8 ms·

It's no coincidence that some of the strongest criticism against cryptocurrency happens here, in a community mostly of banked, relatively prosperous people in s

It's no coincidence that some of the strongest criticism against cryptocurrency happens here, in a community mostly of banked, relatively prosperous people in stable countries. May you never personally experience being unbanked or otherwise financially oppressed.

SideburnsOfDoom 5y ago
Where would you say that the "unbanked, relatively not prosperous people in unstable countries" stand - in the "really like and benefit from cryptocurrency" camp, or in the "never heard of and don't care about cryptocurrency" camp ? > May you never personally experience being unbanked or otherwise financially oppressed. Of course. But this is unrelated, unless you're making the "politician's fallacy": "We must do something (about that). This is something. Therefore, we must do this."
zzzeek 5y ago
correct me if I'm wrong but people using bitcoin in oppressed countries will basically be rendered penniless by simply cutting off network access. source: https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-technological-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#security https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-technological-case-ag...
- cinntaile 5y ago
  People bypass China's firewall as well, why would this be subject to a different reality? Also even if we were to assume they can't access it, it doesn't mean the funds have disappeared from the wallet.
- game_the0ry 5y ago
  As long as you know your private key and / or seed phrase, you will always have access to your wallet's funds. As soon as you get network access, you can transact. You literally have to cut off the internet to stop crypto - that is part of what makes it so compelling.
  - shafyy 5y ago
    No, an authoritarian government can always make it illegal to own crypto and/or to exchange crypto to fiat.
    - plsbenice34 5y ago
      Unenforceable laws aren't that relevant here
    - smeej 5y ago
      But can they make it impossible? That's the important question. The hope of people who believe in a future switch to crypto as the monetary standard are hoping the technology is strong enough to withstand enforcement of laws against it, hoping that all the laws in the world won't be able to stop it. Whether that happens remains to be seen, but it's important to understand that this is part of the hope and the goal.
    - game_the0ry 5y ago
      Nearly impossible to fully enforce via tech - there are many ways around a tech ban. Decentralized exchanges, TOR, VPNs, etc. can get a round a tech ban. A policy ban is also an implicit admission that the government's position on money and finance is weak - if the US bans bitcoin, that implies that the dollar can't compete against bitcoin on its own merit, without the enforcement of violence.
      - JumpCrisscross 5y ago
        > policy ban is also an implicit admission that the government's position on money and finance is weak Every country with capital controls already does this. Most of them (e.g. Egypt, Iraq, Bangladesh and China) hand banned or heavily restricted (e.g. India) crypto. The same way they restrict hard currencies. America has an open capital account, so the threat is less present.
  - rideontime 5y ago
    I don't understand your comment. Is there a meaningful difference between having "access to your wallet's funds" and being able to "transact"?
- emXdem 5y ago
- valcron1000 5y ago
  "Simply" is a pretty strong word. I live in a coutry where international transfers are pretty much banned. The government can easily freeze my bank account, but disconnect me entirely from the internet is on another level of difficulty.
- ______-_-______ 5y ago
  A single node with a 20kb/s link is all it takes to keep the network in sync in both directions. In a country with 100 million people, surely one or two of them have a satellite dish. You cannot partition an entire population from the sky.
tgv 5y ago
Perhaps it's because the people on a tech forum see the problems of a tech hammer banging on everything it perceives as a nail better than others?
- game_the0ry 5y ago
  My friend, I worked in the tech side of a big bank that you might have an account with, so I have seen how the sausage is made. I would trust Google, Apple, and many other tech companies with my money. A better analogy - tech improves the hammer, it does not have to re-invent it. Example: open your phone and marvel at how easily you can send and receive funds from you banking app; 10+ years ago, you would have to go to a bank to do that.
  - rtkwe 5y ago
    My rule of thumb for tech companies is they're all a mess under the covers so every company looks bad from the inside compared to the outside. > I would trust Google, Apple, and many other tech companies with my money. When I have a problem and need to call my bank I can usually get an actual person or even go to a branch where I can annoy someone in person, where as Google acts like categorically opposed to support even to people paying or making them money.
    - game_the0ry 5y ago
      I agree with your point about customer service, but I am more concerned about poor security practices at banks, like the Capital 1 / AWS incident.
    - seanw444 5y ago
      Not to mention, if you protest an extensively corrupt government, they could just call up <big-tech-company> and say "Hey, shut 'em down." And they'd happily oblige. That doesn't happen as easily on the blockchain. You are fully in control of your funds with cryptocurrency. There is no middleman that can say "no, sorry, you can't use your money today."
bannedbybros 5y ago
popcorncowboy 5y ago
Not that you're wrong about anything that you've said, but your implication (and that of the blockchain punditry) is that somehow crypto is the solution here, without ever exaplaining "how". The idea that crypto is "out of reach" of governments, regulators, law and oppressive regimes is one of the fairy tales that crypto pundits believe that is simply not true. In a country that is unbanked and financially oppressed, even if you were loaded with BTC, and even if all your suppliers of food, housing, energy, clothing, schooling etc were somehow setup to transact in BTC, no-one explains how they'll just "bypass" the financial system, tax system, government regulators or the people with guns. There is a naive certainty that people can "sidestep" the formal system and no-one will ever come knocking. In unbanked, oppressed countries? This fairy tale that the "system" will just keep working but the "nasty government" will throw its hands up and go "YOLO BTC what are you gonna do lol carry on everyone". Please. It's the easiest thing in the world to pass laws outlawing this stuff, and then lean on infrastructure, network providers, suppliers, etc etc.. Nevermind the transaction fees that make this untenable anyway. Perhaps the poor oppressed can just write everything down on paper to settle accounts at the end of the month/quarter/year/never and dodge tx fees. Of course, L2 networks, problem solved. Anyway. I suppose BTC growth has to come from somewhere. So why not exploit the global south further under the aegis of yet another colonial missionary expedition to save them from themselves. This may make life worse in the end for the savages but hey, a bunch of us will get richer.
- game_the0ry 5y ago
  > no-one explains how they'll just "bypass" the financial system, tax system, government regulators or the people with guns Here's one explanation - when the people with guns realize they are paid in a fiat currency that their bosses keep inflating for their own benefit, what do you think they will do? Another - who will the people with guns shoot at when they can't identify an anonymous crypto wallet?
  - JumpCrisscross 5y ago
    > when the people with guns realize they are paid in a fiat currency that their bosses keep inflating for their own benefit, what do you think they will do? Same thing that happens in Venezuela. You pay your army in real assets and hard currency. > who will the people with guns shoot at when they can't identify an anonymous crypto wallet? Which is a false assumption, given recent history.
giraffe_lady 5y ago
If you're going to claim to be speaking for an oppressed group I think you should be specific about which one, and what your relationship to that group is. My experience with poverty in the US, having both experienced it myself and continuing to associate with many people experiencing it now, is that the main issue faced by poor people is having money, not having access to the money they do have. Even for the "unbanked" or people who use high fee check cashing and similar products, that is largely a way to avoid unpredictable fees charged by banks, or simply because banks aren't willing to provide the services they need unbundled from other services you need more resources to access. Plus the neobanks have really changed these dynamics in the last 5 or so years. If you're still working off pre-2018 conceptions of what the intersections of poverty and banking look like that can steer you way wrong here. But anyway these are policy choices and we could make them different if we decided to. A complex technical solution is a poor first choice for solving this problem.
- koonsolo 5y ago
  > poverty in the US Here is where you go in the wrong direction. It's not about poor people in a stable country, it's about rich people in an unstable country. So the use-case is actually the complete opposite.
  - giraffe_lady 5y ago
    No that's pretty much the point I was making. The person I was responding to implies they have firsthand knowledge of the needs of the unbanked and "financially oppressed" globally. I don't think knowledge that broad is possible and so it's largely a rhetorical move ("WHAT SO YOU HATE THE POOR & OPPRESSED??"). I have firsthand knowledge of at least one group in this category that isn't helped by this technology so I shared it. The needs of the rich anywhere aren't an interest of mine so I don't know what their use case is. My point is that there are many use cases, and if you're going to assert one you should be specific about who it applies to.
    - buildbuildbuild 5y ago
      I have been unbanked and am not open to talking about it publicly at this time.
Aunche 5y ago
The unbanked and financially oppressed don't want Bitcoin. They want dollars because that's what the rest of the world uses and it's not crazy volatile. It happens that cryptocurrency services are the best intermediary between dollars and the local currency because they're subsidized by crypto enthusiasts.
TomSwirly 5y ago
The reason people are unbanked is nearly always because they don't have any money. People with very little money are not going to put it into "some phone app", as they will see it. I've heard this idea that cryptocurrency is going to help people in poor countries for almost ten years. At this point, absent even one concrete example, I'm comfortable calling it a falsehood. Trying to guilt us into liking your Dunning-Krugerands by implying we are somehow unsympathetic to the plight of the poor is not very nice. Please stop doing that.

SideburnsOfDoom 5y ago

Where would you say that the "unbanked, relatively not prosperous people in unstable countries" stand - in the "really like and benefit from cryptocurrency" camp, or in the "never heard of and don't care about cryptocurrency" camp ? > May you never personally experience being unbanked or otherwise financially oppressed. Of course. But this is unrelated, unless you're making the "politician's fallacy": "We must do something (about that). This is something. Therefore, we must do this."

zzzeek 5y ago

correct me if I'm wrong but people using bitcoin in oppressed countries will basically be rendered penniless by simply cutting off network access. source: https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-technological-case-against-bitcoin-and-blockchain/#security https://lukeplant.me.uk/blog/posts/the-technological-case-ag...

cinntaile 5y ago
People bypass China's firewall as well, why would this be subject to a different reality? Also even if we were to assume they can't access it, it doesn't mean the funds have disappeared from the wallet.
game_the0ry 5y ago
As long as you know your private key and / or seed phrase, you will always have access to your wallet's funds. As soon as you get network access, you can transact. You literally have to cut off the internet to stop crypto - that is part of what makes it so compelling.
- shafyy 5y ago
  No, an authoritarian government can always make it illegal to own crypto and/or to exchange crypto to fiat.
  - plsbenice34 5y ago
    Unenforceable laws aren't that relevant here
  - smeej 5y ago
    But can they make it impossible? That's the important question. The hope of people who believe in a future switch to crypto as the monetary standard are hoping the technology is strong enough to withstand enforcement of laws against it, hoping that all the laws in the world won't be able to stop it. Whether that happens remains to be seen, but it's important to understand that this is part of the hope and the goal.
  - game_the0ry 5y ago
    Nearly impossible to fully enforce via tech - there are many ways around a tech ban. Decentralized exchanges, TOR, VPNs, etc. can get a round a tech ban. A policy ban is also an implicit admission that the government's position on money and finance is weak - if the US bans bitcoin, that implies that the dollar can't compete against bitcoin on its own merit, without the enforcement of violence.
    - JumpCrisscross 5y ago
      > policy ban is also an implicit admission that the government's position on money and finance is weak Every country with capital controls already does this. Most of them (e.g. Egypt, Iraq, Bangladesh and China) hand banned or heavily restricted (e.g. India) crypto. The same way they restrict hard currencies. America has an open capital account, so the threat is less present.
- rideontime 5y ago
  I don't understand your comment. Is there a meaningful difference between having "access to your wallet's funds" and being able to "transact"?
emXdem 5y ago
valcron1000 5y ago
"Simply" is a pretty strong word. I live in a coutry where international transfers are pretty much banned. The government can easily freeze my bank account, but disconnect me entirely from the internet is on another level of difficulty.
______-_-______ 5y ago
A single node with a 20kb/s link is all it takes to keep the network in sync in both directions. In a country with 100 million people, surely one or two of them have a satellite dish. You cannot partition an entire population from the sky.

tgv 5y ago

Perhaps it's because the people on a tech forum see the problems of a tech hammer banging on everything it perceives as a nail better than others?

game_the0ry 5y ago
My friend, I worked in the tech side of a big bank that you might have an account with, so I have seen how the sausage is made. I would trust Google, Apple, and many other tech companies with my money. A better analogy - tech improves the hammer, it does not have to re-invent it. Example: open your phone and marvel at how easily you can send and receive funds from you banking app; 10+ years ago, you would have to go to a bank to do that.
- rtkwe 5y ago
  My rule of thumb for tech companies is they're all a mess under the covers so every company looks bad from the inside compared to the outside. > I would trust Google, Apple, and many other tech companies with my money. When I have a problem and need to call my bank I can usually get an actual person or even go to a branch where I can annoy someone in person, where as Google acts like categorically opposed to support even to people paying or making them money.
  - game_the0ry 5y ago
    I agree with your point about customer service, but I am more concerned about poor security practices at banks, like the Capital 1 / AWS incident.
  - seanw444 5y ago
    Not to mention, if you protest an extensively corrupt government, they could just call up <big-tech-company> and say "Hey, shut 'em down." And they'd happily oblige. That doesn't happen as easily on the blockchain. You are fully in control of your funds with cryptocurrency. There is no middleman that can say "no, sorry, you can't use your money today."

bannedbybros 5y ago

popcorncowboy 5y ago

Not that you're wrong about anything that you've said, but your implication (and that of the blockchain punditry) is that somehow crypto is the solution here, without ever exaplaining "how". The idea that crypto is "out of reach" of governments, regulators, law and oppressive regimes is one of the fairy tales that crypto pundits believe that is simply not true. In a country that is unbanked and financially oppressed, even if you were loaded with BTC, and even if all your suppliers of food, housing, energy, clothing, schooling etc were somehow setup to transact in BTC, no-one explains how they'll just "bypass" the financial system, tax system, government regulators or the people with guns. There is a naive certainty that people can "sidestep" the formal system and no-one will ever come knocking. In unbanked, oppressed countries? This fairy tale that the "system" will just keep working but the "nasty government" will throw its hands up and go "YOLO BTC what are you gonna do lol carry on everyone". Please. It's the easiest thing in the world to pass laws outlawing this stuff, and then lean on infrastructure, network providers, suppliers, etc etc.. Nevermind the transaction fees that make this untenable anyway. Perhaps the poor oppressed can just write everything down on paper to settle accounts at the end of the month/quarter/year/never and dodge tx fees. Of course, L2 networks, problem solved. Anyway. I suppose BTC growth has to come from somewhere. So why not exploit the global south further under the aegis of yet another colonial missionary expedition to save them from themselves. This may make life worse in the end for the savages but hey, a bunch of us will get richer.

game_the0ry 5y ago
> no-one explains how they'll just "bypass" the financial system, tax system, government regulators or the people with guns Here's one explanation - when the people with guns realize they are paid in a fiat currency that their bosses keep inflating for their own benefit, what do you think they will do? Another - who will the people with guns shoot at when they can't identify an anonymous crypto wallet?
- JumpCrisscross 5y ago
  > when the people with guns realize they are paid in a fiat currency that their bosses keep inflating for their own benefit, what do you think they will do? Same thing that happens in Venezuela. You pay your army in real assets and hard currency. > who will the people with guns shoot at when they can't identify an anonymous crypto wallet? Which is a false assumption, given recent history.

giraffe_lady 5y ago

If you're going to claim to be speaking for an oppressed group I think you should be specific about which one, and what your relationship to that group is. My experience with poverty in the US, having both experienced it myself and continuing to associate with many people experiencing it now, is that the main issue faced by poor people is having money, not having access to the money they do have. Even for the "unbanked" or people who use high fee check cashing and similar products, that is largely a way to avoid unpredictable fees charged by banks, or simply because banks aren't willing to provide the services they need unbundled from other services you need more resources to access. Plus the neobanks have really changed these dynamics in the last 5 or so years. If you're still working off pre-2018 conceptions of what the intersections of poverty and banking look like that can steer you way wrong here. But anyway these are policy choices and we could make them different if we decided to. A complex technical solution is a poor first choice for solving this problem.

koonsolo 5y ago
> poverty in the US Here is where you go in the wrong direction. It's not about poor people in a stable country, it's about rich people in an unstable country. So the use-case is actually the complete opposite.
- giraffe_lady 5y ago
  No that's pretty much the point I was making. The person I was responding to implies they have firsthand knowledge of the needs of the unbanked and "financially oppressed" globally. I don't think knowledge that broad is possible and so it's largely a rhetorical move ("WHAT SO YOU HATE THE POOR & OPPRESSED??"). I have firsthand knowledge of at least one group in this category that isn't helped by this technology so I shared it. The needs of the rich anywhere aren't an interest of mine so I don't know what their use case is. My point is that there are many use cases, and if you're going to assert one you should be specific about who it applies to.
  - buildbuildbuild 5y ago
    I have been unbanked and am not open to talking about it publicly at this time.

Aunche 5y ago

The unbanked and financially oppressed don't want Bitcoin. They want dollars because that's what the rest of the world uses and it's not crazy volatile. It happens that cryptocurrency services are the best intermediary between dollars and the local currency because they're subsidized by crypto enthusiasts.

TomSwirly 5y ago

The reason people are unbanked is nearly always because they don't have any money. People with very little money are not going to put it into "some phone app", as they will see it. I've heard this idea that cryptocurrency is going to help people in poor countries for almost ten years. At this point, absent even one concrete example, I'm comfortable calling it a falsehood. Trying to guilt us into liking your Dunning-Krugerands by implying we are somehow unsympathetic to the plight of the poor is not very nice. Please stop doing that.