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Do you know of any other way to send electronic cash with no intermediaries (EDIT: financial institutions)? It's the first sentence of the whitepaper and ignore

Do you know of any other way to send electronic cash with no intermediaries (EDIT: financial institutions)? It's the first sentence of the whitepaper and ignored by 99% of people, including highly paid software developers. Whether or not you need that will depend on where the world goes. A CDBC social-credit system world presents a lot of incentives to use something else. And if you do need it, you need it ahead of time. Good luck trying to learn and set up networks from scratch when they are considered illegal etc.

judge2020 4y ago
> Do you know of any other way to send electronic cash with no intermediaries? Well, you rely on a bunch of intermediaries, but the profit incentive outweighs the power of any large (but still minority) intermediary blocking specific transactions at will.
- llanowarelves 4y ago
  Good point, I meant financial institutions, which is actually the term used in the whitepaper, not intermediaries.
FabHK 4y ago
> with no intermediaries? You're connecting to some nodes, right, to send the transaction? Those are intermediaries. Very very few holders of crypto run their own nodes, these days.
- Breza 4y ago
  This is something I've been wondering about lately. People still talk about the blockchain, but how relevant is the blockchain anymore? It seems like most people never directly interact with it.
- llanowarelves 4y ago
  I meant financial institutions but you are correct yes
root_axis 4y ago
> Do you know of any other way to send electronic cash with no intermediaries (EDIT: financial institutions) In practice you need a bank account to use bitcoin, there's essentially nobody who uses bitcoin that doesn't have a bank account, so the "no intermediaries" thing isn't really meaningful, nobody cares about this.
- lolpython 4y ago
  If you live near a Bitcoin ATM[0] or in one of the 10 US states[1] where LocalBitcoins still operates, you can transact solely in cash. [0]: https://www.bitcoin.com/get-started/how-to-locate-and-use-a-bitcoin-atm-to-buy-bitcoin-with-cash/ https://www.bitcoin.com/get-started/how-to-locate-and-use-a-... [1]: https://coingeek.com/localbitcoins-restricted-to-only-10-states/ https://coingeek.com/localbitcoins-restricted-to-only-10-sta...
  - netsharc 4y ago
    With the ATM taking some of your money for its convenience...
  - root_axis 4y ago
    You can't just walk up to a bitcoin ATM, put in cash and get out bitcoin, you typically need an account associated with the ATM that requires you to be linked with a bank account or otherwise mandating very invasive KYC that basically turns them into a functional intermediary in the sense that they can track all your payments and arbitrarily deny service based on your identity like e.g. coinbase. LocalBitcoins is not practical, nobody wants to meet up in the streets to trade cash for bitcoins.
- llanowarelves 4y ago
  Yes, for now it is not needed. The Canadian truckers didn't have bank accounts for a moment (maybe still ongoing). As financial prosecution, eventually algorithmically (have you seen on the threads on HN recently about people getting permabanned from various services for seemingly no reason?) ramps up, and CDBC rolls out... There is no constitutional guarantee for the freedom to use payment networks so this inevitably will be used as leverage for compliance with anything governments/national banks want It was Canadian truckers yesterday, Russians today - are we so naive to think it will be nobody tomorrow? Or are we ok with the exiling of people from society as long as its somebody we don't like?
babypuncher 4y ago
It is ignored because for the vast majority of customers, the intermediary is not a problem. In fact, the intermediary is usually an asset. I know when I buy something with my credit card or PayPal, that payment processor has me covered if the seller tries to screw me over. The people who hate the intermediaries are the sellers, because they don't like losing a small % of their sale to a payment processor. But sellers do not have the power to change this. They have to accept payment in whatever form customers are willing to provide it in. Customers aren't going to move away from PayPal and credit cards without a good reason, and so far crypto has failed to provide that reason.
- judge2020 4y ago
  > They have to accept payment in whatever form customers are willing to provide it in. Customers aren't going to move away from PayPal and credit cards without a good reason, and so far crypto has failed to provide that reason. In general this is just an illustration of the racket between banks and card companies, since customers really only seek to pay using the payment options their bank provides upon opening an account, although I guess that's not a surprise given Visa started out under Bank of America[0]. If banks provided a crypto wallet that had all the benefits of regular accounts like direct deposit and FDIC insurance, which they might eventually do[1], I doubt many would hesitate to use it. The only barrier would be if using the crypto wallet presented a fee that Visa and the rest of the card industry loves to keep a secret by charging the merchant instead, with the merchant passing on those costs to the customer in the form of higher MSRPs. 0: https://minesafetydisclosures.com/blog/2019/5/29/part-l-a-history-of-visa https://minesafetydisclosures.com/blog/2019/5/29/part-l-a-hi... 1: https://www.federalreserve.gov/faqs/what-is-a-central-bank-digital-currency.htm https://www.federalreserve.gov/faqs/what-is-a-central-bank-d...
  - Breza 4y ago
    Cryptocurrency is too volatile to use as currency. Even with all the recent inflation in USD, the gallons of milk I earn per hour hasn't changed all that much in the past year. If my local dairy accepted Bitcoin, I'd have no idea how many gallons I could buy with an hour's labor next month.

judge2020 4y ago

> Do you know of any other way to send electronic cash with no intermediaries? Well, you rely on a bunch of intermediaries, but the profit incentive outweighs the power of any large (but still minority) intermediary blocking specific transactions at will.

llanowarelves 4y ago
Good point, I meant financial institutions, which is actually the term used in the whitepaper, not intermediaries.

FabHK 4y ago

> with no intermediaries? You're connecting to some nodes, right, to send the transaction? Those are intermediaries. Very very few holders of crypto run their own nodes, these days.

Breza 4y ago
This is something I've been wondering about lately. People still talk about the blockchain, but how relevant is the blockchain anymore? It seems like most people never directly interact with it.
llanowarelves 4y ago
I meant financial institutions but you are correct yes

root_axis 4y ago

> Do you know of any other way to send electronic cash with no intermediaries (EDIT: financial institutions) In practice you need a bank account to use bitcoin, there's essentially nobody who uses bitcoin that doesn't have a bank account, so the "no intermediaries" thing isn't really meaningful, nobody cares about this.

lolpython 4y ago
If you live near a Bitcoin ATM[0] or in one of the 10 US states[1] where LocalBitcoins still operates, you can transact solely in cash. [0]: https://www.bitcoin.com/get-started/how-to-locate-and-use-a-bitcoin-atm-to-buy-bitcoin-with-cash/ https://www.bitcoin.com/get-started/how-to-locate-and-use-a-... [1]: https://coingeek.com/localbitcoins-restricted-to-only-10-states/ https://coingeek.com/localbitcoins-restricted-to-only-10-sta...
- netsharc 4y ago
  With the ATM taking some of your money for its convenience...
- root_axis 4y ago
  You can't just walk up to a bitcoin ATM, put in cash and get out bitcoin, you typically need an account associated with the ATM that requires you to be linked with a bank account or otherwise mandating very invasive KYC that basically turns them into a functional intermediary in the sense that they can track all your payments and arbitrarily deny service based on your identity like e.g. coinbase. LocalBitcoins is not practical, nobody wants to meet up in the streets to trade cash for bitcoins.
llanowarelves 4y ago
Yes, for now it is not needed. The Canadian truckers didn't have bank accounts for a moment (maybe still ongoing). As financial prosecution, eventually algorithmically (have you seen on the threads on HN recently about people getting permabanned from various services for seemingly no reason?) ramps up, and CDBC rolls out... There is no constitutional guarantee for the freedom to use payment networks so this inevitably will be used as leverage for compliance with anything governments/national banks want It was Canadian truckers yesterday, Russians today - are we so naive to think it will be nobody tomorrow? Or are we ok with the exiling of people from society as long as its somebody we don't like?

babypuncher 4y ago

It is ignored because for the vast majority of customers, the intermediary is not a problem. In fact, the intermediary is usually an asset. I know when I buy something with my credit card or PayPal, that payment processor has me covered if the seller tries to screw me over. The people who hate the intermediaries are the sellers, because they don't like losing a small % of their sale to a payment processor. But sellers do not have the power to change this. They have to accept payment in whatever form customers are willing to provide it in. Customers aren't going to move away from PayPal and credit cards without a good reason, and so far crypto has failed to provide that reason.

judge2020 4y ago
> They have to accept payment in whatever form customers are willing to provide it in. Customers aren't going to move away from PayPal and credit cards without a good reason, and so far crypto has failed to provide that reason. In general this is just an illustration of the racket between banks and card companies, since customers really only seek to pay using the payment options their bank provides upon opening an account, although I guess that's not a surprise given Visa started out under Bank of America[0]. If banks provided a crypto wallet that had all the benefits of regular accounts like direct deposit and FDIC insurance, which they might eventually do[1], I doubt many would hesitate to use it. The only barrier would be if using the crypto wallet presented a fee that Visa and the rest of the card industry loves to keep a secret by charging the merchant instead, with the merchant passing on those costs to the customer in the form of higher MSRPs. 0: https://minesafetydisclosures.com/blog/2019/5/29/part-l-a-history-of-visa https://minesafetydisclosures.com/blog/2019/5/29/part-l-a-hi... 1: https://www.federalreserve.gov/faqs/what-is-a-central-bank-digital-currency.htm https://www.federalreserve.gov/faqs/what-is-a-central-bank-d...
- Breza 4y ago
  Cryptocurrency is too volatile to use as currency. Even with all the recent inflation in USD, the gallons of milk I earn per hour hasn't changed all that much in the past year. If my local dairy accepted Bitcoin, I'd have no idea how many gallons I could buy with an hour's labor next month.