42 ms·

The EU created and deployed instant zero-cost 24/7 bank transfers while crypto was twiddling its thumbs talking about “early days” and puffing out PoW carbon.

by pavlov 5y ago

The EU created and deployed instant zero-cost 24/7 bank transfers while crypto was twiddling its thumbs talking about “early days” and puffing out PoW carbon. If even the European Union moves faster than your cutting-edge decentralized system, maybe you have a problem.

Osiris 5y ago
You're comparing a centralized approach with the force of law to a decentralized approach which requires buy-in by the masses without any coercion. Of course the two approaches will be different.
- jackvalentine 5y ago
  Is the difference in the approaches that one is actually successful and useful?
  - plebianRube 5y ago
    Maybe they both are, but in different ways, like mocroservices vs a monolith. Some applications are just better on one platform than another, and vice versa.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- pavlov 5y ago
  TCP/IP was standardized in 1983. Nine years later I had an email address. Two years later I had full IP access (telnet, Usenet, ftp, web). I never stopped using it, even though specific protocols like ftp faded away. In contrast, I bought some cryptos five years ago and dabbled in Solidity too, but there was just nothing to do with it because it’s so clunky and wasteful. I don’t expect to ever touch that stuff again. That’s obviously anecdotal, but it’s clear by now it’s nothing like the early Internet. That organic buy-in isn’t happening.
  - omeze 5y ago
    I understand your argument but it’s disingenuous to say TCP started in 83. It was widely published in 74 with implementations in 75.
    - nrr 5y ago
      Forgive me, but I think you misread my grandparent comment's intended meaning. The assertion was that TCP/IP was standardized in 1983, and this is, in fact, technically correct. The unwritten subtext was that TCP/IP was standardized as the protocol in use on ARPANET, with the cutover from NCP to be concluded on 1 January 1983. "It is really very important for everyone to notice the deadline for completing the cutover to IP/TCP and the elimination of NCP from use in the ARPANET." https://groups.google.com/g/fa.tcp-ip/c/HDoq18adT2Y/m/HwoFGxcizzEJ https://groups.google.com/g/fa.tcp-ip/c/HDoq18adT2Y/m/HwoFGx...
  - garren 5y ago
    “Clunky” crypto resonates perfectly with me. I spent a couple weekends reading up on bitcoin and ethereum, working through a couple simple blockchains implementations, and getting familiar with building for web3. I found the development experience severely lacking. Clunky. Maybe blockchains tech will graduate beyond coins, NFTs, speculation, and rug-pulls. I look forward to that day. However, over a decade in, everything about cryptocurrencies and blockchain tech, from development to application, deployment and function, feels clunky.
- volkse 5y ago
  I can’t understand how anyone has any confidence in crypto after the current Ukraine/Russia situation. I thought that crypto was decentralized and no-one could place restrictions on who could own it, and what they could do with it. This also turned out to be total BS as Russian crypto accounts keep getting frozen. Funnily enough, I haven’t heard the “crypto community” make a single peep about this. Hilarious..
  - adastra22 5y ago
    Noone’s crypto wallets have been frozen, afaik. Custodial services have frozen people’s accounts, but those are websites which hold your crypto for you. Not your keys, not your crypto.
  - nurettin 5y ago
    What I understand is that Hardware wallets cannot be "frozen", but they are much harder to maintain than an online account you can log into with a single click, so people prefer that.
  - tluyben2 5y ago
    People use custodial wallets which is a bad idea anyway; but it supports the original point; people generally do not understand or care about the basic premise of decentralisation (and, as such, have no interest in the added inconvenience, although with enough tech that can be solved). They use crypto because ‘get rich quick’ and ‘no taxes’ and they do not know or care about how it works. Their coins are in centralised wallets or exchanges . Adoption of the decentralised might (but probably not at all) come slowly over time. You need to read up on things before shouting BS though; there is a lot wrong with all the blockchain stuff but one good thing is; they cannot freeze your wallet if you have it locally; if you do not have your crypto currencies in your locally wallet, you do not own them as such is what any crypto pundit will tell you.
    - tinodb 5y ago
      But rarely anyone is capable of securing local wallets, especially when it concerns serious amounts of money. So back at trust we are.
koonsolo 5y ago
I'm in the EU, doing a lot of bank transfers. I would love to see 24/7 instant bank transfers. The theory is nice, the practice however is very poor. With nano, I do actually have instant, 0 fee, 24/7 money transfers. Sorry, but your claim is just not true in practice.
- Melting_Harps 5y ago
  > Sorry, but your claim is just not true in practice. Of course it isn't, but they clearly have an axe to grind against things they do not understand at all and they will remain oblivious to the the very obvious fact that SEPA is pretty broken--EU nations and non-Euro nations (within the EU) do not transfer directly or instantly either. It can take days and the expenses, transfer rates, and exchange rates are not 0 either. But, hey... this is Hacker news, where if you repeat a lie enough times about something you do not like, it will become true enough to be accepted.
  - sofixa 5y ago
    > they will remain oblivious to the the very obvious fact that SEPA is pretty broken--EU nations and non-Euro nations (within the EU) do not transfer directly or instantly either You're aware that SEPA is for the eurozone only, right? SEPA is slow-ish (2-3 days) and free, and now there's SEPA Instant, supported by many banks ( I don't think there are stats, but all of the 5 banks i use have it) which is fast and works 24/7, and usually free ( some old banks are trying to monetise it at 1€ per transaction). It's still better than in crypto land or the US. Of all similar cases, the only one I've heard of that is probably better is the Indian UPN(?).
    - Melting_Harps 5y ago
      > You're aware that SEPA is for the eurozone only Yes, I live there as a US citizen without access to EU banking, do you? It also worth noting that it is utilized by non EU member-nations, too. (See link below.) I also happen to live in a country that hasn't adopted the Euro, it will soon but hasn't yet. I also pay my rent to somoene who lives and works in a Euro based country. Thus direct transfer with Euro to non-Euro accounts (and vice-versa) requires fees, transfers, and conversion costs. And it doesn't operate 24/7, and they never have; weekends always have delays--I paid a friend from Switzerland in BTC to pay someone in a SEPA non-euro EU member nation for a deposit on an apartment before a flight on US time on a weekday (weekend in their time zone) and the funds arrived in less than 10 mins for 17 cents via BTC, the payment to arrive to from a Swiss bank account to a non-euro bank account took 3 days to arrive and clear. SEPA is what Switzerland uses, even though its not a EU nation [0]. And I used to live there when the CHF was pegged to the EUR and was accepted just like the CHF: there are payment rails that never changed as a result. What I'm saying is things are more complex tan you are making it out to be when it comes to fintech and unless you work in it you will never truly understand that--what some deem edge cases are quite typical if you work in this Industry. I think your POV is still based on the idea that things are working under ideal conditions (or near them), where as the Bitcoin network was designed to bypass and rout around all those inconsistencies and all the constraints when it doesn't operate as it should. Which is typical for the vast majority of the World's population. I'm sure your measure of 'functional' vastly differs to someone who operates a legal and legitimate business, but because they are deemed someone who is either high risk or simply persona non-grata for working in an Industry the State doesn't like they cannot gain access to a bank account. I think this is really the best 'check your privilege' moment we will ever have in the tech space, and most people on HN (mainly affluent tech workers) have as you expected failed in remarkable manner; instead of the woke BS that it's often used to explain people's insulated existence, this usecase clearly exposes how naive and coddled citizens of the developed World are to what are common and typical issues in the rest of the World, but since it has had almost no impact on their own day to day they not only ignore it but will go out of there way to criticize they have a glib understanding of at best. I can make more sweeping generalizations, but I'm not sure it will be of any use. 0: https://gocardless.com/guides/sepa/countries-sepa-zone/ https://gocardless.com/guides/sepa/countries-sepa-zone/

by pavlov 5y ago

Osiris 5y ago

You're comparing a centralized approach with the force of law to a decentralized approach which requires buy-in by the masses without any coercion. Of course the two approaches will be different.

jackvalentine 5y ago
Is the difference in the approaches that one is actually successful and useful?
- plebianRube 5y ago
  Maybe they both are, but in different ways, like mocroservices vs a monolith. Some applications are just better on one platform than another, and vice versa.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
pavlov 5y ago
TCP/IP was standardized in 1983. Nine years later I had an email address. Two years later I had full IP access (telnet, Usenet, ftp, web). I never stopped using it, even though specific protocols like ftp faded away. In contrast, I bought some cryptos five years ago and dabbled in Solidity too, but there was just nothing to do with it because it’s so clunky and wasteful. I don’t expect to ever touch that stuff again. That’s obviously anecdotal, but it’s clear by now it’s nothing like the early Internet. That organic buy-in isn’t happening.
- omeze 5y ago
  I understand your argument but it’s disingenuous to say TCP started in 83. It was widely published in 74 with implementations in 75.
  - nrr 5y ago
    Forgive me, but I think you misread my grandparent comment's intended meaning. The assertion was that TCP/IP was standardized in 1983, and this is, in fact, technically correct. The unwritten subtext was that TCP/IP was standardized as the protocol in use on ARPANET, with the cutover from NCP to be concluded on 1 January 1983. "It is really very important for everyone to notice the deadline for completing the cutover to IP/TCP and the elimination of NCP from use in the ARPANET." https://groups.google.com/g/fa.tcp-ip/c/HDoq18adT2Y/m/HwoFGxcizzEJ https://groups.google.com/g/fa.tcp-ip/c/HDoq18adT2Y/m/HwoFGx...
- garren 5y ago
  “Clunky” crypto resonates perfectly with me. I spent a couple weekends reading up on bitcoin and ethereum, working through a couple simple blockchains implementations, and getting familiar with building for web3. I found the development experience severely lacking. Clunky. Maybe blockchains tech will graduate beyond coins, NFTs, speculation, and rug-pulls. I look forward to that day. However, over a decade in, everything about cryptocurrencies and blockchain tech, from development to application, deployment and function, feels clunky.
volkse 5y ago
I can’t understand how anyone has any confidence in crypto after the current Ukraine/Russia situation. I thought that crypto was decentralized and no-one could place restrictions on who could own it, and what they could do with it. This also turned out to be total BS as Russian crypto accounts keep getting frozen. Funnily enough, I haven’t heard the “crypto community” make a single peep about this. Hilarious..
- adastra22 5y ago
  Noone’s crypto wallets have been frozen, afaik. Custodial services have frozen people’s accounts, but those are websites which hold your crypto for you. Not your keys, not your crypto.
- nurettin 5y ago
  What I understand is that Hardware wallets cannot be "frozen", but they are much harder to maintain than an online account you can log into with a single click, so people prefer that.
- tluyben2 5y ago
  People use custodial wallets which is a bad idea anyway; but it supports the original point; people generally do not understand or care about the basic premise of decentralisation (and, as such, have no interest in the added inconvenience, although with enough tech that can be solved). They use crypto because ‘get rich quick’ and ‘no taxes’ and they do not know or care about how it works. Their coins are in centralised wallets or exchanges . Adoption of the decentralised might (but probably not at all) come slowly over time. You need to read up on things before shouting BS though; there is a lot wrong with all the blockchain stuff but one good thing is; they cannot freeze your wallet if you have it locally; if you do not have your crypto currencies in your locally wallet, you do not own them as such is what any crypto pundit will tell you.
  - tinodb 5y ago
    But rarely anyone is capable of securing local wallets, especially when it concerns serious amounts of money. So back at trust we are.

koonsolo 5y ago

I'm in the EU, doing a lot of bank transfers. I would love to see 24/7 instant bank transfers. The theory is nice, the practice however is very poor. With nano, I do actually have instant, 0 fee, 24/7 money transfers. Sorry, but your claim is just not true in practice.

Melting_Harps 5y ago
> Sorry, but your claim is just not true in practice. Of course it isn't, but they clearly have an axe to grind against things they do not understand at all and they will remain oblivious to the the very obvious fact that SEPA is pretty broken--EU nations and non-Euro nations (within the EU) do not transfer directly or instantly either. It can take days and the expenses, transfer rates, and exchange rates are not 0 either. But, hey... this is Hacker news, where if you repeat a lie enough times about something you do not like, it will become true enough to be accepted.
- sofixa 5y ago
  > they will remain oblivious to the the very obvious fact that SEPA is pretty broken--EU nations and non-Euro nations (within the EU) do not transfer directly or instantly either You're aware that SEPA is for the eurozone only, right? SEPA is slow-ish (2-3 days) and free, and now there's SEPA Instant, supported by many banks ( I don't think there are stats, but all of the 5 banks i use have it) which is fast and works 24/7, and usually free ( some old banks are trying to monetise it at 1€ per transaction). It's still better than in crypto land or the US. Of all similar cases, the only one I've heard of that is probably better is the Indian UPN(?).
  - Melting_Harps 5y ago
    > You're aware that SEPA is for the eurozone only Yes, I live there as a US citizen without access to EU banking, do you? It also worth noting that it is utilized by non EU member-nations, too. (See link below.) I also happen to live in a country that hasn't adopted the Euro, it will soon but hasn't yet. I also pay my rent to somoene who lives and works in a Euro based country. Thus direct transfer with Euro to non-Euro accounts (and vice-versa) requires fees, transfers, and conversion costs. And it doesn't operate 24/7, and they never have; weekends always have delays--I paid a friend from Switzerland in BTC to pay someone in a SEPA non-euro EU member nation for a deposit on an apartment before a flight on US time on a weekday (weekend in their time zone) and the funds arrived in less than 10 mins for 17 cents via BTC, the payment to arrive to from a Swiss bank account to a non-euro bank account took 3 days to arrive and clear. SEPA is what Switzerland uses, even though its not a EU nation [0]. And I used to live there when the CHF was pegged to the EUR and was accepted just like the CHF: there are payment rails that never changed as a result. What I'm saying is things are more complex tan you are making it out to be when it comes to fintech and unless you work in it you will never truly understand that--what some deem edge cases are quite typical if you work in this Industry. I think your POV is still based on the idea that things are working under ideal conditions (or near them), where as the Bitcoin network was designed to bypass and rout around all those inconsistencies and all the constraints when it doesn't operate as it should. Which is typical for the vast majority of the World's population. I'm sure your measure of 'functional' vastly differs to someone who operates a legal and legitimate business, but because they are deemed someone who is either high risk or simply persona non-grata for working in an Industry the State doesn't like they cannot gain access to a bank account. I think this is really the best 'check your privilege' moment we will ever have in the tech space, and most people on HN (mainly affluent tech workers) have as you expected failed in remarkable manner; instead of the woke BS that it's often used to explain people's insulated existence, this usecase clearly exposes how naive and coddled citizens of the developed World are to what are common and typical issues in the rest of the World, but since it has had almost no impact on their own day to day they not only ignore it but will go out of there way to criticize they have a glib understanding of at best. I can make more sweeping generalizations, but I'm not sure it will be of any use. 0: https://gocardless.com/guides/sepa/countries-sepa-zone/ https://gocardless.com/guides/sepa/countries-sepa-zone/