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Scam, after scam, after scam, after scam...

sergiotapia 4y ago
Still waiting to see even one single useful use case for cryptocurrency and block-chain storage. It's all a grift to take money away from stupid retail investors trying to get rich quick.
- mccorrinall 4y ago
  I pay my servers at vultr.com, my domains on porkbun.com and my drugs on $market with bitcoin :)
  - msbarnett 4y ago
    I do all of those things with actual money.
    - game-of-throws 4y ago
      If you buy drugs on the darknet with USD you're playing a dangerous game
      - msbarnett 4y ago
        This is equally true of buying drugs on the darknet using BTC.
        mccorrinall 4y ago
        If you understand how bitcoin works, you shouldn’t really worry. You can easily get rid of tainted coins.
  - rsstack 4y ago
    But all three of them also accept USD or your local currency. So the use case remains... evading the authorities? That's not a compelling use case for the general population.
    - mccorrinall 4y ago
      Is everyone who is using cash also evading authorities? Unfortunately most internet companies don’t accept cash, therefore I’m trying to use something which gets as close as possible to cash in regard to its privacy aspects. I just don’t want to use shitty paypal which locks money of vendors for 180 days, or mastercard who randomly allege companies of child porn without providing any evidence (see pornhub). I don’t like these companies and will try to not use them at all. Yes, I’m paying a price for it, but imo it’s worth it.
  - dijonman2 4y ago
    hypothetically, where does one find latest markets?
    - alasdair_ 4y ago
      /r/onions
    - mccorrinall 4y ago
      https://dark.fail/ https://dark.fail/
    - pluc 4y ago
      the same place undercover agents find them
  - roflyear 4y ago
    Why do you need BTC to do any of that?
    - mccorrinall 4y ago
      I don’t need to do that. But it’s an accepted currency, so why shouldn’t I use it when it’s offered?
      - im_down_w_otp 4y ago
        Well, purportedly BTC is a high-yield investment asset, so paying for things in it instead of regular money, which is purportedly a negative yield (e.g inflation) asset, makes way less financial sense. Though this does highlight one of the things that's never made sense to me about this entire ecosystem. Something that's a high-yield asset is a terrible currency because you're basically punishing your future self for spending it on mundane stuff.
        mccorrinall 4y ago
        While other treat bitcoin as an investment, I treat it as a way to send money without getting censored and without supporting PayPal and VISA/MasterCard. It’s an idealistic thing (which is probably the reason why I only pay products worth 100-200$/month in BTC. I obviously don’t pay my rent, my car etc in BTC). For me it’s just an alternative to cash, which I also use for smaller purchases — cash is „gelebte Freiheit“. Honestly, I’d also prefer to use GNU Taler instead of bitcoin, but unfortunately GNU Taler never gained any traction.
        randomhodler84 4y ago
        Never liked the one way privacy of it, and it’s not a coin. It also adds nothing you don’t get already in the underlying cryptocurrencies. It’s a payment protocol for arbitrary assets. You can pay in Bitcoin via Taler. I don’t think it will gain traction. The best payment protocol for Bitcoin today is Lightning Network, and is as open, and more sophisticated than GNU Taler ever was. Yes, I ack that BTC is pubkeyhash and scripthash pseudononymous are not private.
  - sergiotapia 4y ago
    I can also flip my burgers with my flipflop. I was asking for a useful usecase.
    - aardvarkr 4y ago
      I love this comparison, similar to the “if my grandmother had wheels she would have been a bike”
    - mccorrinall 4y ago
      Paying bills isn’t a useful usecase?
      - CaptainZapp 4y ago
        Not for the extremely limited subset of bills, which you can pay. Overall, no it isn't.
- qbasic_forever 4y ago
  IPFS has some cool use-cases, like anti-censorship webhosting. I'm with you on waiting to see actual money use cases that crypto is better at than real dollars/credit cards. It's not even good for money laundering since the blockchain leaves a very public trail that lasts forever.
  - cowtools 4y ago
    > It's not even good for money laundering since the blockchain leaves a very public trail that lasts forever. Not necessarily. There are cryptocurrencies that get around this by using ZKP to obscure senders, receivers, and amounts.
- colechristensen 4y ago
  Interbank nightly balance settlements between large institutions. A distributed cryptographic ledger would be great for this kind of thing. A private “coin” between mostly trusted partners with provisions for reversing transactions as needed. Useful because it would have lower administration overhead than one bank maintaining a service for exchanging funds, no concerns about downtime, and all sorts of guarantees about the correctness of balances. Lots of back end software that just doesn’t need to be written or maintained. Lots of similar usecases where small mostly trusted groups need to keep track of asset transfers or trade between them.
  - adrr 4y ago
    If its bank transfers between trusted entities why do you need blockchain?
    - GartzenDeHaes 4y ago
      This is called the ACH network and there's no way to trace, undue, or recall transactions. It has been used in bank robberies [1] and numerous financial institutions and payment processors who are not banks use it, not all of whom are trustworthy. [1] https://www.kaspersky.com/about/press-releases/2015_the-great-bank-robbery-carbanak-cybergang-steals--1bn-from-100-financial-institutions-worldwide https://www.kaspersky.com/about/press-releases/2015_the-grea...
      - colechristensen 4y ago
        ACH is only for internal US transfers and is absolutely reversible. Your linked article is not about that. There is of course a time limit.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
      - adrr 4y ago
        ACH can be clawed back. It moves money via the FED. You can’t access it unless you’re a bank.
- aaronbrethorst 4y ago
  money laundering?
  - jboy55 4y ago
    I doubt you could invent a better way to launder all that ransomware cyrpto than inventing NFTs.
    - m348e912 4y ago
      How does that work? Does I transfer a bunch of "ill gotten" ethereum to someone who agreed to buy my 5k goofy ape NFT for 1 million bucks and now I've made 995k that I can pay taxes on and use as laundered money? There's still a transaction chain of eth so it wouldn't be impossible to figure out what I just tried to do.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
      - jboy55 4y ago
        You start a ransomware group, you take the country of Belize for a million in etherium. You also start a NFT collective, you post a bunch of pictures you have for sale. In a fit of 'we're gonna blow this money', the ransomware group, which is you, buys a bunch of NFTs from a few NFT sellers, including the NFT group you setup. The group posts the JPGs on their twitter to show what they "wasted" their money on for lols. Can the country of Belize claw back their money? It depends where you live, where your NFT collective lives, and the treaties between the countries. If you chose your countries correctly to ransomware. If Eth is fungible currency, then you can claim that just because the 'money' someone stole ended up with you, for a legitimate sale, its not a 'stolen good'.
- alasdair_ 4y ago
  I used to pay to run a few TOR exit nodes located in Iceland that I didn't want tied to me because I didn't want the hassle. It was marginally easier to use bitcoin than it was to get a prepaid credit cards with cash each time. That's about it though.
  - pcthrowaway 4y ago
    I actually think there are other use cases for crypto, but this isn't one (anymore, bitcoin may have been more anonymity-preserving in the past) Unless you mined the BTC yourself from a VPN that doesn't keep logs, or acquired it directly from someone else who didn't know you, the BTC would be traceable to you now (though it may still require coordination of multiple state-level interests which is typically reserved for very high-interest targets)
    - alasdair_ 4y ago
      I paid cash to a dude that I met in-person on localbitcoins and we met in a place that lacked cameras. I wore a hat and sunglasses (because it was bright in palo alto). This was back when one bitcoin was under $100 however. I even remembered to use a burner phone. Opsec was still weak in terms of nation state actors but I was doing something legal, I just wanted to minimize the chance of random hassle.
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago
  Crypto is our generation’s write off. The cost of a free market economy. We’ll have people with stranded skill sets. They deserve compassion; though based on precedent, they will find none. Maybe in a hundred years we’ll realise they were ahead of their time. When some UN blockchain extends across the solar system. Like how we remember N. Tesla and the 90s’ satellite internet folk. Financially ruined. But cute in their own way. There are a lot of boomers recapitulating their 90s in crypto. They’re fine. They’re gambling. I have a lot more sympathy for the young people wrapped up in the whirlwind. They’re making me wealthy. But oof, do I wish they’d widen up.
  - garfellow 4y ago
    > Maybe in a hundred years we’ll realise they were ahead of their time. When some UN blockchain extends across the solar system. I doubt it. Crypto reached the superbowl and it's incredibly mainstream. If it's trillion dollar use hasn't been found yet (beyond just doing what already exists slightly better / worse) then I doubt it will ever come.
  - aaaaaaaaata 4y ago
    > how we remember N. Tesla and the 90s’ satellite internet folk. Financially ruined. But cute in their own way. A revolutionary researcher who had the government confiscate all of his valuable work — "cute in their own way"? I don't know what your point is, but your disrespect is shameful.
- impulser_ 4y ago
  There are features of cryptocurrencies that would actually be useful in today's financial services. The main one would be near instant settlement. If I make a transaction on Bitcoin, that transaction is completely settled and verified and approved over a hundred thousands times within an hour. All parties can trust that the transaction happened and everyone has their money. That's not possible in today's financial systems. We don't even have settlements on weekends. If you sell a stock on Friday, you aren't going to get your money until Wednesday at the earliest. We don't even have T+1 settlement in the US yet lol. Why do business days exist in todays financial system. If I transfer money from my brokerage on Friday why can I get access to that money right away instead of waiting over the weekend.
  - powerhour 4y ago
    This sounds good until someone makes a mistake and your money is irreversibly gone forever.
    - menzoic 4y ago
      This is based on a common misunderstanding of Blockchain. Yes transactions are immutable, but reversing is not necessary. All fiat backed stablecoins run on decentralized infrastructure but they also operate on smart contracts that give the creators the ability to mint and burn coins at will in order to credit fiat deposits and burn tokens for fiat withdrawals. The fact that it runs on an immutable Blockchain just means transactions themselves aren't reversible but it doesn't mean new transactions can't be made to rectify a problem with loss or stolen funds.
      - powerhour 4y ago
        Sure, you can make new transactions that do whatever you want, but can you force the recipient (edit: or smart contract author) to create a transaction that returns the tokens or do you have to hope they'll do it on request?
        aaaaaaaaata 4y ago
- brianobush 4y ago
  I would like to make quick (<30 min) transactions of large amounts. I can do that with BTC, but it would be nice to do this with USD. Currently, this involves finding a bank, go during the right time, proper account numbers, etc.
- game-of-throws 4y ago
  We've had two crypto threads in the past two days. They both had a real world use case in the top comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32080174 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32080174 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32094142 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32094142 Or do those not count?
  - aardvarkr 4y ago
    You hold up 1. Paying content creators for content and 2. Transferring money internationally as groundbreaking uses for crypto? Seriously?
    - StanislavPetrov 4y ago
      >2. Transferring money internationally as groundbreaking uses for crypto? Seriously? You are confusing, "groundbreaking" with, "useful and convenient". It is much cheaper, faster and easier to send small international payments via crypto than it is via any legacy financial service - this is beyond dispute.
      - FabHK 4y ago
        > It is much cheaper, faster and easier to send small international payments via crypto than it is via any legacy financial service - this is beyond dispute. Let me dispute it then. Try Wise (formerly Transferwise). It is cheap, fast, and easy. FWIW, I know many people working abroad (from expats to domestic helpers), and none of them use crypto for remittances, as far as I know.
        StanislavPetrov 4y ago
        >Let me dispute it then. Try Wise (formerly Transferwise). It is cheap, fast, and easy. Just checked it out, sending $5 costs at least 13% (they receive $4.33) and doesn't transfer until tomorrow. Some currencies cost far more. Sending $5 to my friend in Brazil would cost a whopping 28% (they receive $3.54). Some currencies don't allow you to send $5, but have minimums that are higher. Sending $5 of litecoin costs me about .75% (they receive $4.96) and takes anywhere from 10 to 30 minutes. And although I haven't tried the service, I'm sure they block payments to people and organizations frowned upon by the banking system and the US government. Would my payment to Wikileaks go through? Or the Julian Assange defense fund? I find it highly unlikely. Finally, individuals like myself who in the past played online poker are blocked from using transfer services like Moneygram and Western Union for engaging in blacklisted behavior. Why would I struggle to enter the walled garden when it is cheaper, faster and easier to use crypto? >FWIW, I know many people working abroad (from expats to domestic helpers), and none of them use crypto for remittances, as far as I know. I know dozens of people who work here in New York who use crypto for remittances. In fact, although I don't use it, there is a nearby laundromat with a bitcoin machine that is almost entirely frequented by migrants from South and Central America. Search for "bitcoin machine" in the NY metro area and you will find a huge number of them are located in landromats and bodegas frequented by immigrants who use these machines to send and receive funds.
- StanislavPetrov 4y ago
  >Still waiting to see even one single useful use case for cryptocurrency Sending funds to people outside of the country without being reliant on gatekeepers is extremely useful. This is especially true if you want to send funds to people and/or organizations being blackballed by the US financial establishment (either because of their function, such as Wikileaks, or their location, for living in a frowned upon country). I still find it somewhat astounding that people, especially techies, can't see the extreme utility in this function. But, unfortunately, ideology often trumps logic.
- johnnymorgan 4y ago
  How about WikiLeaks insurance files, pretty the only reason Assange is still alive. They stuck them in there around 2012, during the dust spam (which wasn't dust spam, it was a dos attack which failed) The use cases are there but you've made up your mind to ignore them and act smug about it. GLHF!
- cdiddy2 4y ago
  Just because you come from a place of great financial privilege and a liberal society does not mean others have no use for a censorship resistant form of money. Afghanistan: https://theintercept.com/2022/01/19/crypto-afghanistan-sanctions-taliban/ https://theintercept.com/2022/01/19/crypto-afghanistan-sanct... Argentina: https://www.bbc.com/news/business-60912789 https://www.bbc.com/news/business-60912789 Russia: https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/navalny-ally-urges-donors-use-cryptocurrency-due-crackdown-2021-06-02/ https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/navalny-ally-urges-dono... Lebanon: https://www.reuters.com/article/lebanon-crypto-currency-youth/feature-young-lebanese-driving-crypto-revolution-after-banks-go-bust-idUSL8N2QH1MW https://www.reuters.com/article/lebanon-crypto-currency-yout... Nigeria: https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2020/10/16/nigerian-banks-shut-them-out-so-these-activists-are-using-bitcoin-to-battle-police-brutality/ https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2020/10/16/nigerian-banks-shut... Ukraine: https://www.cnbc.com/2022/03/23/ukrainian-flees-to-poland-with-2000-in-bitcoin-on-usb-drive.html https://www.cnbc.com/2022/03/23/ukrainian-flees-to-poland-wi... https://www.financialinclusion.tech/ https://www.financialinclusion.tech/
strangescript 4y ago
They weren't really scamming, but got scammed along with several other companies that were trying to be legit. They made large loans to three arrows capital because on the surface it seemed like a legit serious business hedge fund, but it turned out it making tons of high risk bets in the crypto scene that fell apart when the market crashed.
- sgjohnson 4y ago
  By this logic banks putting garbage mortgages in their CDOs and having them AAA rated wasn’t scamming either. It’s just that they also got scammed when the market crashed! Oh, wait, they got bailed out.
  - bb88 4y ago
    I can see hashtags like this start circulating shortly. #NoBailoutsForCrypto
    - pluc 4y ago
      somebody needs to make a BAIL token
- kareemsabri 4y ago
  In what way did it seem like a "legit serious business hedge fund"? I'm unclear how Celsius got scammed making loans to a hedge fund that is on record as investing exclusively in crypto since 2018 [1] - did the hedge fund lie about their positions? 1. https://www.smh.com.au/business/markets/school-friends-started-their-own-firm-now-they-are-among-the-world-s-largest-crypto-holders-20210526-p57v6b.html https://www.smh.com.au/business/markets/school-friends-start...
  - djbusby 4y ago
    It seems "legit" because both orgs already believed in the "Power of Crypto". Like if we both, a priori, believe the earth is flat, we'd seem "legit" to each other.

Still waiting to see even one single useful use case for cryptocurrency and block-chain storage. It's all a grift to take money away from stupid retail investors trying to get rich quick.

mccorrinall 4y ago
I pay my servers at vultr.com, my domains on porkbun.com and my drugs on $market with bitcoin :)
- msbarnett 4y ago
  I do all of those things with actual money.
  - game-of-throws 4y ago
    If you buy drugs on the darknet with USD you're playing a dangerous game
    - msbarnett 4y ago
      This is equally true of buying drugs on the darknet using BTC.
      - mccorrinall 4y ago
        If you understand how bitcoin works, you shouldn’t really worry. You can easily get rid of tainted coins.
- rsstack 4y ago
  But all three of them also accept USD or your local currency. So the use case remains... evading the authorities? That's not a compelling use case for the general population.
  - mccorrinall 4y ago
    Is everyone who is using cash also evading authorities? Unfortunately most internet companies don’t accept cash, therefore I’m trying to use something which gets as close as possible to cash in regard to its privacy aspects. I just don’t want to use shitty paypal which locks money of vendors for 180 days, or mastercard who randomly allege companies of child porn without providing any evidence (see pornhub). I don’t like these companies and will try to not use them at all. Yes, I’m paying a price for it, but imo it’s worth it.
- dijonman2 4y ago
  hypothetically, where does one find latest markets?
  - alasdair_ 4y ago
    /r/onions
  - mccorrinall 4y ago
    https://dark.fail/ https://dark.fail/
  - pluc 4y ago
    the same place undercover agents find them
- roflyear 4y ago
  Why do you need BTC to do any of that?
  - mccorrinall 4y ago
    I don’t need to do that. But it’s an accepted currency, so why shouldn’t I use it when it’s offered?
    - im_down_w_otp 4y ago
      Well, purportedly BTC is a high-yield investment asset, so paying for things in it instead of regular money, which is purportedly a negative yield (e.g inflation) asset, makes way less financial sense. Though this does highlight one of the things that's never made sense to me about this entire ecosystem. Something that's a high-yield asset is a terrible currency because you're basically punishing your future self for spending it on mundane stuff.
      - mccorrinall 4y ago
        While other treat bitcoin as an investment, I treat it as a way to send money without getting censored and without supporting PayPal and VISA/MasterCard. It’s an idealistic thing (which is probably the reason why I only pay products worth 100-200$/month in BTC. I obviously don’t pay my rent, my car etc in BTC). For me it’s just an alternative to cash, which I also use for smaller purchases — cash is „gelebte Freiheit“. Honestly, I’d also prefer to use GNU Taler instead of bitcoin, but unfortunately GNU Taler never gained any traction.
        randomhodler84 4y ago
        Never liked the one way privacy of it, and it’s not a coin. It also adds nothing you don’t get already in the underlying cryptocurrencies. It’s a payment protocol for arbitrary assets. You can pay in Bitcoin via Taler. I don’t think it will gain traction. The best payment protocol for Bitcoin today is Lightning Network, and is as open, and more sophisticated than GNU Taler ever was. Yes, I ack that BTC is pubkeyhash and scripthash pseudononymous are not private.
- sergiotapia 4y ago
  I can also flip my burgers with my flipflop. I was asking for a useful usecase.
  - aardvarkr 4y ago
    I love this comparison, similar to the “if my grandmother had wheels she would have been a bike”
  - mccorrinall 4y ago
    Paying bills isn’t a useful usecase?
    - CaptainZapp 4y ago
      Not for the extremely limited subset of bills, which you can pay. Overall, no it isn't.
qbasic_forever 4y ago
IPFS has some cool use-cases, like anti-censorship webhosting. I'm with you on waiting to see actual money use cases that crypto is better at than real dollars/credit cards. It's not even good for money laundering since the blockchain leaves a very public trail that lasts forever.
- cowtools 4y ago
  > It's not even good for money laundering since the blockchain leaves a very public trail that lasts forever. Not necessarily. There are cryptocurrencies that get around this by using ZKP to obscure senders, receivers, and amounts.
colechristensen 4y ago
Interbank nightly balance settlements between large institutions. A distributed cryptographic ledger would be great for this kind of thing. A private “coin” between mostly trusted partners with provisions for reversing transactions as needed. Useful because it would have lower administration overhead than one bank maintaining a service for exchanging funds, no concerns about downtime, and all sorts of guarantees about the correctness of balances. Lots of back end software that just doesn’t need to be written or maintained. Lots of similar usecases where small mostly trusted groups need to keep track of asset transfers or trade between them.
- adrr 4y ago
  If its bank transfers between trusted entities why do you need blockchain?
  - GartzenDeHaes 4y ago
    This is called the ACH network and there's no way to trace, undue, or recall transactions. It has been used in bank robberies [1] and numerous financial institutions and payment processors who are not banks use it, not all of whom are trustworthy. [1] https://www.kaspersky.com/about/press-releases/2015_the-great-bank-robbery-carbanak-cybergang-steals--1bn-from-100-financial-institutions-worldwide https://www.kaspersky.com/about/press-releases/2015_the-grea...
    - colechristensen 4y ago
      ACH is only for internal US transfers and is absolutely reversible. Your linked article is not about that. There is of course a time limit.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - adrr 4y ago
      ACH can be clawed back. It moves money via the FED. You can’t access it unless you’re a bank.
aaronbrethorst 4y ago
money laundering?
- jboy55 4y ago
  I doubt you could invent a better way to launder all that ransomware cyrpto than inventing NFTs.
  - m348e912 4y ago
    How does that work? Does I transfer a bunch of "ill gotten" ethereum to someone who agreed to buy my 5k goofy ape NFT for 1 million bucks and now I've made 995k that I can pay taxes on and use as laundered money? There's still a transaction chain of eth so it wouldn't be impossible to figure out what I just tried to do.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - jboy55 4y ago
      You start a ransomware group, you take the country of Belize for a million in etherium. You also start a NFT collective, you post a bunch of pictures you have for sale. In a fit of 'we're gonna blow this money', the ransomware group, which is you, buys a bunch of NFTs from a few NFT sellers, including the NFT group you setup. The group posts the JPGs on their twitter to show what they "wasted" their money on for lols. Can the country of Belize claw back their money? It depends where you live, where your NFT collective lives, and the treaties between the countries. If you chose your countries correctly to ransomware. If Eth is fungible currency, then you can claim that just because the 'money' someone stole ended up with you, for a legitimate sale, its not a 'stolen good'.
alasdair_ 4y ago
I used to pay to run a few TOR exit nodes located in Iceland that I didn't want tied to me because I didn't want the hassle. It was marginally easier to use bitcoin than it was to get a prepaid credit cards with cash each time. That's about it though.
- pcthrowaway 4y ago
  I actually think there are other use cases for crypto, but this isn't one (anymore, bitcoin may have been more anonymity-preserving in the past) Unless you mined the BTC yourself from a VPN that doesn't keep logs, or acquired it directly from someone else who didn't know you, the BTC would be traceable to you now (though it may still require coordination of multiple state-level interests which is typically reserved for very high-interest targets)
  - alasdair_ 4y ago
    I paid cash to a dude that I met in-person on localbitcoins and we met in a place that lacked cameras. I wore a hat and sunglasses (because it was bright in palo alto). This was back when one bitcoin was under $100 however. I even remembered to use a burner phone. Opsec was still weak in terms of nation state actors but I was doing something legal, I just wanted to minimize the chance of random hassle.
JumpCrisscross 4y ago
Crypto is our generation’s write off. The cost of a free market economy. We’ll have people with stranded skill sets. They deserve compassion; though based on precedent, they will find none. Maybe in a hundred years we’ll realise they were ahead of their time. When some UN blockchain extends across the solar system. Like how we remember N. Tesla and the 90s’ satellite internet folk. Financially ruined. But cute in their own way. There are a lot of boomers recapitulating their 90s in crypto. They’re fine. They’re gambling. I have a lot more sympathy for the young people wrapped up in the whirlwind. They’re making me wealthy. But oof, do I wish they’d widen up.
- garfellow 4y ago
  > Maybe in a hundred years we’ll realise they were ahead of their time. When some UN blockchain extends across the solar system. I doubt it. Crypto reached the superbowl and it's incredibly mainstream. If it's trillion dollar use hasn't been found yet (beyond just doing what already exists slightly better / worse) then I doubt it will ever come.
- aaaaaaaaata 4y ago
  > how we remember N. Tesla and the 90s’ satellite internet folk. Financially ruined. But cute in their own way. A revolutionary researcher who had the government confiscate all of his valuable work — "cute in their own way"? I don't know what your point is, but your disrespect is shameful.
impulser_ 4y ago
There are features of cryptocurrencies that would actually be useful in today's financial services. The main one would be near instant settlement. If I make a transaction on Bitcoin, that transaction is completely settled and verified and approved over a hundred thousands times within an hour. All parties can trust that the transaction happened and everyone has their money. That's not possible in today's financial systems. We don't even have settlements on weekends. If you sell a stock on Friday, you aren't going to get your money until Wednesday at the earliest. We don't even have T+1 settlement in the US yet lol. Why do business days exist in todays financial system. If I transfer money from my brokerage on Friday why can I get access to that money right away instead of waiting over the weekend.
- powerhour 4y ago
  This sounds good until someone makes a mistake and your money is irreversibly gone forever.
  - menzoic 4y ago
    This is based on a common misunderstanding of Blockchain. Yes transactions are immutable, but reversing is not necessary. All fiat backed stablecoins run on decentralized infrastructure but they also operate on smart contracts that give the creators the ability to mint and burn coins at will in order to credit fiat deposits and burn tokens for fiat withdrawals. The fact that it runs on an immutable Blockchain just means transactions themselves aren't reversible but it doesn't mean new transactions can't be made to rectify a problem with loss or stolen funds.
    - powerhour 4y ago
      Sure, you can make new transactions that do whatever you want, but can you force the recipient (edit: or smart contract author) to create a transaction that returns the tokens or do you have to hope they'll do it on request?
      - aaaaaaaaata 4y ago
brianobush 4y ago
I would like to make quick (<30 min) transactions of large amounts. I can do that with BTC, but it would be nice to do this with USD. Currently, this involves finding a bank, go during the right time, proper account numbers, etc.
game-of-throws 4y ago
We've had two crypto threads in the past two days. They both had a real world use case in the top comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32080174 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32080174 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32094142 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32094142 Or do those not count?
- aardvarkr 4y ago
  You hold up 1. Paying content creators for content and 2. Transferring money internationally as groundbreaking uses for crypto? Seriously?
  - StanislavPetrov 4y ago
    >2. Transferring money internationally as groundbreaking uses for crypto? Seriously? You are confusing, "groundbreaking" with, "useful and convenient". It is much cheaper, faster and easier to send small international payments via crypto than it is via any legacy financial service - this is beyond dispute.
    - FabHK 4y ago
      > It is much cheaper, faster and easier to send small international payments via crypto than it is via any legacy financial service - this is beyond dispute. Let me dispute it then. Try Wise (formerly Transferwise). It is cheap, fast, and easy. FWIW, I know many people working abroad (from expats to domestic helpers), and none of them use crypto for remittances, as far as I know.
      - StanislavPetrov 4y ago
        >Let me dispute it then. Try Wise (formerly Transferwise). It is cheap, fast, and easy. Just checked it out, sending $5 costs at least 13% (they receive $4.33) and doesn't transfer until tomorrow. Some currencies cost far more. Sending $5 to my friend in Brazil would cost a whopping 28% (they receive $3.54). Some currencies don't allow you to send $5, but have minimums that are higher. Sending $5 of litecoin costs me about .75% (they receive $4.96) and takes anywhere from 10 to 30 minutes. And although I haven't tried the service, I'm sure they block payments to people and organizations frowned upon by the banking system and the US government. Would my payment to Wikileaks go through? Or the Julian Assange defense fund? I find it highly unlikely. Finally, individuals like myself who in the past played online poker are blocked from using transfer services like Moneygram and Western Union for engaging in blacklisted behavior. Why would I struggle to enter the walled garden when it is cheaper, faster and easier to use crypto? >FWIW, I know many people working abroad (from expats to domestic helpers), and none of them use crypto for remittances, as far as I know. I know dozens of people who work here in New York who use crypto for remittances. In fact, although I don't use it, there is a nearby laundromat with a bitcoin machine that is almost entirely frequented by migrants from South and Central America. Search for "bitcoin machine" in the NY metro area and you will find a huge number of them are located in landromats and bodegas frequented by immigrants who use these machines to send and receive funds.
StanislavPetrov 4y ago
>Still waiting to see even one single useful use case for cryptocurrency Sending funds to people outside of the country without being reliant on gatekeepers is extremely useful. This is especially true if you want to send funds to people and/or organizations being blackballed by the US financial establishment (either because of their function, such as Wikileaks, or their location, for living in a frowned upon country). I still find it somewhat astounding that people, especially techies, can't see the extreme utility in this function. But, unfortunately, ideology often trumps logic.
johnnymorgan 4y ago
How about WikiLeaks insurance files, pretty the only reason Assange is still alive. They stuck them in there around 2012, during the dust spam (which wasn't dust spam, it was a dos attack which failed) The use cases are there but you've made up your mind to ignore them and act smug about it. GLHF!
cdiddy2 4y ago
Just because you come from a place of great financial privilege and a liberal society does not mean others have no use for a censorship resistant form of money. Afghanistan: https://theintercept.com/2022/01/19/crypto-afghanistan-sanctions-taliban/ https://theintercept.com/2022/01/19/crypto-afghanistan-sanct... Argentina: https://www.bbc.com/news/business-60912789 https://www.bbc.com/news/business-60912789 Russia: https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/navalny-ally-urges-donors-use-cryptocurrency-due-crackdown-2021-06-02/ https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/navalny-ally-urges-dono... Lebanon: https://www.reuters.com/article/lebanon-crypto-currency-youth/feature-young-lebanese-driving-crypto-revolution-after-banks-go-bust-idUSL8N2QH1MW https://www.reuters.com/article/lebanon-crypto-currency-yout... Nigeria: https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2020/10/16/nigerian-banks-shut-them-out-so-these-activists-are-using-bitcoin-to-battle-police-brutality/ https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2020/10/16/nigerian-banks-shut... Ukraine: https://www.cnbc.com/2022/03/23/ukrainian-flees-to-poland-with-2000-in-bitcoin-on-usb-drive.html https://www.cnbc.com/2022/03/23/ukrainian-flees-to-poland-wi... https://www.financialinclusion.tech/ https://www.financialinclusion.tech/

strangescript 4y ago

They weren't really scamming, but got scammed along with several other companies that were trying to be legit. They made large loans to three arrows capital because on the surface it seemed like a legit serious business hedge fund, but it turned out it making tons of high risk bets in the crypto scene that fell apart when the market crashed.

sgjohnson 4y ago
By this logic banks putting garbage mortgages in their CDOs and having them AAA rated wasn’t scamming either. It’s just that they also got scammed when the market crashed! Oh, wait, they got bailed out.
- bb88 4y ago
  I can see hashtags like this start circulating shortly. #NoBailoutsForCrypto
  - pluc 4y ago
    somebody needs to make a BAIL token
kareemsabri 4y ago
In what way did it seem like a "legit serious business hedge fund"? I'm unclear how Celsius got scammed making loans to a hedge fund that is on record as investing exclusively in crypto since 2018 [1] - did the hedge fund lie about their positions? 1. https://www.smh.com.au/business/markets/school-friends-started-their-own-firm-now-they-are-among-the-world-s-largest-crypto-holders-20210526-p57v6b.html https://www.smh.com.au/business/markets/school-friends-start...
- djbusby 4y ago
  It seems "legit" because both orgs already believed in the "Power of Crypto". Like if we both, a priori, believe the earth is flat, we'd seem "legit" to each other.