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The main point of crypto these days appears to be to replace the current middlemen with different middlemen who can make more profit while offering the consumer

The main point of crypto these days appears to be to replace the current middlemen with different middlemen who can make more profit while offering the consumer much less legal protection. It's a bit concerning.

schleck8 5y ago
How to participate in crypto? Just head to a privately owned exchange that might be traded at a stock exchange! Alternatively use a startup service that in turn relies on a privately owned backend that might as well go public at any point.
- xtracto 5y ago
  Or get to localcrypto, localbitcoin, localmonero and find a peer who is willing to give you crypto for your cash.
  - samstave 5y ago
    CryptoBarter is here! So we simply ~~kill the batman~~ -- er... trade resources for resources, and determine a balance between what I am asking for vs your offer? Its amazing we need digital fn currency to algorithm this bullshit for us to maintain trust in such NOTES
  - schleck8 5y ago
    Which are run by private companies and take cuts don't they? Also last time I checked the rates on P2P exchanges are ridiculous for any trusted seller
    - valcron1000 5y ago
      At least on Binance there are no fees involved in P2P trading
toolz 5y ago
or more protection, depending on your perspective. I'd think russians wanting to interface with US services right now would find crypto offers more protection than fiat. Further, I know a few small businesses that have had large sums of money locked up by services like paypal without any communication. Crypto also provides far more protection from issues like that.
- tmp_anon_22 5y ago
  Except any company facilitating this would be in violation of US sanctions. No way Stripe-crypto is going to be a 1-click money laundering tool
- skybrian 5y ago
  I don't know how this applies to their crypto offering, but: > Stripe currently does not support users located in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. While users with direct or indirect activities involving Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine are not broadly considered prohibited by Stripe at this time, all major credit card networks have announced that they are ceasing services to Russian financial institutions. Additionally, Stripe will not process transactions involving sanctioned Russian financial institutions and does not support Mir. This means transactions involving Russian-issued cards are likely to be unsuccessful. We encourage you to ensure compliance with relevant sanctions regulations in your jurisdiction. https://support.stripe.com/questions/impact-of-sanctions-on-russia-and-belarus https://support.stripe.com/questions/impact-of-sanctions-on-...
  - khanan 5y ago
    Why the fsck would they block Ukrainians? Makes no sense.
    - antaviana 5y ago
      I figure they are betting that Ukraine will be sooner or later part of Russia.
      - 5y ago
samhw 5y ago
It's just bizarre. You end up paying your cut twice: once to convert it into crypto (paying the exact same card fees you'd pay for a direct card payment), and then once again to pay someone like Stripe for this. For either a business owner or a customer, that's a loss - increased infrastructure fees just to do business. It's the opposite of the crypto dream. But that's not Stripe's fault; it's Bitcoin's, for not creating a product which is actually capable of living up to its goals, and instead requiring all this 'glue business' to make it work. I hope someone else creates a new radically-different cryptocurrency which can be truly new, and not just a novelty stuck on top of Visa/Mastercard.
- ordinaryradical 5y ago
  I think this is exactly right. The implementation of the technology has necessitated all of these different layers, each of which create new opportunities to take a cut. Many of the crypto businesses in the ecosystem talk about removing financial friction and control, but it seems they are only interested in introducing their own versions of them, and building their own little Wall Street while they can still get in on the ground floor. Here's a great example: how are you going to "reach the unbanked" in the third world if you have transaction fees, paid by the user, inherent in your architecture? That's just nonsense. It's a step down from cash in every way. Cryptos which aren't feeless but talk about the "unbanked" are full of hot air. And this pattern of false promises is all over this space.
  - mattdesl 5y ago
    transaction fees on L2s are in fractions of a cent, certainly lower than the fees paid to PayPal or Stripe on regular international payments. a feeless public ledger seems unlikely to ever work at scale; it would immediately be polluted by spam.
    - ordinaryradical 5y ago
      A feeless public ledger already exists, is transacting around the world, and has overcome spam attacks multiple times at this point: Nano, from one of the original developers of Bitcoin.
logicalmonster 5y ago
> The main point of crypto these days appears to be... Maybe you can ask people who get their funds randomly blocked and restricted by PayPal and seized for months/years while an "investigation" takes place if there's any use-case for crypto. Maybe you can ask ordinary Russian citizens what their legal protections are worth once they've been un-personed by the world. Or perhaps you can ask Canadian mandate protesters what their legal protections in their currency are worth at their bank middlemen.
- rrdharan 5y ago
  Crypto has not helped any of these people.
  - logicalmonster 5y ago
    Is it not possible to hypothesize how cryptocurrencies afford them options that other financial tools do not?
    - the_gastropod 5y ago
      Do you know the reasons traditional financial services do not afford such options?
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
    - lostcolony 5y ago
      I can hypothesize those...and then also hypothesize a counter as to why it won't help, for long at least. Maybe you'd like to counter with an actual example of how it's enabled them, and why increased regulation of the crypto space won't prevent that (i.e., "I was able to buy a Domino's pizza with donated crypto" - additional regulation that would prevent you from traditional banking could also make such crypto, with its traceable history, be unspendable. They can't take it from you, but they can levy the same threats they do for people who ignore sanctions, which would mean crypto you've touched is now effectively untradeable amongst regulated businesses).
gonehome 5y ago
The capability of self-custody is the thing to pay attention to. Nothing else has this capability to the same extent. Today we store most of our wealth in assets (market index funds, stocks, real estate, etc.) and some (typically very little, and rarely outside of a bank account) in cash. Most of this is not actually controlled by you. With BTC (and cryptocurrency more generally) you have the capability of having your private key in a hardware wallet under your control and retain the capability to transact independently of other institutions. If you keep some percentage of your wealth here you retain certain advantages that you can't get elsewhere. The closest alternative would be having cash (in cash form), but it's hard to have that much, hard to travel with it (you can memorize your wallet seed words and recreate your wallet on the other side of a border), and cash is vulnerable to government stupidity (see: Russia). I'm not sympathetic to the Canadian truck protests, but whether or not you care about what they're protesting - it's the capability wielded by the Canadian government over their private finances that's alarming. All this is to say the focus on middleman and paying with crypto in the general case is kind of missing the forest for the trees. The capability of a global self-custody capable store of value that can be trivially moved anywhere is a big deal and puts power back in the hands of individuals.
- pphysch 5y ago
  It's funny because some Bitcoin evangelists point to the US govt's 1933 confiscation of a gold as a reason to use Bitcoin instead. ... How is nabbing a gold ingot and different than nabbing a storage device? If anything, the threat surface of a digital wallet is much greater (you could steal it remotely if the user doesn't have good cybersecurity practices, unlike a gold ingot).
  - gonehome 5y ago
    The storage device doesn't matter - it's the seed words that generate the wallet that matter. If you memorize them you're good (short of someone beating it out of you or legally compelling you - even then they'd have to be able to prove it existed in the first place). You can trivially prove your gold ingot exists because you can just find it. It's also way harder to move your gold ingot out of your war-torn country, harder to transact with it, etc. The storage device does not hold the actual coins, just a private key that lets you update the public ledger that determines ownership (thinking the storage device holds the coins is a common misunderstanding). I'm an open-minded skeptic, but there are real technology advantages to blockchain and cryptocurrency, there are a lot of scams too for sure - but that's not the interesting part. The HN median opinion on this is wrong as it often is (it was wrong about EVs and Tesla too).
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
banannaise 5y ago
Like seemingly everything these days, crypto has a grifter problem. It's becoming a predictable story - something with potential arises, with a community of mostly true believers. The true believers make money, but they're not optimizing for profit, they're optimizing for making the ecosystem better. The grifters, optimizing only for profit, not only start to take the lion's share of the profit, but also attract more grifters. The grifters eventually outnumber the true believers, because: 1. true believers are hard to make; grifters already exist 2. grifting as a skill can be applied anywhere; true believers need relevant skills 3. lower profits and higher burnout leads to attrition among the true believers; some of them even convert to grifters So the grifters completely dominate the market. They then siphon the market dry, offering essentially nothing in return, and then move onto the next grift, flush with the proceeds from the last one.

schleck8 5y ago

How to participate in crypto? Just head to a privately owned exchange that might be traded at a stock exchange! Alternatively use a startup service that in turn relies on a privately owned backend that might as well go public at any point.

xtracto 5y ago
Or get to localcrypto, localbitcoin, localmonero and find a peer who is willing to give you crypto for your cash.
- samstave 5y ago
  CryptoBarter is here! So we simply ~~kill the batman~~ -- er... trade resources for resources, and determine a balance between what I am asking for vs your offer? Its amazing we need digital fn currency to algorithm this bullshit for us to maintain trust in such NOTES
- schleck8 5y ago
  Which are run by private companies and take cuts don't they? Also last time I checked the rates on P2P exchanges are ridiculous for any trusted seller
  - valcron1000 5y ago
    At least on Binance there are no fees involved in P2P trading

toolz 5y ago

or more protection, depending on your perspective. I'd think russians wanting to interface with US services right now would find crypto offers more protection than fiat. Further, I know a few small businesses that have had large sums of money locked up by services like paypal without any communication. Crypto also provides far more protection from issues like that.

tmp_anon_22 5y ago
Except any company facilitating this would be in violation of US sanctions. No way Stripe-crypto is going to be a 1-click money laundering tool
skybrian 5y ago
I don't know how this applies to their crypto offering, but: > Stripe currently does not support users located in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. While users with direct or indirect activities involving Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine are not broadly considered prohibited by Stripe at this time, all major credit card networks have announced that they are ceasing services to Russian financial institutions. Additionally, Stripe will not process transactions involving sanctioned Russian financial institutions and does not support Mir. This means transactions involving Russian-issued cards are likely to be unsuccessful. We encourage you to ensure compliance with relevant sanctions regulations in your jurisdiction. https://support.stripe.com/questions/impact-of-sanctions-on-russia-and-belarus https://support.stripe.com/questions/impact-of-sanctions-on-...
- khanan 5y ago
  Why the fsck would they block Ukrainians? Makes no sense.
  - antaviana 5y ago
    I figure they are betting that Ukraine will be sooner or later part of Russia.
    - 5y ago

samhw 5y ago

It's just bizarre. You end up paying your cut twice: once to convert it into crypto (paying the exact same card fees you'd pay for a direct card payment), and then once again to pay someone like Stripe for this. For either a business owner or a customer, that's a loss - increased infrastructure fees just to do business. It's the opposite of the crypto dream. But that's not Stripe's fault; it's Bitcoin's, for not creating a product which is actually capable of living up to its goals, and instead requiring all this 'glue business' to make it work. I hope someone else creates a new radically-different cryptocurrency which can be truly new, and not just a novelty stuck on top of Visa/Mastercard.

ordinaryradical 5y ago
I think this is exactly right. The implementation of the technology has necessitated all of these different layers, each of which create new opportunities to take a cut. Many of the crypto businesses in the ecosystem talk about removing financial friction and control, but it seems they are only interested in introducing their own versions of them, and building their own little Wall Street while they can still get in on the ground floor. Here's a great example: how are you going to "reach the unbanked" in the third world if you have transaction fees, paid by the user, inherent in your architecture? That's just nonsense. It's a step down from cash in every way. Cryptos which aren't feeless but talk about the "unbanked" are full of hot air. And this pattern of false promises is all over this space.
- mattdesl 5y ago
  transaction fees on L2s are in fractions of a cent, certainly lower than the fees paid to PayPal or Stripe on regular international payments. a feeless public ledger seems unlikely to ever work at scale; it would immediately be polluted by spam.
  - ordinaryradical 5y ago
    A feeless public ledger already exists, is transacting around the world, and has overcome spam attacks multiple times at this point: Nano, from one of the original developers of Bitcoin.

logicalmonster 5y ago

> The main point of crypto these days appears to be... Maybe you can ask people who get their funds randomly blocked and restricted by PayPal and seized for months/years while an "investigation" takes place if there's any use-case for crypto. Maybe you can ask ordinary Russian citizens what their legal protections are worth once they've been un-personed by the world. Or perhaps you can ask Canadian mandate protesters what their legal protections in their currency are worth at their bank middlemen.

rrdharan 5y ago
Crypto has not helped any of these people.
- logicalmonster 5y ago
  Is it not possible to hypothesize how cryptocurrencies afford them options that other financial tools do not?
  - the_gastropod 5y ago
    Do you know the reasons traditional financial services do not afford such options?
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
  - lostcolony 5y ago
    I can hypothesize those...and then also hypothesize a counter as to why it won't help, for long at least. Maybe you'd like to counter with an actual example of how it's enabled them, and why increased regulation of the crypto space won't prevent that (i.e., "I was able to buy a Domino's pizza with donated crypto" - additional regulation that would prevent you from traditional banking could also make such crypto, with its traceable history, be unspendable. They can't take it from you, but they can levy the same threats they do for people who ignore sanctions, which would mean crypto you've touched is now effectively untradeable amongst regulated businesses).

gonehome 5y ago

The capability of self-custody is the thing to pay attention to. Nothing else has this capability to the same extent. Today we store most of our wealth in assets (market index funds, stocks, real estate, etc.) and some (typically very little, and rarely outside of a bank account) in cash. Most of this is not actually controlled by you. With BTC (and cryptocurrency more generally) you have the capability of having your private key in a hardware wallet under your control and retain the capability to transact independently of other institutions. If you keep some percentage of your wealth here you retain certain advantages that you can't get elsewhere. The closest alternative would be having cash (in cash form), but it's hard to have that much, hard to travel with it (you can memorize your wallet seed words and recreate your wallet on the other side of a border), and cash is vulnerable to government stupidity (see: Russia). I'm not sympathetic to the Canadian truck protests, but whether or not you care about what they're protesting - it's the capability wielded by the Canadian government over their private finances that's alarming. All this is to say the focus on middleman and paying with crypto in the general case is kind of missing the forest for the trees. The capability of a global self-custody capable store of value that can be trivially moved anywhere is a big deal and puts power back in the hands of individuals.

pphysch 5y ago
It's funny because some Bitcoin evangelists point to the US govt's 1933 confiscation of a gold as a reason to use Bitcoin instead. ... How is nabbing a gold ingot and different than nabbing a storage device? If anything, the threat surface of a digital wallet is much greater (you could steal it remotely if the user doesn't have good cybersecurity practices, unlike a gold ingot).
- gonehome 5y ago
  The storage device doesn't matter - it's the seed words that generate the wallet that matter. If you memorize them you're good (short of someone beating it out of you or legally compelling you - even then they'd have to be able to prove it existed in the first place). You can trivially prove your gold ingot exists because you can just find it. It's also way harder to move your gold ingot out of your war-torn country, harder to transact with it, etc. The storage device does not hold the actual coins, just a private key that lets you update the public ledger that determines ownership (thinking the storage device holds the coins is a common misunderstanding). I'm an open-minded skeptic, but there are real technology advantages to blockchain and cryptocurrency, there are a lot of scams too for sure - but that's not the interesting part. The HN median opinion on this is wrong as it often is (it was wrong about EVs and Tesla too).

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

banannaise 5y ago

Like seemingly everything these days, crypto has a grifter problem. It's becoming a predictable story - something with potential arises, with a community of mostly true believers. The true believers make money, but they're not optimizing for profit, they're optimizing for making the ecosystem better. The grifters, optimizing only for profit, not only start to take the lion's share of the profit, but also attract more grifters. The grifters eventually outnumber the true believers, because: 1. true believers are hard to make; grifters already exist 2. grifting as a skill can be applied anywhere; true believers need relevant skills 3. lower profits and higher burnout leads to attrition among the true believers; some of them even convert to grifters So the grifters completely dominate the market. They then siphon the market dry, offering essentially nothing in return, and then move onto the next grift, flush with the proceeds from the last one.