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> there is nothing here more than you can get with traditional database technology? Here are some questions that you can test your hypothesis with: * Can you

by kebman 4y ago

> there is nothing here more than you can get with traditional database technology? Here are some questions that you can test your hypothesis with: * Can you get distributed and trust-less settlement mechanisms with a centralized database? * Can you seamlessly send value across jurisdictions and closed borders without meddlers and middlemen with traditional database technology (regulation resistance and unconfiscatableness)? * Can you escape coercion and control with a centralized database (regulation and coercion resistance), while at the same time attaining great protection against criminal coercion and theft (resistance against crime and corruption)? * Can a centralized database offer the same and relative anonymity as cash? * How would any of the above be valuable without markets and speculation? I.e. how would you know the value of what is being sent or traded with you without something else to compare it to? If you want to answer without merely saying yes or no, then I'd love to see your answers! Perhaps you can convince me to update some of my beliefs. :)

yashg 4y ago
>seamlessly send value across jurisdictions I have money. How can I get some crypto? From a middleman. Need to pay fees. Then I send it to someone. Transaction fees. The receiver wants to buy groceries or pay kid's school fees, so they need to convert the crypto to money. Again fees. So lots of middlemen and fees are involved. And most of the time, One would need to provide full KYC and need to have a bank account to convert to/from crypto. Tell me more about how it is better, cheaper and faster than regular banking system.
- kebman 4y ago
  Please refrain from putting words in my mouth. I never said that Bitcoin doesn't have fees. Inventing arguments against things I never said is very uncool. With that said, using Bitcoin to send value across jurisdictions is still seamless and far cheaper than most alternatives, except perhaps for some other cryptos... As for using Bitcoin to pay for stuff, sure there are fees, but then there are also fees for using banking services, except more of them are conferred to the vendors and to other banking fees, thus making Bitcoin a pretty great alternative anyway. However it's not the fees alone that makes Bitcoin a preferred choice over banks. It's the whole package, of unconfiscatableness, cutting out middlemen, privacy, and so on, and I happen to think the small fee you pay for that package is a lot better than what you get with fiat. Either way, that doesn't take anything away from the fact that you can do a lot more with crypto than you can with transactions stored in a centralized database.
- icelancer 4y ago
  >> I have money. How can I get some crypto? From a middleman. You can mine it and send to wallets, not exchanges, no KYC, no identity attached, and the fees for major coins are more than competitive with Paypal and Venmo.
- kebman 4y ago
  You can buy or swap it directly from someone else who has crypto without a middleman, and there are services that provide this option for free. For instance this guy bought a car for Bitcoin in Ukraine. ^1 And it saved his life! Depending on the country you may also use it directly for groceries. The technology is kinda like the telephone in 1880's. A lot of peeps were very sceptical towards it and thought of it as merely a toy, not least because it wasn't widespread and thus the use case for it wasn't well known. ^1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gZtDDaWvPk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gZtDDaWvPk
- swalsh 4y ago
  Credit cards cost 3% + $.25 per transation (doing this from memory, but I think i'm in the ballpark here). USDC to USD costs .20% + $.50 (and that's per payout, you could aggregate transactions to pay only one fee). If you use a modern chain to do the transactions, the fees are getting increasingly more trivial (like a few cents regardless of size). As scaling solutions come online, they should be even cheaper. Avalanche is the best chain i've used if you want to understand what I consider modern. Solona and NEAR are interesting too, but I haven't used it.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - hocuspocus 4y ago
    Card payments solve a different issue (for starters the transaction is not irreversible), and no they don't cost that much in properly regulated markets. If I want to send money from Europe to the US, many traditional banks and fintechs are cheaper than cryptocurrency exchanges, and if that's still too expensive, for large amounts forex brokers will be under 0.1%. The fact stablecoins exist and have become so prevalent is really telling. People speculating with cryptocurrencies want to onboard and offboard USD... So now we have these coins, some are even replicating fractional banking, only illegally.
  - FabHK 4y ago
    Credit cards are ridiculously overpriced. It is a joke that the credit card oligopoly can siphon of an entire percent or more of a large majority of retail purchases in some jurisdictions (other jurisdictions prudently cap those fees). But most other methods of transferring money are cheap and fast. If we compare with worst cases, I had a BTC transaction in 2019, IIRC, with a transaction fee of USD 50 that sat in the mempool for half a day before it was picked up.

by kebman 4y ago

yashg 4y ago

>seamlessly send value across jurisdictions I have money. How can I get some crypto? From a middleman. Need to pay fees. Then I send it to someone. Transaction fees. The receiver wants to buy groceries or pay kid's school fees, so they need to convert the crypto to money. Again fees. So lots of middlemen and fees are involved. And most of the time, One would need to provide full KYC and need to have a bank account to convert to/from crypto. Tell me more about how it is better, cheaper and faster than regular banking system.

kebman 4y ago
Please refrain from putting words in my mouth. I never said that Bitcoin doesn't have fees. Inventing arguments against things I never said is very uncool. With that said, using Bitcoin to send value across jurisdictions is still seamless and far cheaper than most alternatives, except perhaps for some other cryptos... As for using Bitcoin to pay for stuff, sure there are fees, but then there are also fees for using banking services, except more of them are conferred to the vendors and to other banking fees, thus making Bitcoin a pretty great alternative anyway. However it's not the fees alone that makes Bitcoin a preferred choice over banks. It's the whole package, of unconfiscatableness, cutting out middlemen, privacy, and so on, and I happen to think the small fee you pay for that package is a lot better than what you get with fiat. Either way, that doesn't take anything away from the fact that you can do a lot more with crypto than you can with transactions stored in a centralized database.
icelancer 4y ago
>> I have money. How can I get some crypto? From a middleman. You can mine it and send to wallets, not exchanges, no KYC, no identity attached, and the fees for major coins are more than competitive with Paypal and Venmo.
kebman 4y ago
You can buy or swap it directly from someone else who has crypto without a middleman, and there are services that provide this option for free. For instance this guy bought a car for Bitcoin in Ukraine. ^1 And it saved his life! Depending on the country you may also use it directly for groceries. The technology is kinda like the telephone in 1880's. A lot of peeps were very sceptical towards it and thought of it as merely a toy, not least because it wasn't widespread and thus the use case for it wasn't well known. ^1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gZtDDaWvPk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gZtDDaWvPk
swalsh 4y ago
Credit cards cost 3% + $.25 per transation (doing this from memory, but I think i'm in the ballpark here). USDC to USD costs .20% + $.50 (and that's per payout, you could aggregate transactions to pay only one fee). If you use a modern chain to do the transactions, the fees are getting increasingly more trivial (like a few cents regardless of size). As scaling solutions come online, they should be even cheaper. Avalanche is the best chain i've used if you want to understand what I consider modern. Solona and NEAR are interesting too, but I haven't used it.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- hocuspocus 4y ago
  Card payments solve a different issue (for starters the transaction is not irreversible), and no they don't cost that much in properly regulated markets. If I want to send money from Europe to the US, many traditional banks and fintechs are cheaper than cryptocurrency exchanges, and if that's still too expensive, for large amounts forex brokers will be under 0.1%. The fact stablecoins exist and have become so prevalent is really telling. People speculating with cryptocurrencies want to onboard and offboard USD... So now we have these coins, some are even replicating fractional banking, only illegally.
- FabHK 4y ago
  Credit cards are ridiculously overpriced. It is a joke that the credit card oligopoly can siphon of an entire percent or more of a large majority of retail purchases in some jurisdictions (other jurisdictions prudently cap those fees). But most other methods of transferring money are cheap and fast. If we compare with worst cases, I had a BTC transaction in 2019, IIRC, with a transaction fee of USD 50 that sat in the mempool for half a day before it was picked up.