? Have you ever run into an issue transferring $1,000,000,000? Has anyone you know ever run into that issue?
      - wwtrv 5y ago
        It depends on your bank, SEPA generally has a limit of €999,999,999.99, so no technically you cant send a full billion…
      - morelisp 5y ago
        SEPA transfers have a 100k limit for instant transfer (much less than 30min, I never timed but I've never seen it even take a full 1min). $1 billion would take a day to clear, but it would still be 100% free. Irreversibility of such a transaction would be ridiculous for all parties involved, of course they don't offer that.
      - askonomm 5y ago
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
arcticbull 5y ago
That isn't really a use case in this particular instance not better served by a free ACH transfer. It's also super disingenuous to suggest that the Bitcoin network isn't collecting its take. Miners are collecting block reward in the amount of 0.004BTC per transaction, roughly $250. This is a direct reduction in net welfare of the system. That's on top of the transaction fees of roughly $3-5. So yeah, Bitcoin costs $255 to transact, vs a free ACH. This is also not intrinsic value. Intrinsic value is the calculated value of Bitcoin which remains $0. All value ascribed to Bitcoin is extrinsic, and this transaction extracted non-trivial value.
- cle 5y ago
  > That isn't really a use case in this particular instance not better served by a free ACH transfer. I don't think you can make that determination unless you know why the sender chose to use Bitcoin.
  - arcticbull 5y ago
    Yes, if it was derived from the proceeds of crime or tax evasion then it is in fact a better medium than ACH.
    - cle 5y ago
      That is not what I said, I don't appreciate your flippant response.
      - arcticbull 5y ago
        I wasn't being flippant, that's the only reason I can think of that someone would end up utilizing Bitcoin to make this particular payment. If you have others I'm of course happy to hear you out but it's been 14 years and I haven't heard one... Avoiding the law is a genuine and legitimate use case of Bitcoin not better served by the classic financial system.
- doomroot 5y ago
purple_ferret 5y ago
Sure but this is a double edged sword: >Essentially what we did was move the funds to hardware wallets owned by the core development team. How often is it that an org makes their team personally and physically hold funds? Seems like a liability

martin_a 5y ago

You know, you can always do a bank transfer. I don't think anybody would stop you from donating to some FOSS project and it's free to do that. But yeah, if you want to donate to $shadyorg, somebody might stop you or come after you. Don't see how Bitcoin is better in this regard.

ur-whale 5y ago
> But yeah, if you want to donate to $shadyorg Because there's obviously a clear and universal agreement on what falls in the $shadyorg bucket. Like when Visa and their cronies decide to cut off donation to an org they don't like just because. Must be nice where you live https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASzFs4_4kvk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASzFs4_4kvk
- arcticbull 5y ago
  I personally feel that Visa and other major transaction providers should be treated as critical infrastructure and either nationalized or regulated such that they are required by law to process every legal transaction. However it does not therefore follow that making your own money that consumes as much power as Poland (60 days of power for the average US household per transaction) or generates as much e-waste as the Netherlands each year is a better solution in any way. Certainly not while miners re-activate shuttered fossil fuel plants and burn Kazakh coal. It's an abject, unmitigated disaster. All while processing the transaction volume of a small Costco. If anything it distracts from actual solutions.
  - ilammy 5y ago
    People have trouble coming to an agreement with their neighbors — and here you are asking for all countries of the world to decide how they are going to legislate multinational entities like Visa in simple, straightforward, and mutually fair way. And United Nations is going to ensure that no country can forbid Visa to operate on its territory. Each country is surely going to legislate within its borders, but outside it's quickly turning into the international law territory. And the great secret of international law is that there isn't any. Bitcoin at least provides actually internationally enforceable operation framework. You cannot unilaterally alter the deal.
    - arcticbull 5y ago
      You've created quite a strawman here. None of that is really necessary. Each individual country can legislate how they want Visa to operate within their borders and Visa can take it or leave it. Most major countries or regions have their own payment rails, and if Visa wants to play, they'll have to play by the rules. It's not nearly as hard as you make it out to be. No UN needed.
      - ilammy 5y ago
        For each individual country in isolation – relatively easy, yes. What’s hard is universal consensus. If organization X is considered shady by country A, but totally legit in country B, then Visa operating in both countries A and B cannot allow transfers from B to A. Regardless of what country B and its residents think, Visa would get into trouble with country A. Country B cannot legislate Visa to ignore the laws of A, and there is no recourse for residents of B.
        arcticbull 5y ago
        Universal consensus isn't required. It's up to individual countries to decide how they choose to run their payment networks and if that means you cannot transfer between countries, that's a choice they make. They can just achieve this with local or regional subsidiaries, as they already do. Multinationals already handle this exact situation all the time. Marijuana is a federal crime in the US and basically everywhere else on Earth, but you can buy pot at Canada's government-run pot dispensaries online with your Visa, Mastercard and American Express cards. Like at http://ocs.ca http://ocs.ca
3r8Oltr0ziouVDM 5y ago
>You know, you can always do a bank transfer. Lol. In my country there is no easy way to do an international bank transfer. Crypto is literally the only solution I can imagine if I want to donate a few bucks to a FOSS project, all other options would be too much effort and too expensive.

_dain_ 5y ago

Point taken, although there definitely are third parties who skim off the top (transaction fees).

doomroot 5y ago
10 cents?
- askonomm 5y ago
  Sending money from one EU bank to another costs nothing at all.
  - doomroot 5y ago
    How about $1 billion? Irreversibly, in 30 mins, for 10 cents? Doubt it.
    - arcticbull 5y ago
      Irreversibly sounds awful lol. However, that aside, how many people do you know with this particular problem? Have you ever run into an issue transferring $1,000,000,000? Has anyone you know ever run into that issue?
    - wwtrv 5y ago
      It depends on your bank, SEPA generally has a limit of €999,999,999.99, so no technically you cant send a full billion…
    - morelisp 5y ago
      SEPA transfers have a 100k limit for instant transfer (much less than 30min, I never timed but I've never seen it even take a full 1min). $1 billion would take a day to clear, but it would still be 100% free. Irreversibility of such a transaction would be ridiculous for all parties involved, of course they don't offer that.
    - askonomm 5y ago

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

arcticbull 5y ago

That isn't really a use case in this particular instance not better served by a free ACH transfer. It's also super disingenuous to suggest that the Bitcoin network isn't collecting its take. Miners are collecting block reward in the amount of 0.004BTC per transaction, roughly $250. This is a direct reduction in net welfare of the system. That's on top of the transaction fees of roughly $3-5. So yeah, Bitcoin costs $255 to transact, vs a free ACH. This is also not intrinsic value. Intrinsic value is the calculated value of Bitcoin which remains $0. All value ascribed to Bitcoin is extrinsic, and this transaction extracted non-trivial value.

cle 5y ago
> That isn't really a use case in this particular instance not better served by a free ACH transfer. I don't think you can make that determination unless you know why the sender chose to use Bitcoin.
- arcticbull 5y ago
  Yes, if it was derived from the proceeds of crime or tax evasion then it is in fact a better medium than ACH.
  - cle 5y ago
    That is not what I said, I don't appreciate your flippant response.
    - arcticbull 5y ago
      I wasn't being flippant, that's the only reason I can think of that someone would end up utilizing Bitcoin to make this particular payment. If you have others I'm of course happy to hear you out but it's been 14 years and I haven't heard one... Avoiding the law is a genuine and legitimate use case of Bitcoin not better served by the classic financial system.
doomroot 5y ago

purple_ferret 5y ago

Sure but this is a double edged sword: >Essentially what we did was move the funds to hardware wallets owned by the core development team. How often is it that an org makes their team personally and physically hold funds? Seems like a liability