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Is there a place I can go to talk to people like you? Or maybe you but before you totally disconnected? I'm curious what your hopes were for being your own ban

Is there a place I can go to talk to people like you? Or maybe you but before you totally disconnected? I'm curious what your hopes were for being your own bank kinda stuff. How did you imagine it would work, what was important about that to you... and the the other side, what fell short etc. You rightfully probably don't want to answer these questions as your curiosity has moved on, but I would be curious in case you are.

ddtaylor 5y ago
The hope was that consumer adoption would be more broad and people would have little incentive to keep their money in silos/banks because the security offered by regular wallets would be enough. In a world where most businesses accept crypto directly banks would be relegated to their proper function: facilitating loans. Consumer adoption was going pretty well until the technical hurdles were hit. Each blockchain handled it in a different way, but the poster child of crypto, Bitcoin, is still seen today as expensive to transact and impractical for consumer adoption. When Ethereum got more popular in the last years due to the NFT boom the same thing happened to them. You can't reasonably market the "be your own bank" narrative when each transaction costs $25 regardless of the amount being transacted. Lightning is an interesting alternative but after 5 years it's still impractical to use for regular consumers and if you look under the hood anyone saying they're "using lightning" is actually using a custodial wallet that just has a coat of Lightning paint on top of it. Bitcoin Cash increased their blocksize to reduce transaction fees, but since they are a minority chain the lackluster adoption means it's not widely available for commerce. Probably the biggest flaw in the entire "be your own bank" concept was underestimating how little people care about privacy. I mean, they claim to care and they get "outraged" whenever XYZ company gets caught harvesting their data without their consent or whatever, but in the end they don't actually care and happily will fork it over for a few pennies worth of goodies. Maybe there is a future where privacy becomes more important to consumers, but for now if you tell most anyone that their bank is looking at all their transactions and selling that data to someone their answers will range from "don't care" to "make some regulation" - neither of which really seem to move the needle or solve anything. With regards to where to have discussions: I don't know. I have unsubbed from every subreddit and forum that primarily covers crypto. They are mostly all echo chambers now that just try to rally the troops against whatever they perceive their "enemy" or practice sketchy censorship and misinformation. A part of me doesn't really like "giving up" like this because it's well known there are many actors in the space that are actively trying to disrupt and manipulate the conversation, but at the same time I only have limited time on this rock and would prefer to do things I enjoy.
- reginold 5y ago
  Appreciate the thoughtful response. I've also found the subreddits to be echo chambers. I am looking for more curious places. Regarding be your own bank -- agree that $25/transaction doesn't make sense, and that this a regular occurrence on bitcoin and ethereum. Does not seem like layer 1 will be in a position to solve this ever. Could take a decade for level 2 to get there. Inevitable though?

ddtaylor 5y ago

The hope was that consumer adoption would be more broad and people would have little incentive to keep their money in silos/banks because the security offered by regular wallets would be enough. In a world where most businesses accept crypto directly banks would be relegated to their proper function: facilitating loans. Consumer adoption was going pretty well until the technical hurdles were hit. Each blockchain handled it in a different way, but the poster child of crypto, Bitcoin, is still seen today as expensive to transact and impractical for consumer adoption. When Ethereum got more popular in the last years due to the NFT boom the same thing happened to them. You can't reasonably market the "be your own bank" narrative when each transaction costs $25 regardless of the amount being transacted. Lightning is an interesting alternative but after 5 years it's still impractical to use for regular consumers and if you look under the hood anyone saying they're "using lightning" is actually using a custodial wallet that just has a coat of Lightning paint on top of it. Bitcoin Cash increased their blocksize to reduce transaction fees, but since they are a minority chain the lackluster adoption means it's not widely available for commerce. Probably the biggest flaw in the entire "be your own bank" concept was underestimating how little people care about privacy. I mean, they claim to care and they get "outraged" whenever XYZ company gets caught harvesting their data without their consent or whatever, but in the end they don't actually care and happily will fork it over for a few pennies worth of goodies. Maybe there is a future where privacy becomes more important to consumers, but for now if you tell most anyone that their bank is looking at all their transactions and selling that data to someone their answers will range from "don't care" to "make some regulation" - neither of which really seem to move the needle or solve anything. With regards to where to have discussions: I don't know. I have unsubbed from every subreddit and forum that primarily covers crypto. They are mostly all echo chambers now that just try to rally the troops against whatever they perceive their "enemy" or practice sketchy censorship and misinformation. A part of me doesn't really like "giving up" like this because it's well known there are many actors in the space that are actively trying to disrupt and manipulate the conversation, but at the same time I only have limited time on this rock and would prefer to do things I enjoy.

reginold 5y ago
Appreciate the thoughtful response. I've also found the subreddits to be echo chambers. I am looking for more curious places. Regarding be your own bank -- agree that $25/transaction doesn't make sense, and that this a regular occurrence on bitcoin and ethereum. Does not seem like layer 1 will be in a position to solve this ever. Could take a decade for level 2 to get there. Inevitable though?