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No practical purpose EXCEPT for the ability to easily take assets across borders to leave authoritarian regimes, bringing a form of storing assets to the 2 bill

No practical purpose EXCEPT for the ability to easily take assets across borders to leave authoritarian regimes, bringing a form of storing assets to the 2 billion or so unbanked individuals of the world, and comparatively cheap remittances for people sending money back to their families in another country. These are just a few of the incredibly practical use cases that quite literally change people's lives.

tablespoon 4y ago
> Except for the ability to easily take assets across borders to leave authoritarian regimes, bringing a form of storing assets to the 2 billion or so unbanned individuals of the world, and cheap remittances for people sending money back to their families in another country. These are just a few worth mentioning because they quite literally change people's lives. I'm not disputing you can still do work on a 486 PC that requires as much power as Argentina; the question is why would you want to when a regular PC works just as well or even better? Also, most of those use-cases break down in practice at the intersection with the real world. Sure if you've got some Bitcoin and an internet connection (and a big HD to store the blockchain), you can transfer it around to your heart's content. But how (for instance) are you supposed to get Bitcoin for your authoritarian-regime fiat? Wire it to Binance? That defeats the point. Why would you use Bitcoin as a store of value, when there are better, less volatile alternatives like the dollar, the euro, or even gold? When you work through the particulars, there's not that many cases where Bitcoin actually makes sense to use, from a practical perspective.
coryrc 4y ago
And providing significant funding of the North Korean regime to keep crushing people under their boots.
mirntyfirty 4y ago
This isn’t happening and it’s not the purpose. “Unbanked” is an imaginary word. If a person is “unbanked”, it’s likely that they are also “uninternetted” and/or “uncomputered.”
- netsharc 4y ago
  There are actually "unbanked" Africans, according to this article they just use their mobile provider's feature of credit transfer to bank that way: https://archive.ph/imZOj https://archive.ph/imZOj - it allows them to buy and sell things and settle debts by transferring digital money between phone numbers. But probably not good enough for the crypto-bros, it's a centralized system!!1!!
- jjeaff 4y ago
  That's really not true. You'll find a lot more people with no bank account than you will with no internet access at all. Many of the poorest in the world still have at least a cheap cell phone with some internet access.
- TomSwirly 4y ago
  And even more, "unmonied".
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
diputsmonro 4y ago
All of those things that make it easy to move money out of authoritarian regimes also make it easy to move money into them - see the recent North Korea hack. Turns out that when you purposefully build a system without any guardrails or oversight, then bad actors will find exploits and there will be no way to stop them. Regulation and oversight might be good things, actually.
- telchior 4y ago
  Most of our lived-in systems have very little in the way of guardrails or oversight. We maintain our safety and happiness through a social contract, not absolute enforceability of law. The "exploits" you're describing were possible 20 years ago through various other methods (unregulated banking, cash in briefcases, etc). The new thing is government and police having a much greater degree of control over monetary systems. I think crypto is failing at most of its promises and it's still unclear whether it will ever live up to any of them. But rah-rah celebration of government being able to monitor and halt anything it wants to is not the way to go, either; it's actually a literal doomsday scenario (Vernor Vinge has written about this, among others).
- jjeaff 4y ago
  How would Bitcoin work for a sanctioned authoritarian regime like north Korea? Who would they trade it with for useful currency or goods? It's not like they can just create a Coinbase account and cash in the Bitcoin for USD.
  - jpetso 4y ago
    Perhaps not, but they can sell their crypto reserves to other actors who are in a position to exchange them, for stuff that's actually useful to them.
V__ 4y ago
> easily take assets across borders to leave authoritarian regimes How do you get your assets converted to crypto in the first place, if an authoritarian regime prevent you from having something akin to a bank account? > comparatively cheap remittances for people sending money back to their families in another country According to cryptofees.net, BTC transaction fees average 4% and ETH 1.6%. Even the median fees are pretty high when compared for example to Wise.com and there you only have fees when converting currencies. > bringing a form of storing assets to the 2 billion or so unbanked individuals of the world This is a fair point, but I would argue that people who are unbanked are not the kind of people who will find it easy to securely manage crypto keys and wallets.
- barnbuilder 4y ago
  > According to cryptofees.net, BTC transaction fees average 4% That site hasn't been updated in almost a year. (Check the prices and recent transactions it links to.) Here's a more accurate way to estimate bitcoin's fees. Go to mempool.space and look at the current estimated Low/Medium/High priority fees. That is based on current pending transactions and most of the time, unless you are in a hurry, "Low" is enough to get a transaction confirmed in the next hour. At current writing, and for most of the past year, those fees are a few cents. And this is the expensive way to transact bitcoin -- on-chain! Nowadays most commerce is moving to the layer-2 Lightning Network, where transactions are instant and typically nearly free via payment channels that are settled on-chain in the future.
  - V__ 4y ago
    Thanks for correcting this. Can you explain the layer-2 network? Is this a separated kind of chain?
    - barnbuilder 4y ago
      Lightning Network is a "layer 2" on top of "layer 1" bitcoin. The short summary is that it allows two parties to conduct lots of transactions and, when one of them decides they are done, the final balance is committed to the bitcoin blockchain rather than every single one of the transactions. These channels can also be used to forward payments to others, which means that depending on your Lightning node's connections you are able to transact in this way with many thousands of parties beyond just the ones you are directly connected to. Each channel sets their own rates so the cost of transacting this way varies but it usually comes out to a very tiny amount, much less than 0.1%. This is a pretty good overview with more detail: https://cointelegraph.com/bitcoin-for-beginners/what-is-the-lightning-network-in-bitcoin-and-how-does-it-work https://cointelegraph.com/bitcoin-for-beginners/what-is-the-... The network has grown a ton in the past year and apps like CashApp and Strike now support it.
koonsolo 4y ago
X: there are no use cases Y: here are the use cases X&Z: let's downvote and be negative anyway. Welcome the usual crypto discussions on HN. Why do people still bother?
- tablespoon 4y ago
  > X: there are no use cases > Y: here are the use cases You misunderstand. My gist was there were no practical use cases, and the response was to enumerate some impractical ones. I think the thing that confuses some people is that (like cryptography) some of the biggest problems are on the onramps and offramps, not in the core technology itself. > X&Z: let's downvote and be negative anyway. It's right an proper to be negative about something that doesn't really work (when compared against alternatives), especially when that thing is as overhyped as cryptocurrency is. If it actually worked, the value would be obvious, and wouldn't need to be constantly justified by the kind of contrived use cases that are usually offered.
  - koonsolo 4y ago
    Like I said, if someone comes with an obvious use case, and you claim it's not a use case, or however you want to twist your words ( impractical use case or whatever), well, then the discussion ends right there. What else do you want to discuss then?
    - tablespoon 4y ago
      > Like I said, if someone comes with an obvious use case, and you claim it's not a use case, or however you want to twist your words ( impractical use case or whatever), well, then the discussion ends right there. What else do you want to discuss then? Did you not read the comment where outlined some of the holes in those use cases? Here's a gist of how these coversations usually go: >>>> We should use literal bricks as currency. >>> That sounds dumb and pointless. >> No it isn't. Here's an obvious use case: if you want to buy something from me, you can push over a wheelbarrow of bricks to make the exchange. This is superior to fiat because it's hard currency, and far more difficult to steal than banknotes or even precious metal coins. No way the government can confiscate it, it's too heavy. IT'S THE FUTURE OF MONEY!!1! > That doesn't make any sense. It's a PITA to cart around bricks, banknotes and coins are way more convenient. Also the government has trucks.
cyanydeez 4y ago
Easily: just need the energy consumption of a medium sized country
TomSwirly 4y ago
> These are just a few of the incredibly practical use cases that quite literally change people's lives. I've heard this for a decade now but no one ever gives any evidence. Where are all these people with changed lives who aren't affluent white guys?

tablespoon 4y ago

> Except for the ability to easily take assets across borders to leave authoritarian regimes, bringing a form of storing assets to the 2 billion or so unbanned individuals of the world, and cheap remittances for people sending money back to their families in another country. These are just a few worth mentioning because they quite literally change people's lives. I'm not disputing you can still do work on a 486 PC that requires as much power as Argentina; the question is why would you want to when a regular PC works just as well or even better? Also, most of those use-cases break down in practice at the intersection with the real world. Sure if you've got some Bitcoin and an internet connection (and a big HD to store the blockchain), you can transfer it around to your heart's content. But how (for instance) are you supposed to get Bitcoin for your authoritarian-regime fiat? Wire it to Binance? That defeats the point. Why would you use Bitcoin as a store of value, when there are better, less volatile alternatives like the dollar, the euro, or even gold? When you work through the particulars, there's not that many cases where Bitcoin actually makes sense to use, from a practical perspective.

coryrc 4y ago

And providing significant funding of the North Korean regime to keep crushing people under their boots.

mirntyfirty 4y ago

This isn’t happening and it’s not the purpose. “Unbanked” is an imaginary word. If a person is “unbanked”, it’s likely that they are also “uninternetted” and/or “uncomputered.”

netsharc 4y ago
There are actually "unbanked" Africans, according to this article they just use their mobile provider's feature of credit transfer to bank that way: https://archive.ph/imZOj https://archive.ph/imZOj - it allows them to buy and sell things and settle debts by transferring digital money between phone numbers. But probably not good enough for the crypto-bros, it's a centralized system!!1!!
jjeaff 4y ago
That's really not true. You'll find a lot more people with no bank account than you will with no internet access at all. Many of the poorest in the world still have at least a cheap cell phone with some internet access.
TomSwirly 4y ago
And even more, "unmonied".

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

diputsmonro 4y ago

All of those things that make it easy to move money out of authoritarian regimes also make it easy to move money into them - see the recent North Korea hack. Turns out that when you purposefully build a system without any guardrails or oversight, then bad actors will find exploits and there will be no way to stop them. Regulation and oversight might be good things, actually.

telchior 4y ago
Most of our lived-in systems have very little in the way of guardrails or oversight. We maintain our safety and happiness through a social contract, not absolute enforceability of law. The "exploits" you're describing were possible 20 years ago through various other methods (unregulated banking, cash in briefcases, etc). The new thing is government and police having a much greater degree of control over monetary systems. I think crypto is failing at most of its promises and it's still unclear whether it will ever live up to any of them. But rah-rah celebration of government being able to monitor and halt anything it wants to is not the way to go, either; it's actually a literal doomsday scenario (Vernor Vinge has written about this, among others).
jjeaff 4y ago
How would Bitcoin work for a sanctioned authoritarian regime like north Korea? Who would they trade it with for useful currency or goods? It's not like they can just create a Coinbase account and cash in the Bitcoin for USD.
- jpetso 4y ago
  Perhaps not, but they can sell their crypto reserves to other actors who are in a position to exchange them, for stuff that's actually useful to them.

V__ 4y ago

> easily take assets across borders to leave authoritarian regimes How do you get your assets converted to crypto in the first place, if an authoritarian regime prevent you from having something akin to a bank account? > comparatively cheap remittances for people sending money back to their families in another country According to cryptofees.net, BTC transaction fees average 4% and ETH 1.6%. Even the median fees are pretty high when compared for example to Wise.com and there you only have fees when converting currencies. > bringing a form of storing assets to the 2 billion or so unbanked individuals of the world This is a fair point, but I would argue that people who are unbanked are not the kind of people who will find it easy to securely manage crypto keys and wallets.

barnbuilder 4y ago
> According to cryptofees.net, BTC transaction fees average 4% That site hasn't been updated in almost a year. (Check the prices and recent transactions it links to.) Here's a more accurate way to estimate bitcoin's fees. Go to mempool.space and look at the current estimated Low/Medium/High priority fees. That is based on current pending transactions and most of the time, unless you are in a hurry, "Low" is enough to get a transaction confirmed in the next hour. At current writing, and for most of the past year, those fees are a few cents. And this is the expensive way to transact bitcoin -- on-chain! Nowadays most commerce is moving to the layer-2 Lightning Network, where transactions are instant and typically nearly free via payment channels that are settled on-chain in the future.
- V__ 4y ago
  Thanks for correcting this. Can you explain the layer-2 network? Is this a separated kind of chain?
  - barnbuilder 4y ago
    Lightning Network is a "layer 2" on top of "layer 1" bitcoin. The short summary is that it allows two parties to conduct lots of transactions and, when one of them decides they are done, the final balance is committed to the bitcoin blockchain rather than every single one of the transactions. These channels can also be used to forward payments to others, which means that depending on your Lightning node's connections you are able to transact in this way with many thousands of parties beyond just the ones you are directly connected to. Each channel sets their own rates so the cost of transacting this way varies but it usually comes out to a very tiny amount, much less than 0.1%. This is a pretty good overview with more detail: https://cointelegraph.com/bitcoin-for-beginners/what-is-the-lightning-network-in-bitcoin-and-how-does-it-work https://cointelegraph.com/bitcoin-for-beginners/what-is-the-... The network has grown a ton in the past year and apps like CashApp and Strike now support it.

koonsolo 4y ago

X: there are no use cases Y: here are the use cases X&Z: let's downvote and be negative anyway. Welcome the usual crypto discussions on HN. Why do people still bother?

tablespoon 4y ago
> X: there are no use cases > Y: here are the use cases You misunderstand. My gist was there were no practical use cases, and the response was to enumerate some impractical ones. I think the thing that confuses some people is that (like cryptography) some of the biggest problems are on the onramps and offramps, not in the core technology itself. > X&Z: let's downvote and be negative anyway. It's right an proper to be negative about something that doesn't really work (when compared against alternatives), especially when that thing is as overhyped as cryptocurrency is. If it actually worked, the value would be obvious, and wouldn't need to be constantly justified by the kind of contrived use cases that are usually offered.
- koonsolo 4y ago
  Like I said, if someone comes with an obvious use case, and you claim it's not a use case, or however you want to twist your words ( impractical use case or whatever), well, then the discussion ends right there. What else do you want to discuss then?
  - tablespoon 4y ago
    > Like I said, if someone comes with an obvious use case, and you claim it's not a use case, or however you want to twist your words ( impractical use case or whatever), well, then the discussion ends right there. What else do you want to discuss then? Did you not read the comment where outlined some of the holes in those use cases? Here's a gist of how these coversations usually go: >>>> We should use literal bricks as currency. >>> That sounds dumb and pointless. >> No it isn't. Here's an obvious use case: if you want to buy something from me, you can push over a wheelbarrow of bricks to make the exchange. This is superior to fiat because it's hard currency, and far more difficult to steal than banknotes or even precious metal coins. No way the government can confiscate it, it's too heavy. IT'S THE FUTURE OF MONEY!!1! > That doesn't make any sense. It's a PITA to cart around bricks, banknotes and coins are way more convenient. Also the government has trucks.

cyanydeez 4y ago

Easily: just need the energy consumption of a medium sized country

TomSwirly 4y ago

> These are just a few of the incredibly practical use cases that quite literally change people's lives. I've heard this for a decade now but no one ever gives any evidence. Where are all these people with changed lives who aren't affluent white guys?