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I can transfer money for free and it gets instantaneously deposited in the other bank account. You list many things (middle man, bank's control) but don't list

I can transfer money for free and it gets instantaneously deposited in the other bank account. You list many things (middle man, bank's control) but don't list any reasons why these are bad. You also say it has potential, but don't provide any example such potential. IMO there is one saving grace of cryptocurrencies, but ultimately this is also the reason why they simply won't be accepted: they are temporarily out of government control. This allows one to funnel funds in and out of hostile jurisdictions. This is a genuinely beneficial use case for people trapped in these jurisdictions. However, I'd argue this is such a vanishingly small portion of the mindshare and "business" conducted with and on behalf of the crypto industry, that it doesn't offer even a shred of redemption. The one altruistic use case is practically drowned out in the insane amount of buzzword laden echo chambers coming up with ever more hare brained structures and concepts to sell to each other. I wonder if these people even recognize how much of a caricature they have become. I really connected the dots when I read some banker's messages to Elon Musk about how SBF was pitching some blockchain silliness for Twitter (as he would), and even Elon Musk, the master memer and troll, recognized how silly the idea was.

luckylion 4y ago
The "out of government reach" part applies equally to TOR, VPNs etc, I believe. Yes, it's a vanishingly small number of people profiting from that while doing things most of us agree with, but for some, that's worth it. Banks controlling who gets to participate in sending and receiving payments is obviously bad in my opinion. Being able to participate in the economy is fundamentally important. The government cannot outlaw a legal business, but banks and payment providers can do it for them. That doesn't bother anyone that buys a pop album off Amazon, but that's a different issue if you want to sell porn or drugs or whatever US morals have issues with and just get cut off from payments, so that your willing customers cannot pay you. When that happens, people get out the old "it's a private company, you have no right to their platform"-spiel and crypto-currencies solve that. Crypto-currencies are to finance what the fediverse is to social media. They have shortcomings, in a perfect world we wouldn't have any need for them, but they fill a niche in the real world we inhabit.
- short_sells_poo 4y ago
  > That doesn't bother anyone that buys a pop album off Amazon, but that's a different issue if you want to sell porn or drugs or whatever US morals have issues with and just get cut off from payments, so that your willing customers cannot pay you. When that happens, people get out the old "it's a private company, you have no right to their platform"-spiel and crypto-currencies solve that. I'm sorry but I deeply disagree with this. If you want to do commerce and your area of business is shady/illegal, then the way to change it is to campaign for a change in the law. All that cryptocurrencies accomplish is that people are able to sidestep the law. I'd like drugs to be legal, government controlled and taxed. But until that day comes, the fact that drug dealing can't be conducted using the official financial system is a feature, not a bug.

luckylion 4y ago

The "out of government reach" part applies equally to TOR, VPNs etc, I believe. Yes, it's a vanishingly small number of people profiting from that while doing things most of us agree with, but for some, that's worth it. Banks controlling who gets to participate in sending and receiving payments is obviously bad in my opinion. Being able to participate in the economy is fundamentally important. The government cannot outlaw a legal business, but banks and payment providers can do it for them. That doesn't bother anyone that buys a pop album off Amazon, but that's a different issue if you want to sell porn or drugs or whatever US morals have issues with and just get cut off from payments, so that your willing customers cannot pay you. When that happens, people get out the old "it's a private company, you have no right to their platform"-spiel and crypto-currencies solve that. Crypto-currencies are to finance what the fediverse is to social media. They have shortcomings, in a perfect world we wouldn't have any need for them, but they fill a niche in the real world we inhabit.

short_sells_poo 4y ago
> That doesn't bother anyone that buys a pop album off Amazon, but that's a different issue if you want to sell porn or drugs or whatever US morals have issues with and just get cut off from payments, so that your willing customers cannot pay you. When that happens, people get out the old "it's a private company, you have no right to their platform"-spiel and crypto-currencies solve that. I'm sorry but I deeply disagree with this. If you want to do commerce and your area of business is shady/illegal, then the way to change it is to campaign for a change in the law. All that cryptocurrencies accomplish is that people are able to sidestep the law. I'd like drugs to be legal, government controlled and taxed. But until that day comes, the fact that drug dealing can't be conducted using the official financial system is a feature, not a bug.