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Unfortunately, given: "How can we create a more equitable financial system, where everyone has access to banking services? How can we reduce the power that a s

Unfortunately, given: "How can we create a more equitable financial system, where everyone has access to banking services? How can we reduce the power that a small few currently hold over the web? How can we improve data privacy and ensure that people have control over their personal information? How can we create reasonable privacy in the financial system? How can we make information more available to everyone? How can we fix a society where so many people are in untenable financial situations? How can we reduce the enormous wealth disparity in today’s society—both in the existing distribution of wealth but also in access to new opportunities to earn it? How can we enable creatives to make a fair living from their art? How can we address inequities on a global scale? How can we create self-governing communities around shared interests or goals?" Cryptocurrencies as a tech are not the answer for any of those questions, they could be a tool to support some of those things but as of now are not the most efficient way to improve those. Maybe the "movement" / hype behind cryptos could help but you have to an absolute uncynical person to think that given the types that are most loudely hyping it up, society won't be worse off in the end.

PragmaticPulp 4y ago
Bootstrapping a new cryptocurrency where 90% of the coins go to relatively few early adopters is the worst possible way to fix financial inequality. The crypto holders would love if the world switched to using the cryptocurrency they’re invested in because it would make them extraordinarily wealthy relative to the average person buying in late. I don’t understand how anyone can honestly suggest that a gradual changeover to a specific cryptocurrency would be anything other than disastrous for financial inequality.
- bombcar 4y ago
  Pretending a system that has specific names for various scams will somehow reduce inequality is hilarious. I feel people think “if everyone had bought Bitcoin when it was cheap, everyone would be rich now” and then think that Safemoon rugpull #42053 will somehow do it.
  - ______-_-______ 4y ago
    - rvz 4y ago
      Not sure why you are downvoted since here on HN, a bad egg soils the bunch. The logic with them is as follows with an example of a fallacy with cars and the environment: 'The majority of cars worldwide are not electric. They are all petrol and diesel cars. That means that ALL cars are bad for the environment and that will not change and thus should be all banned.' Not all cryptocurrency projects are scams, just like not all cars are burning up the planet. The absolutism towards whether if all cryptocurrency projects will go away due to a 'bUnCH OF Scam PrOjEctS' or 'it's ALl a scAm™' is just as silly as suggesting that all cryptocurrency projects are guaranteed to survive, 'becAuse iT is the FutURE, bRO™' or 'JUst WaiT fOr ThIs PrOJEct ReAL sooN™'. I'll tell you that both extremes are incorrect. That is even before accounting for regulations getting involved.
      - throwaway82652 4y ago
        idiotsecant 4y ago
        >they're all built on the idea of creating a fake, unregulated private money out of nothing and then getting people to pay increasing prices for it. As opposed to our current financial system which is built on the idea of creating real (except when we reeeeally want some extra money, in which case we just make some more), regulated (unless your regulated activity is conducted by an entity that is sufficiently rich or powerful) money and then control a global hegemony with it. Crypto is not a solution to every problem and it definitely makes some new ones, but it sure would make for an interesting redistribution of power. I think there reaches a point where the levers of the modern currency system are much, much too attractive for human governments to be trusted with.
        4y ago
- Nevermark 4y ago
  Are you distinguishing equality & inequity? As I understand it, “equality” in a society refers to people’s equal access and treatment in some aspect of society (health, education, financial, legal, …) Whereas “inequity” in a society refers to different outcomes for people (billionaires vs the indebted unemployed, for instance). Outside of scams and fraudulent or deceptive launches, crypto seems to be very equality supportive to me. That it has magnified inequity isn’t a reliable indicator of a lack of equality. Equality enables everyone equally, it doesn’t provide equally for everyone.
  - atchoo 4y ago
    Inequality leads to inequity. Inequity leads to inequality. For wealth inequality the hair-splitting difference between equity and equality is a matter of the time frame you are looking at. As for Crypto gains being an equal opportunity - no, not in the least - access to capital to invest in crypto schemes is not equal. Even if everyone had equal access to capital, we would still be talking about the equality of restructuring economies to wildly benefit a minority who gambled and got lucky. Should a single currency gamble "win", it will be in no small part due to heavily invested and politically powerful people making that happen.
    - Nevermark 4y ago
      Some inequity is from chance, but of significant inequity comes from many other reasons People pursue very different paths in life. People dedicate themselves to the paths they do take with varying degrees of effort, thought, etc. Inequity is going to always be the result. Enforced equity has (so far) simply enabled enforcers to create inequity in there favor. I think it is a mistake to treat all inequity as “the” problem. Because it isn’t, and because that distracts from solving problems that can be solved. (To a higher degree.)
      - cuteboy19 4y ago
        That's fine, but this is not a good reason why your specific MLM should be the one that takes over the world and not the other 9000.
- loceng 4y ago
  While trying to not regularly call the majority of cryptocurrencies (the term currency misappropriated) an MLM-Ponzi scheme, I've started to realize that an easier or perhaps better way to state the problem with them is to use one of the key values that is virtue signalled against them: it's claimed that Bitcoin et al are anti-inflation, when in fact the inflation is just built into it - and only benefit the early/earlier adopters, the burden of inflation otherwise being shifted and weighted away from the earlier adopters towards the latest adopters. The crypto holders not only would love if the whole world switched but they actually depend on it to realize their profits, and for the latest adopters to not be left holding the bag, which at least the last 50% of adopters will be holding some portion of the bag/losses before and once it collapses; the wealth transfer will already have happened to the early adopters, and so whether the "community" or army of HODLers pity themselves and keep dabbling in it to keep their dream alive or not, will be interesting to watch at least, perhaps if it's not too embarrassing for the majority; the ones who exited with millions to $100s of millions, at least some of them of course will proudly showoff their gains by being in the MLM-Ponzi scheme(s) early - not being shameful of the unknown harm and losses their gains caused others and society as a whole. A lesson, to say the least. But the above is why those of us who see what Bitcoin et al are for what they are need to take a stand because regulatory/systems and policy capture will happen and is attempting to happen, perhaps the most extreme example of this so far being El Salvador - where their current "elected" leader at one point brought in military with guns into their parliament to threaten their parliament if they didn't adopt whatever he is/was gunning for; then you have a government/organization that's shown an example of what they're willing to do wanting to then influence the rest of the world (by whatever nefarious/violent means they may be so inclined to do) in order for a global-decentralized financial database to be required to be used, to then realize their gains, which richness wise, if they succeeded at getting the world to adopt - would make them as relative early adopters, very rich indeed - at least those in government who actually control the keys to their kingdom's crypto vault. Once I saw a significant portion of the mainstream VC-finance industrial complex buy into it, arguably heavily lead by USV with their Coinbase and other ecosystem investments - gaps they knew someone would have to fill, including funding a crypto lobbyist organization, then I knew things would get too serious to ignore. The solution however simply seems to be thoroughly educate the population so they understand the mechanisms - as most of what they will have seen or heard about is easily considered propaganda to hype up to sell more of whatever flavour of MLM-Ponzi scheme they can convince/trick you into buying. Edit to add: Forgot to link to article re: "Heavily-armed police and soldiers enter El Salvador parliament" - https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-51439020 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-51439020
- imtringued 4y ago
  The aristocracy loved gold because it was money for the elites. Farmers in the US hated it, because it was money for the elites. Honestly, the arguments are basically the same as the gold bugs and the motivation is the same. People are invested in gold so they want it to succeed even at the expense of other people. Same with cryptocurrency.
koonsolo 4y ago
> society won't be worse off in the end. That is most definitely a political question. I think the article has a strange reasoning about crypto trying to "save the world". For me it's pretty clear: individuals can now store and transfer value on the internet using a consensus algorithm. Plenty of you claim that it's enough to have a democracy that controls a central bank. That way you also have some kind of consensus on your value storing and trading. Problem is that this democracy/central bank is not stable in every country. So crypto provides real "internet money", with all benefits and drawbacks. Whether that improves or worsens society, is purely a political question. But it's clear that cryptocurrencies try to live outside of governmental control, which is of course where most of the benefit comes from.
- falcolas 4y ago
  > But it's clear that cryptocurrencies try to live outside of governmental control, which is of course where most of the benefit comes from. I believe it’s naïve to expect that it will remain outside of government control. That it won’t get slammed with the same laws and regulations applied to fiat currencies. Governments live on money. As alternatives gain traction, the governments take notice and start regulating. There’s a fair bit of historical precedence around this.
  - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
    > it’s naïve to expect that it will remain outside of government control Not sure what about crypto is outside government influence. Crypto is regularly taxed, seized and landing people in jail. Countries that can't manage that wouldn't find an offshore bank account, as evidenced by their entire population of elites having one. "Government can't touch my crypto" is a founding myth.
    - falcolas 4y ago
      I'm thinking more of the cross-border uses which are more "in the news" recently. But fundamentally, I believe we agree.
    - 4y ago
c0mptonFP 4y ago
- bena 4y ago
  If you see someone pounding nails into his dick and when you ask what he's trying to do, he says "I'm building a house". It is fair to tell him that he's doing it wrong. That his proposed method will not get him any closer to a house than he already is. It does not matter that you are not also trying to build a house. It does not matter that you are not going to build him a house. Knowing what will not work is important. And just because there is no proposed alternative does not mean we should keep doing the thing we know won't work. Especially when the thing we know won't work might even exacerbate the problem it is trying to solve. Sometimes, nothing is the right thing to do.
- theamk 4y ago
  "We must do something. This is something, so we must do this" There are costs and benefits to every action. If former are bigger than latter, we should be dismissed the action.
  - giraffe_lady 4y ago
    I really appreciate how like four of us simultaneously drilled into this one fractally bad take but I do think this is the most concise of all of them so far.
- WJW 4y ago
  If someone is trying to get to the moon by climbing successively higher trees, are you doing them a disservice by reminding them that the highest tree is not tall enough to reach there? Especially when they are burning large amounts of resources trying to get there? If people are genuine about solving the world's poverty and inequality problems, recognizing that cryptocurrencies are unlikely to help with those problems is a valuable first step.
  - reedjosh 4y ago
    So using Fiat that corrupt governments worldwide print as a hidden means of taxation and control has noting to do with inequality? Avoiding that is the original and prime goal of crypto currency. Like anything new get rich quick schemes exist, but that's not Bitcoin and it's not Monero.
pgorczak 4y ago
I mean, it’s great if crypto makes more people think about these questions, even if it’s not the answer. OTOH we’re also seeing it mess up problems for which perfectly valid solutions already exist. In Germany a couple “digital government” projects had a pretty bad start because they used blockchains where they likely didn’t have to.
- boringg 4y ago
  I agree in sentiment with your statement that if this shines a light on a problem and we get more valuable thoughts generated then that is an asset. However there is also the opportunity cost of this which is quite significant. Imagine the benefits we could accrue from humanity if we had put all this talent, capital and energy into a significant human problem? Obviously I'm being hypothetical because there is no way to coalesce efforts on that scale without self interest at the heart of it.
gwbas1c 4y ago
100% agree, and I must add: Those are all political problems. Technology does not solve political problems. Politics solves political problems. All cryptocurrency does is obfuscate the politics behind its monetary system. As flawed as our monetary system is, the politics behind it are visible and under control of a government. In my country, my government is elected, and I'm an active and informed voter. Thus, I think the best way to solve those problems is to be an informed voter, vote, and encourage other countries to adopt democracies.
- eimrine 4y ago
  > Technology does not solve political problems. Bitcoin has solved an international transaction of money which were political problem.
  - tablespoon 4y ago
    > Bitcoin has solved an international transaction of money which were political problem. That is a problem that was already solved. I've personally bought things from foreign countries (in person, and via mail order) with a credit card.
    - eimrine 4y ago
      Try to buy something from not-so-friendly urisdiction. And you will see the difference between storytelling and business.
      - tablespoon 4y ago
        >> That is a problem that was already solved. I've personally bought things from foreign countries (in person, and via mail order) with a credit card. > Try to buy something from not-so-friendly urisdiction. And you will see the difference between storytelling and business. Give an actual example, rather than a vague hand-waving hypothetical. Some random points: 1. For mail order: paying is only part of it. Shipping is just as important. Are you hypothesizing a "not-so-friendly [j]urisdiction" where international payment difficult but international mail is easy? 2. For in person: would the person prefer my crisp American dollars or dicking around with Bitcoin addresses and waiting hours for transactions to confirm? 3... I could go on. My general problem with cryptocurrency "use cases" are they tend to assume the utility of cryptocurrency, ignore alternative solutions, and latch on to some narrow aspect of a situation when zooming out even a little would reveal contradictions and problems.
JackC 4y ago
For anyone who reads the comments before the article, note that the article explicitly agrees with this point. What it's arguing is that many of the people attracted to crypto are there because they're desperate for answers to those questions or for help with their own situations, and that approaching them with hostility will drive them further into the grift instead of back out.
BLKNSLVR 4y ago
I've done some, admittedly relatively shallow, thinking about the end results of "revolution" in various contexts, and the conclusion that I keep coming to is that revolutions only ever end up replacing the bums in the seats, whilst the position and structure of the seats remain. I dabble in cryptocurrencies, but I can still see the inevitable inequality inherent in the rise to dominance of any one or small group of them. I do have to say, however, that Vitalik Buterin says all the right things to appear as someone that does want to help the world be better. Separately to his creation which, if it dominated, would also not be a harbinger of equality for all.
miohtama 4y ago
Cryptocurrencies might not answer to all of these questions. However there is one question where it gives an answer. It is how to create more efficient financial system. And part of this answer might lead to rebalancing some of distribution of the wealth, mostly by reducing operating costs and profit margins of the current Wall St and other local oligopolic financial institutions. Blockchains do create fundamental value, not just speculative value. Tech people often dismiss this claim and do not want to analyse further. To demostrate this, I wrote a post where I am comparing stock and cryptocurrency trading venues and showing that a decentralised system is the most cost efficient choice at least with some data points and why it is so: https://tradingstrategy.ai/blog/most-efficient-market-is-on-a-public-blockchain-and-decentralised https://tradingstrategy.ai/blog/most-efficient-market-is-on-...
- CharlesW 4y ago
  On the topic of the parent commenter's valiant content marketing effort: https://www.classaction.org/news/scam-tokens-class-action-alleges-uniswap-labs-has-done-nothing-to-stop-rampant-fraud-on-crypto-exchange https://www.classaction.org/news/scam-tokens-class-action-al...
  - miohtama 4y ago
    Thank you for heads up. I hope I was transparent enough with my content marketing efforts not to be rude and spammy. Maybe you can clarify if it is against HackerNews rules to link my own posts? I agree, Uniswap has its issues with scams. Even with added compliance and listing policy, it is highly likely to be most cost efficient. For example what we can do is that we focus only known good trading pairs like Bitcoin and Ethereum that are not scams. These are not scams and they still trade more efficiently on Uniswap. There are efficiencies you do not see in traditional financial systems like - Open source - Open data - Open ledger I think the most relevant talking point is about the open source. We know Linux beat UNIXes on the server market. We know Android beat Microsoft Windows Phone. More about this in-depth in the blog post, of course.
    - CharlesW 4y ago
bobthechef 4y ago
Broadly, no political order functions in the absence of a moral society. We've become rather fixated on the notion of systems that can somehow produce good outcomes no matter how vicious its members are. The problem here is that any political and social order is only as good as its members and governing bodies. There isn't some disembodied "system, out there" that can strap us all into externally imposed restraints and put us all in cages to constrain our bad actions. The quality of a society is absolutely dependent on its members respecting the common good which includes respecting good laws. (That's another point. Leaders are not free to impose any old law and claim it is legitimate. Laws can only determine the general good as proscribed by natural law, i.e., human nature.) Indeed, I wouldn't want to live in a society of savages in which a tyrant exercises such control. This is precisely the lesson to be learned from Hobbes' Leviathan: the more immoral a society becomes, the most governments clamp down to try to maintain order and the viability of that society. That doesn't mean we can't discuss better or worse political orders. Indeed, political orders are determined by law and law by objective moral principle. And a word on equality. So far, crypto seems to be a place for wild speculation and the amassing of (real or imagined) wealth by a relatively small number. That's probably a large part of the appeal, like the lottery. But more to the point: equality is not a virtue. Justice is. But who said we are all due the same? We're not. No two people are economically equally valuable (nor is economic value all there is). The problem is poverty, or the excess influence of money in politics and culture, or usury and left, or unjust pay, but not inequality. How is crypto a solution to these social problems, and in ways that surpass traditional currencies?
duxup 4y ago
The disconnect between the ethos of cryptcurency and reality seems immense. There are some nice ideas there, but in practice everyone seems out to "get theirs".
deleted 4y ago
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mr_spothawk 4y ago
Relevant: https://www.citadel21.com/why-the-yuppie-elite-dismiss-bitcoin https://www.citadel21.com/why-the-yuppie-elite-dismiss-bitco...
User23 4y ago
> "How can we create a more equitable financial system, where everyone has access to banking services?" More to the point, how can we create a more equitable financial system, where everyone has access to a banking license?
crypot 4y ago
Bitcoin in particular would be the absolute worst tool to use to fix any of these problems. It is 90% owned by a very small group of people. If it becomes more valuable, this will result in a significantly less equitable financial system.
marcosdumay 4y ago
Just to add a bit. This one: > How can we create a more equitable financial system, where everyone has access to banking services? Is a government mandate away. If you want it, got to the streets or call your representatives. In most countries, a simply executive decree is enough to get it.
- SuoDuanDao 4y ago
  In most countries, more equity would not benefit the ruling class. Do you have a political solution that accounts for this which I could suggest to my representative? Because absent one, a digital gold standard seems the least bad option to me.
  - marcosdumay 4y ago
    Granting everybody access to the banking system is just a matter of some regulatory entity requiring that banks create a kind of account they can grant to anyone and that they don't deny it, or of the government itself making a bank that doesn't deny service to people. There's nothing there about equity. It's a completely different problem.
Consultant32452 4y ago
Underlying all of our financial transactions is debt. Even an ACH transfer is a very temporary debt in a network of trust. That's why people with "bad credit" can't get accounts at traditional banks. This hurdle does not exist in crypto. I'm not suggesting crypto is some panacea, but it does eliminate this very important problem for people on the bottom of the economic ladder.
- easrng 4y ago
  You can't pay for groceries with crypto. The easiest way to transfer money people can actually use without a bank account is probably texting someone a prepaid card number, though for low amounts the purchase fee is kind of a lot. Crypto is good for circumventing the legal system (ex. getting DIY HRT where it's not legal) but for most basic needs it's not very useful.
  - Consultant32452 4y ago
    You can't pay for groceries with crypto yet. The government is making adoption more difficult by doing things like classifying all crypto as assets, so every transaction by a legitimate business requires they have to do a ton of tax paperwork about it. Some countries use bitcoin as official currency, so this not universally the case. I don't know if adoption will increase, nor do I have a strong opinion on whether it should. But it does solve the specific, narrow problem of lack of basic banking for the poor.
  - fidelramos 4y ago
    > You can't pay for groceries with crypto. Some people can pay for groceries with crypto, for example in Slovenia there is a supermarket chain that accepts Bitcoin Cash (BCH) [0]. map.bitcoin.com [1] displays local businesses that accept crypto. Then there is acceptbitcoin.cash [2] which lists online stores and services that accept Bitcoin Cash, Bitcoin and/or other cryptocurrencies. That is one of the main things I like about Bitcoin Cash: it focuses on user adoption as money and not as a store or value or speculation investment. Avoiding the exchange to fiat money is essential for P2P electronic cash like Bitcoin was meant to be. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61kQ4-0a1p8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61kQ4-0a1p8 [1] https://map.bitcoin.com/ https://map.bitcoin.com/ [2] https://acceptbitcoin.cash/ https://acceptbitcoin.cash/
BaseballPhysics 4y ago
None of which is relevant to the core thesis of the post. Ms. White's point, here, is that there shouldn't be so much toxicity directed at individuals taken in by the crypto hype in the desperate hope of getting ahead. That level of discourse should be directed at the influence peddlers and grifters who are drawing folks in in the first place. The paragraph you quoted is intended to help set the stage for why folks who don't know any better might look at crypto as the answer to their financial fears and anxieties. Later she points out that "I don’t think they are a feasible solution, and in fact I think they will worsen many of the problems they ostensibly aim to solve, but they are certainly being sold as the solution, and a solution that people desperately need."
adalu 4y ago
> How can we create a more equitable financial system, where everyone has access to banking services? In the EU - easy - get rid of PSD2 which requires banks to add OTP before actions, account number and password are not good enough anymore. Information and transaction providers now exist because of that but they require an application and a certificate that costs money. If in the EU we get rid of those and go back to old "home banking computer interface" everyone can access their own account in an automated way. Instead we now have to pay an external service which pays the state for certs each year to be able to automate our bank accounts. This is essentially legal theft or a protection racket. Image you have to pay a 3rd party for every sale you made. That is PSD2 in a nutshell. Also easy - provide free bank accounts. Banks make enough money as is and are bailed out with citizens cash if they crash. All crypto(currency) does is contribute to the pollution of the planet and provide no real value (progress). I'm not talking about all the scams that are going on in terms of value and I'm aware people got filthy rich by gaming the market, which isn't a market to be honest. It's a manipulative scheme, unregulated and I repeat myself, bad for the environment.
imtringued 4y ago
How? By fostering balanced trade between nations. The Bancor was a good idea and that is why it wasn't adopted. People should abandon the shared hallucination of believing money can have a physical manifestation. Money represents relationships between people. You can't own relationships without them becoming abusive. People who maintain abusive relationships against the will of other people should be stopped and punished. The way most cryptocurrencies are designed as if the people involved truly believe they can own someone else's time indefinitely.

PragmaticPulp 4y ago

Bootstrapping a new cryptocurrency where 90% of the coins go to relatively few early adopters is the worst possible way to fix financial inequality. The crypto holders would love if the world switched to using the cryptocurrency they’re invested in because it would make them extraordinarily wealthy relative to the average person buying in late. I don’t understand how anyone can honestly suggest that a gradual changeover to a specific cryptocurrency would be anything other than disastrous for financial inequality.

bombcar 4y ago
Pretending a system that has specific names for various scams will somehow reduce inequality is hilarious. I feel people think “if everyone had bought Bitcoin when it was cheap, everyone would be rich now” and then think that Safemoon rugpull #42053 will somehow do it.
- ______-_-______ 4y ago
  - rvz 4y ago
    Not sure why you are downvoted since here on HN, a bad egg soils the bunch. The logic with them is as follows with an example of a fallacy with cars and the environment: 'The majority of cars worldwide are not electric. They are all petrol and diesel cars. That means that ALL cars are bad for the environment and that will not change and thus should be all banned.' Not all cryptocurrency projects are scams, just like not all cars are burning up the planet. The absolutism towards whether if all cryptocurrency projects will go away due to a 'bUnCH OF Scam PrOjEctS' or 'it's ALl a scAm™' is just as silly as suggesting that all cryptocurrency projects are guaranteed to survive, 'becAuse iT is the FutURE, bRO™' or 'JUst WaiT fOr ThIs PrOJEct ReAL sooN™'. I'll tell you that both extremes are incorrect. That is even before accounting for regulations getting involved.
    - throwaway82652 4y ago
      - idiotsecant 4y ago
        >they're all built on the idea of creating a fake, unregulated private money out of nothing and then getting people to pay increasing prices for it. As opposed to our current financial system which is built on the idea of creating real (except when we reeeeally want some extra money, in which case we just make some more), regulated (unless your regulated activity is conducted by an entity that is sufficiently rich or powerful) money and then control a global hegemony with it. Crypto is not a solution to every problem and it definitely makes some new ones, but it sure would make for an interesting redistribution of power. I think there reaches a point where the levers of the modern currency system are much, much too attractive for human governments to be trusted with.
        4y ago
Nevermark 4y ago
Are you distinguishing equality & inequity? As I understand it, “equality” in a society refers to people’s equal access and treatment in some aspect of society (health, education, financial, legal, …) Whereas “inequity” in a society refers to different outcomes for people (billionaires vs the indebted unemployed, for instance). Outside of scams and fraudulent or deceptive launches, crypto seems to be very equality supportive to me. That it has magnified inequity isn’t a reliable indicator of a lack of equality. Equality enables everyone equally, it doesn’t provide equally for everyone.
- atchoo 4y ago
  Inequality leads to inequity. Inequity leads to inequality. For wealth inequality the hair-splitting difference between equity and equality is a matter of the time frame you are looking at. As for Crypto gains being an equal opportunity - no, not in the least - access to capital to invest in crypto schemes is not equal. Even if everyone had equal access to capital, we would still be talking about the equality of restructuring economies to wildly benefit a minority who gambled and got lucky. Should a single currency gamble "win", it will be in no small part due to heavily invested and politically powerful people making that happen.
  - Nevermark 4y ago
    Some inequity is from chance, but of significant inequity comes from many other reasons People pursue very different paths in life. People dedicate themselves to the paths they do take with varying degrees of effort, thought, etc. Inequity is going to always be the result. Enforced equity has (so far) simply enabled enforcers to create inequity in there favor. I think it is a mistake to treat all inequity as “the” problem. Because it isn’t, and because that distracts from solving problems that can be solved. (To a higher degree.)
    - cuteboy19 4y ago
      That's fine, but this is not a good reason why your specific MLM should be the one that takes over the world and not the other 9000.
loceng 4y ago
While trying to not regularly call the majority of cryptocurrencies (the term currency misappropriated) an MLM-Ponzi scheme, I've started to realize that an easier or perhaps better way to state the problem with them is to use one of the key values that is virtue signalled against them: it's claimed that Bitcoin et al are anti-inflation, when in fact the inflation is just built into it - and only benefit the early/earlier adopters, the burden of inflation otherwise being shifted and weighted away from the earlier adopters towards the latest adopters. The crypto holders not only would love if the whole world switched but they actually depend on it to realize their profits, and for the latest adopters to not be left holding the bag, which at least the last 50% of adopters will be holding some portion of the bag/losses before and once it collapses; the wealth transfer will already have happened to the early adopters, and so whether the "community" or army of HODLers pity themselves and keep dabbling in it to keep their dream alive or not, will be interesting to watch at least, perhaps if it's not too embarrassing for the majority; the ones who exited with millions to $100s of millions, at least some of them of course will proudly showoff their gains by being in the MLM-Ponzi scheme(s) early - not being shameful of the unknown harm and losses their gains caused others and society as a whole. A lesson, to say the least. But the above is why those of us who see what Bitcoin et al are for what they are need to take a stand because regulatory/systems and policy capture will happen and is attempting to happen, perhaps the most extreme example of this so far being El Salvador - where their current "elected" leader at one point brought in military with guns into their parliament to threaten their parliament if they didn't adopt whatever he is/was gunning for; then you have a government/organization that's shown an example of what they're willing to do wanting to then influence the rest of the world (by whatever nefarious/violent means they may be so inclined to do) in order for a global-decentralized financial database to be required to be used, to then realize their gains, which richness wise, if they succeeded at getting the world to adopt - would make them as relative early adopters, very rich indeed - at least those in government who actually control the keys to their kingdom's crypto vault. Once I saw a significant portion of the mainstream VC-finance industrial complex buy into it, arguably heavily lead by USV with their Coinbase and other ecosystem investments - gaps they knew someone would have to fill, including funding a crypto lobbyist organization, then I knew things would get too serious to ignore. The solution however simply seems to be thoroughly educate the population so they understand the mechanisms - as most of what they will have seen or heard about is easily considered propaganda to hype up to sell more of whatever flavour of MLM-Ponzi scheme they can convince/trick you into buying. Edit to add: Forgot to link to article re: "Heavily-armed police and soldiers enter El Salvador parliament" - https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-51439020 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-51439020
imtringued 4y ago
The aristocracy loved gold because it was money for the elites. Farmers in the US hated it, because it was money for the elites. Honestly, the arguments are basically the same as the gold bugs and the motivation is the same. People are invested in gold so they want it to succeed even at the expense of other people. Same with cryptocurrency.

koonsolo 4y ago

> society won't be worse off in the end. That is most definitely a political question. I think the article has a strange reasoning about crypto trying to "save the world". For me it's pretty clear: individuals can now store and transfer value on the internet using a consensus algorithm. Plenty of you claim that it's enough to have a democracy that controls a central bank. That way you also have some kind of consensus on your value storing and trading. Problem is that this democracy/central bank is not stable in every country. So crypto provides real "internet money", with all benefits and drawbacks. Whether that improves or worsens society, is purely a political question. But it's clear that cryptocurrencies try to live outside of governmental control, which is of course where most of the benefit comes from.

falcolas 4y ago
> But it's clear that cryptocurrencies try to live outside of governmental control, which is of course where most of the benefit comes from. I believe it’s naïve to expect that it will remain outside of government control. That it won’t get slammed with the same laws and regulations applied to fiat currencies. Governments live on money. As alternatives gain traction, the governments take notice and start regulating. There’s a fair bit of historical precedence around this.
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago
  > it’s naïve to expect that it will remain outside of government control Not sure what about crypto is outside government influence. Crypto is regularly taxed, seized and landing people in jail. Countries that can't manage that wouldn't find an offshore bank account, as evidenced by their entire population of elites having one. "Government can't touch my crypto" is a founding myth.
  - falcolas 4y ago
    I'm thinking more of the cross-border uses which are more "in the news" recently. But fundamentally, I believe we agree.
  - 4y ago

c0mptonFP 4y ago

bena 4y ago
If you see someone pounding nails into his dick and when you ask what he's trying to do, he says "I'm building a house". It is fair to tell him that he's doing it wrong. That his proposed method will not get him any closer to a house than he already is. It does not matter that you are not also trying to build a house. It does not matter that you are not going to build him a house. Knowing what will not work is important. And just because there is no proposed alternative does not mean we should keep doing the thing we know won't work. Especially when the thing we know won't work might even exacerbate the problem it is trying to solve. Sometimes, nothing is the right thing to do.
theamk 4y ago
"We must do something. This is something, so we must do this" There are costs and benefits to every action. If former are bigger than latter, we should be dismissed the action.
- giraffe_lady 4y ago
  I really appreciate how like four of us simultaneously drilled into this one fractally bad take but I do think this is the most concise of all of them so far.
WJW 4y ago
If someone is trying to get to the moon by climbing successively higher trees, are you doing them a disservice by reminding them that the highest tree is not tall enough to reach there? Especially when they are burning large amounts of resources trying to get there? If people are genuine about solving the world's poverty and inequality problems, recognizing that cryptocurrencies are unlikely to help with those problems is a valuable first step.
- reedjosh 4y ago
  So using Fiat that corrupt governments worldwide print as a hidden means of taxation and control has noting to do with inequality? Avoiding that is the original and prime goal of crypto currency. Like anything new get rich quick schemes exist, but that's not Bitcoin and it's not Monero.

pgorczak 4y ago

I mean, it’s great if crypto makes more people think about these questions, even if it’s not the answer. OTOH we’re also seeing it mess up problems for which perfectly valid solutions already exist. In Germany a couple “digital government” projects had a pretty bad start because they used blockchains where they likely didn’t have to.

boringg 4y ago
I agree in sentiment with your statement that if this shines a light on a problem and we get more valuable thoughts generated then that is an asset. However there is also the opportunity cost of this which is quite significant. Imagine the benefits we could accrue from humanity if we had put all this talent, capital and energy into a significant human problem? Obviously I'm being hypothetical because there is no way to coalesce efforts on that scale without self interest at the heart of it.

gwbas1c 4y ago

100% agree, and I must add: Those are all political problems. Technology does not solve political problems. Politics solves political problems. All cryptocurrency does is obfuscate the politics behind its monetary system. As flawed as our monetary system is, the politics behind it are visible and under control of a government. In my country, my government is elected, and I'm an active and informed voter. Thus, I think the best way to solve those problems is to be an informed voter, vote, and encourage other countries to adopt democracies.

eimrine 4y ago
> Technology does not solve political problems. Bitcoin has solved an international transaction of money which were political problem.
- tablespoon 4y ago
  > Bitcoin has solved an international transaction of money which were political problem. That is a problem that was already solved. I've personally bought things from foreign countries (in person, and via mail order) with a credit card.
  - eimrine 4y ago
    Try to buy something from not-so-friendly urisdiction. And you will see the difference between storytelling and business.
    - tablespoon 4y ago
      >> That is a problem that was already solved. I've personally bought things from foreign countries (in person, and via mail order) with a credit card. > Try to buy something from not-so-friendly urisdiction. And you will see the difference between storytelling and business. Give an actual example, rather than a vague hand-waving hypothetical. Some random points: 1. For mail order: paying is only part of it. Shipping is just as important. Are you hypothesizing a "not-so-friendly [j]urisdiction" where international payment difficult but international mail is easy? 2. For in person: would the person prefer my crisp American dollars or dicking around with Bitcoin addresses and waiting hours for transactions to confirm? 3... I could go on. My general problem with cryptocurrency "use cases" are they tend to assume the utility of cryptocurrency, ignore alternative solutions, and latch on to some narrow aspect of a situation when zooming out even a little would reveal contradictions and problems.

JackC 4y ago

For anyone who reads the comments before the article, note that the article explicitly agrees with this point. What it's arguing is that many of the people attracted to crypto are there because they're desperate for answers to those questions or for help with their own situations, and that approaching them with hostility will drive them further into the grift instead of back out.

BLKNSLVR 4y ago

I've done some, admittedly relatively shallow, thinking about the end results of "revolution" in various contexts, and the conclusion that I keep coming to is that revolutions only ever end up replacing the bums in the seats, whilst the position and structure of the seats remain. I dabble in cryptocurrencies, but I can still see the inevitable inequality inherent in the rise to dominance of any one or small group of them. I do have to say, however, that Vitalik Buterin says all the right things to appear as someone that does want to help the world be better. Separately to his creation which, if it dominated, would also not be a harbinger of equality for all.

miohtama 4y ago

Cryptocurrencies might not answer to all of these questions. However there is one question where it gives an answer. It is how to create more efficient financial system. And part of this answer might lead to rebalancing some of distribution of the wealth, mostly by reducing operating costs and profit margins of the current Wall St and other local oligopolic financial institutions. Blockchains do create fundamental value, not just speculative value. Tech people often dismiss this claim and do not want to analyse further. To demostrate this, I wrote a post where I am comparing stock and cryptocurrency trading venues and showing that a decentralised system is the most cost efficient choice at least with some data points and why it is so: https://tradingstrategy.ai/blog/most-efficient-market-is-on-a-public-blockchain-and-decentralised https://tradingstrategy.ai/blog/most-efficient-market-is-on-...

CharlesW 4y ago
On the topic of the parent commenter's valiant content marketing effort: https://www.classaction.org/news/scam-tokens-class-action-alleges-uniswap-labs-has-done-nothing-to-stop-rampant-fraud-on-crypto-exchange https://www.classaction.org/news/scam-tokens-class-action-al...
- miohtama 4y ago
  Thank you for heads up. I hope I was transparent enough with my content marketing efforts not to be rude and spammy. Maybe you can clarify if it is against HackerNews rules to link my own posts? I agree, Uniswap has its issues with scams. Even with added compliance and listing policy, it is highly likely to be most cost efficient. For example what we can do is that we focus only known good trading pairs like Bitcoin and Ethereum that are not scams. These are not scams and they still trade more efficiently on Uniswap. There are efficiencies you do not see in traditional financial systems like - Open source - Open data - Open ledger I think the most relevant talking point is about the open source. We know Linux beat UNIXes on the server market. We know Android beat Microsoft Windows Phone. More about this in-depth in the blog post, of course.
  - CharlesW 4y ago

bobthechef 4y ago

Broadly, no political order functions in the absence of a moral society. We've become rather fixated on the notion of systems that can somehow produce good outcomes no matter how vicious its members are. The problem here is that any political and social order is only as good as its members and governing bodies. There isn't some disembodied "system, out there" that can strap us all into externally imposed restraints and put us all in cages to constrain our bad actions. The quality of a society is absolutely dependent on its members respecting the common good which includes respecting good laws. (That's another point. Leaders are not free to impose any old law and claim it is legitimate. Laws can only determine the general good as proscribed by natural law, i.e., human nature.) Indeed, I wouldn't want to live in a society of savages in which a tyrant exercises such control. This is precisely the lesson to be learned from Hobbes' Leviathan: the more immoral a society becomes, the most governments clamp down to try to maintain order and the viability of that society. That doesn't mean we can't discuss better or worse political orders. Indeed, political orders are determined by law and law by objective moral principle. And a word on equality. So far, crypto seems to be a place for wild speculation and the amassing of (real or imagined) wealth by a relatively small number. That's probably a large part of the appeal, like the lottery. But more to the point: equality is not a virtue. Justice is. But who said we are all due the same? We're not. No two people are economically equally valuable (nor is economic value all there is). The problem is poverty, or the excess influence of money in politics and culture, or usury and left, or unjust pay, but not inequality. How is crypto a solution to these social problems, and in ways that surpass traditional currencies?

duxup 4y ago

The disconnect between the ethos of cryptcurency and reality seems immense. There are some nice ideas there, but in practice everyone seems out to "get theirs".

deleted 4y ago

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mr_spothawk 4y ago

Relevant: https://www.citadel21.com/why-the-yuppie-elite-dismiss-bitcoin https://www.citadel21.com/why-the-yuppie-elite-dismiss-bitco...

User23 4y ago

> "How can we create a more equitable financial system, where everyone has access to banking services?" More to the point, how can we create a more equitable financial system, where everyone has access to a banking license?

crypot 4y ago

Bitcoin in particular would be the absolute worst tool to use to fix any of these problems. It is 90% owned by a very small group of people. If it becomes more valuable, this will result in a significantly less equitable financial system.

marcosdumay 4y ago

Just to add a bit. This one: > How can we create a more equitable financial system, where everyone has access to banking services? Is a government mandate away. If you want it, got to the streets or call your representatives. In most countries, a simply executive decree is enough to get it.

SuoDuanDao 4y ago
In most countries, more equity would not benefit the ruling class. Do you have a political solution that accounts for this which I could suggest to my representative? Because absent one, a digital gold standard seems the least bad option to me.
- marcosdumay 4y ago
  Granting everybody access to the banking system is just a matter of some regulatory entity requiring that banks create a kind of account they can grant to anyone and that they don't deny it, or of the government itself making a bank that doesn't deny service to people. There's nothing there about equity. It's a completely different problem.

Consultant32452 4y ago

Underlying all of our financial transactions is debt. Even an ACH transfer is a very temporary debt in a network of trust. That's why people with "bad credit" can't get accounts at traditional banks. This hurdle does not exist in crypto. I'm not suggesting crypto is some panacea, but it does eliminate this very important problem for people on the bottom of the economic ladder.

easrng 4y ago
You can't pay for groceries with crypto. The easiest way to transfer money people can actually use without a bank account is probably texting someone a prepaid card number, though for low amounts the purchase fee is kind of a lot. Crypto is good for circumventing the legal system (ex. getting DIY HRT where it's not legal) but for most basic needs it's not very useful.
- Consultant32452 4y ago
  You can't pay for groceries with crypto yet. The government is making adoption more difficult by doing things like classifying all crypto as assets, so every transaction by a legitimate business requires they have to do a ton of tax paperwork about it. Some countries use bitcoin as official currency, so this not universally the case. I don't know if adoption will increase, nor do I have a strong opinion on whether it should. But it does solve the specific, narrow problem of lack of basic banking for the poor.
- fidelramos 4y ago
  > You can't pay for groceries with crypto. Some people can pay for groceries with crypto, for example in Slovenia there is a supermarket chain that accepts Bitcoin Cash (BCH) [0]. map.bitcoin.com [1] displays local businesses that accept crypto. Then there is acceptbitcoin.cash [2] which lists online stores and services that accept Bitcoin Cash, Bitcoin and/or other cryptocurrencies. That is one of the main things I like about Bitcoin Cash: it focuses on user adoption as money and not as a store or value or speculation investment. Avoiding the exchange to fiat money is essential for P2P electronic cash like Bitcoin was meant to be. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61kQ4-0a1p8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61kQ4-0a1p8 [1] https://map.bitcoin.com/ https://map.bitcoin.com/ [2] https://acceptbitcoin.cash/ https://acceptbitcoin.cash/

BaseballPhysics 4y ago

None of which is relevant to the core thesis of the post. Ms. White's point, here, is that there shouldn't be so much toxicity directed at individuals taken in by the crypto hype in the desperate hope of getting ahead. That level of discourse should be directed at the influence peddlers and grifters who are drawing folks in in the first place. The paragraph you quoted is intended to help set the stage for why folks who don't know any better might look at crypto as the answer to their financial fears and anxieties. Later she points out that "I don’t think they are a feasible solution, and in fact I think they will worsen many of the problems they ostensibly aim to solve, but they are certainly being sold as the solution, and a solution that people desperately need."

adalu 4y ago

> How can we create a more equitable financial system, where everyone has access to banking services? In the EU - easy - get rid of PSD2 which requires banks to add OTP before actions, account number and password are not good enough anymore. Information and transaction providers now exist because of that but they require an application and a certificate that costs money. If in the EU we get rid of those and go back to old "home banking computer interface" everyone can access their own account in an automated way. Instead we now have to pay an external service which pays the state for certs each year to be able to automate our bank accounts. This is essentially legal theft or a protection racket. Image you have to pay a 3rd party for every sale you made. That is PSD2 in a nutshell. Also easy - provide free bank accounts. Banks make enough money as is and are bailed out with citizens cash if they crash. All crypto(currency) does is contribute to the pollution of the planet and provide no real value (progress). I'm not talking about all the scams that are going on in terms of value and I'm aware people got filthy rich by gaming the market, which isn't a market to be honest. It's a manipulative scheme, unregulated and I repeat myself, bad for the environment.

imtringued 4y ago

How? By fostering balanced trade between nations. The Bancor was a good idea and that is why it wasn't adopted. People should abandon the shared hallucination of believing money can have a physical manifestation. Money represents relationships between people. You can't own relationships without them becoming abusive. People who maintain abusive relationships against the will of other people should be stopped and punished. The way most cryptocurrencies are designed as if the people involved truly believe they can own someone else's time indefinitely.