12 ms·

> despite the ricketiness of the whole system, despite the constant feeling that everything might fall apart at any moment, there will come a time when crypto r

by slaw 4y ago

> despite the ricketiness of the whole system, despite the constant feeling that everything might fall apart at any moment, there will come a time when crypto really arrives. For me crypto was always Ponzi scheme and nothing more, but it is because I don't laundry money or sell drugs, so I am not the target for crypto.

albertopv 4y ago
Where's the value in crypto? What's the purpose? Decentralisation? Democratisation? And then you have to use wallets, exchanges... There's literally no value in crypto currency, but trust. Like plain old money, which is highly regulated, so much more stability to use it in real economy. So why should I use crypto currencies? And which one, given that everyone can create their crypto currency?
- sho_hn 4y ago
  Crypto is a decade-long exercise in teaching programmers why the mechanism used to update numbers in databases is the boring part of a money system, and why governance, policy-making and physical territory control are relevant. What it really does is highlight inadequacies in education and discourse, and how intransparent "how things really work" (and by extension, what the tough problems are) can be even to intelligent people.
  - jqpabc123 4y ago
    Bottom line: Technology is just a tool and an ineffective substitute for the human aspects of "society". Those who tend to think otherwise may be highly trained but still rather naive, under-educated and operating outside their element --- ideal marks for a good con artist.
- MangoCoffee 4y ago
  banking started 2000 BCE according to wikipeida https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_banking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_banking FDIC put people at ease about putting their money in bank. banking regulations created over years to protect people's money. crypto bros preach about decentralized. what can go wrong?
- zimbatm 4y ago
  Have you ever tried sending money abroad? With BTC/ETH/USDC it takes seconds. The whole process is entirely transparent. It doesn't get blocked if you reach some threshold. And the fees are smaller than with the traditional banking system. And unlike with banks, anybody is allowed to open a new wallet. You don't have to get approval, which is difficult if you live in the streets or in a 3rd-world country. I'm not endorsing the rest of crypto but having a trusted and transparent ledger for large transactions is nice.
  - Denisos 4y ago
    i totally agree
  - randomsearch 4y ago
    I am skeptical of all the crypto schemes, and this is the only use case I find convincing. The small producer in China is paid by the American company via a digital currency. Faster, easier, cheaper. Continued use of such a medium could over the long-term conceivably lead to widespread adoption, regulation, and a global currency. Fiat is disadvantaged when transactions cross borders. I think we'll look back on this period as a painful learning process, which will set back such a digital currency by years. Perhaps it is inevitable, though, that some people will in the short-term exploit such situations for personal gain at the expense of the rest of us. Now we have to sort out the mess and wait. It seems that both in the adtech (Facebook etc.) and crypto spaces, our industry has disgraced itself. We are at an incredible moment in history when our skills are pivotal - we're building the infrastructure of the modern world. We need to use our skills to improve things. The most obvious way to improve the situation is to carefully choose who we work for.
  - dragandj 4y ago
    At first I was excited to hear more about the process of “sending money” you had mentioned, but then I read your post, and realized that there weren’t any money involved, but “BTC/ETH/USD”...
    - zimbatm 4y ago
      How is that not the same thing? If you can reliably exchange it from one to the other?
- legutierr 4y ago
  Here are three things that are extremely valuable about blockchain technology: * Financial infrastructure that is transparent and does not rely on corporate CEOs being honest: Enron, Lehman Brothers, and now FTX have shown that global regulators cannot be trusted to protect ordinary people when institutions are corrupted from the top. DeFi markets are fully transparent—with code and data being open and replicated thousands of times over—and users maintain custody of their assets at all times. * Instantaneous settlement for payments and trades: With blockchain tech, vendors and merchants don't need to wait for credit-card payments to be deposited in their bank accounts—tokens are transferred in real-time. Traders don't need to wait for the proceeds of their sale to be wired to them two days after the trade takes place—settlement happens instantaneously with each DeFi trade. In some developed parts of the world, these settlement delays are slowly being fixed, but blockchain technology does this out of the box, today, and works everywhere. * Security and automatic transfer of lending collateral: Overcollateralized DeFi loans hold collateral on-chain, and will instantly liquidate any outstanding loan that dips below the collateralization ratio. This is one reason that even through all the recent turbulence in crypto markets no one who leant money through DeFi on an overcollateralized basis—including, for instance, to Celsius—has lost money. (Note however that the courts have not yet ruled as to the disposition of these DeFi loans in bankruptcy cases.) I think it's also important to differentiate between "crypto" and "blockchains". Cryptocurrencies are a type of application that can run on blockchains, and they play an important role by creating a unified market to reimburse providers for delivering the computation and storage services that blockchains depend upon. I would agree with those that believe that they have been overhyped, however.
  - Nursie 4y ago
    The point made in this article applies to your first point - companies like FTX playing fast and loose can tank your value even if you are playing as your own bank. Not using their custody doesn’t fully protect you from their actions. Cryptocurrency does not settle instantaneously, in fact credit cards are usually faster. Nobody is “waiting” for settlement. The transaction is done very fast. Defi collateralised loans have actually had several instances of losing money and whole schemes failing - ‘whales’ holding illiquid assets have taken out massive loans with no intention of repaying, and the collateral is sometimes only “over” on paper.
luciusdomitius 4y ago
TBH, BTC has always been quite alright, but those so-called altcoins are becoming more and more ridiculous by the day. Once the NFT craze was in full swing, I thought we had reached peak comedy, but it seems my imagination was too poor. Also, I thought that not every single alt-coin is a ponzi-like fraud, but I will probably be disproven once again.
practice9 4y ago
Tell that to Argentinians, Venezuelans, Iranians where US dollar stablecoins are much more popular among general population. For different reasons: - easier & safer to store - much more stable than their countries own currency - not controlled by the regime And they will likely keep using it, despite major crypto exchanges crashing down, or despite the unclear dangers of USDT.
- bluepizza 4y ago
  I just did. None of them ever heard of crypto. It might seem like crypto is all the rage online, but most people don't actually live in this bubble.
  - squidbeak 4y ago
    You managed to canvass Iranians, Venezuelans and Argentinians in 9 minutes flat?
    - bluepizza 4y ago
      Helps when you are actually Argentinian.
    - prepend 4y ago
      It’s actually pretty easy if you’re in a cafe in Venezuela and do a quick sample of 20 random urban caracans to ask if anyone uses crypto. Obviously not a proper sample or authoritative, but pretty easy way to counter “these countries love crypto.”
      - scotty79 4y ago
        > caracans In Poland it's a mild slur meaning short man
        ISL 4y ago
        The capital of Venezuela is Caracas.
black_13 4y ago
phpisthebest 4y ago
Ahh the privilege of not living under an authoritarian government combined with the arrogance to believe your government will never turn on you... Crypto is no more of a Ponzi Scheme than Fiat currency is, the big difference is Fiat currency is back by threats of violence (aka government).
- drewcon 4y ago
  …which has proven to be a remarkably effective way to create relatively stable currencies peoples actually use vs. utopian fever dreams that have largely ended in instability, corruption, and financial ruin.
- actionfromafar 4y ago
  I think you have to take into the account that a competent government turning on you (US) would give you a hard time, crypto or no crypto. It’s different if you are under Venezuelan rule, it’s government is small, authoritarian and incompetent.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- deepsun 4y ago
  As Robert A. Heinlein put it: "When you vote, you are exercising political authority, you're using force. And force, my friends, is violence. The supreme authority from which all other authorities are derived."
  - jfengel 4y ago
    Force is a big part of it, but the flip side is that a vote is also consent to abide by the outcome without force. The force is there, invisible, and most people don't even notice it exists because they consent. That's a delicate illusion and does not survive well when largish minorities declare the social contract void.
    - 4y ago
super256 4y ago
> For me crypto was always Ponzi scheme and nothing more, but it is because I don't laundry money or sell drugs, so I am not the target for crypto. I find Bitcoin very intriguing because unlike TradFi it is not built in debt. Every dollar you have in your account is someone else's debt to you. Which is also the reason Bitcoin gets compared so much to gold! There is a fixed amount of nuggets and no debt is involved. (Yes, I know that about 8% of the gold demand is actually driven by the technology sector, but the majority of gold's price is driven through pure speculation on... nothing productive! Gold's price is mostly driven by greed / price action.) I think if you call gold or Bitcoin a Ponzi, you're using the wrong term. Greater Fool Theory is more fitting.
- BobbyJo 4y ago
  I think the debt model is more true to what a currency is supposed to represent though. You can ignore the entire regulatory structure and just imagine there was some magic substance that was created out of thin air whenever you gave someone something, and consumed when you received something. Debt is exactly what it would represent. You to others and others to you.
- lottin 4y ago
  Every dollar that you have is not somebody else's debt. You're completely misinterpreting what a dollar is.
  - super256 4y ago
    No, you're wrong. The whole money supply is controlled by the Federal Reserve through purchasing and selling securities. When the FED purchases a security, the money gets deposited in the reserves of commercial banks, which then increases the money in circulation through making loans to consumers and businesses. And the mentioned securities are, uhhh, treasuries! To break it down: If I have 1 dollar in my account, the bank owes me 1 dollar. And this goes all the way up.
    - lottin 4y ago
      You have 1 dollar in your account, and the bank owes you 1 dollar. So you have 2 dollars?
eternalban 4y ago
I favor a conspiracy theory. For me, Bitcoin (and the whole disappearing creator act and hints of NSA involvement) has always been a tinfoil moment. This is the perfect mechanism for total economic awareness not the supposed virtues, such as anonymity, that it does not really have. The Ponzi schemes seem to have been permitted to establish the necessary infrastructure (mining, exchanges, etc.) and normalize the technology. Next stop should be the regulators post MSM preparatory media campaign (“Explainer: why we need crypto regulations today”). Then it will likely support CBDCs transactions (the CBDCs being the actual main event here btw). You will get a ‘wallet’ at birth and say goodbye to banks and remember that all you spendings are now recorded for posterity. (Remember “cash is bad” & is also a vector of nasty viruses). If the big 5 scammers go to real jail — double digit billions of dollars are involved here — and don’t end up suiciding themselves, i will reconsider my current take on this entire affair.
- luciusdomitius 4y ago
  There is quite some evidence pointing to that. SBF's ma and pa seem to be quite involved in the ban-cash crowd[1][2]. However, S.Nakamoto was always anonymous and Bitcoin never stated to be anonymous, not even in the white paper. I think that the correct term here is pseudonymous. P.S. To those suggesting regulation, do you realise that regulations are being crafted by people like these (SBF's family)? Is it really going to improve anything or just equalise it all with the absolute worst? 1. https://law.stanford.edu/directory/joseph-bankman/ https://law.stanford.edu/directory/joseph-bankman/ 2. https://law.stanford.edu/directory/barbara-fried/ https://law.stanford.edu/directory/barbara-fried/
x86x87 4y ago
The narrative that crypto is usefull jusy for buying drugs or laundering money is ridiculous. A couple a weeks ago I did a wire half way across the globe. It took almost 7 days for the money to arrive. With bitcoin? 60 minutes. Remember when OnlyFans was in trouble because of the payments processors wanting to pull the rug? You probably don't and you probably are not aware how many people would have been impacted. Do you watch porn? How many times have have sites that provide it been in trouble because of some puritan bs from the dark ages? Do you know this is the majority of the internet? Are you aware that a lot of innovations (the internet included) took off and became mainstream because of porn? Do you know about civil asset forfeiture? How do you feel about losing everything you own just on the suspicion that maybe you did something? You are a target for crypto. You believe you are not because of all the bs the media peddles. Stick with Bitcoin and ETH and treat it as a high risk investment and you'll be fine. Apart from everything else, even if all crypto goes away tomorrow, the real innovation when it comes to crypto is the blockchain. Without the blockchain crypto is just digital money (and 90%+ of money is already digital - ie numbers in bank systems, ie not real). Blockchain tech is here to stay.
- HNDen21 4y ago
  Why did it take 7 days? wire from Netherlands to US (ING to BofA) took 2 minutes
  - lottin 4y ago
    If it took 7 days it was probably due to AML/KYC issues. Bitcoin would have been faster, of course, because it doesn't do AML/KYC, but that just means it's unsuitable for conducting business (other than businesses that are outside the law).
    - Kinrany 4y ago
      There's no good reason for KYC to take days. It's perfectly reasonable for the party receiving the funds to ask for a proof that the money didn't come from human trafficking. But that should be a fully automated process in most cases, and no one but the receiving party should have anything to say.
AtlasBarfed 4y ago
1) the article is very good news, because Crypto the hype newsline word is dead. This means we are past the hype phase of the hype cycle and collapsed to the steady climb of actual usefulness. The US Dollar is a big scam too, if COVID didn't highlight that then... well, it doesn't really matter.
- rhaway84773 4y ago
  How the hell did COVID, a period over which the dollar’s value has increased, reveal the USD as a scam? What COVID did is reveal what a currency actually is. It’s a bet on the reliability of the backers of the currency. In the case of the USD, that would be the US government and economy. BTC only has value because people don’t seem to understand this basic fact of a currency.
  - Kinrany 4y ago
    Anything with fixed supply that can be used as medium of exchange has non-zero value to market makers.
fmajid 4y ago
No, it's unfair to belittle all the financial innovation in crypto. There are pump-and-dump schemes, pig-butchering scams, outright embezzlement, and many other schemes, not just pyramid schemes.

by slaw 4y ago

albertopv 4y ago

Where's the value in crypto? What's the purpose? Decentralisation? Democratisation? And then you have to use wallets, exchanges... There's literally no value in crypto currency, but trust. Like plain old money, which is highly regulated, so much more stability to use it in real economy. So why should I use crypto currencies? And which one, given that everyone can create their crypto currency?

sho_hn 4y ago
Crypto is a decade-long exercise in teaching programmers why the mechanism used to update numbers in databases is the boring part of a money system, and why governance, policy-making and physical territory control are relevant. What it really does is highlight inadequacies in education and discourse, and how intransparent "how things really work" (and by extension, what the tough problems are) can be even to intelligent people.
- jqpabc123 4y ago
  Bottom line: Technology is just a tool and an ineffective substitute for the human aspects of "society". Those who tend to think otherwise may be highly trained but still rather naive, under-educated and operating outside their element --- ideal marks for a good con artist.
MangoCoffee 4y ago
banking started 2000 BCE according to wikipeida https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_banking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_banking FDIC put people at ease about putting their money in bank. banking regulations created over years to protect people's money. crypto bros preach about decentralized. what can go wrong?
zimbatm 4y ago
Have you ever tried sending money abroad? With BTC/ETH/USDC it takes seconds. The whole process is entirely transparent. It doesn't get blocked if you reach some threshold. And the fees are smaller than with the traditional banking system. And unlike with banks, anybody is allowed to open a new wallet. You don't have to get approval, which is difficult if you live in the streets or in a 3rd-world country. I'm not endorsing the rest of crypto but having a trusted and transparent ledger for large transactions is nice.
- Denisos 4y ago
  i totally agree
- randomsearch 4y ago
  I am skeptical of all the crypto schemes, and this is the only use case I find convincing. The small producer in China is paid by the American company via a digital currency. Faster, easier, cheaper. Continued use of such a medium could over the long-term conceivably lead to widespread adoption, regulation, and a global currency. Fiat is disadvantaged when transactions cross borders. I think we'll look back on this period as a painful learning process, which will set back such a digital currency by years. Perhaps it is inevitable, though, that some people will in the short-term exploit such situations for personal gain at the expense of the rest of us. Now we have to sort out the mess and wait. It seems that both in the adtech (Facebook etc.) and crypto spaces, our industry has disgraced itself. We are at an incredible moment in history when our skills are pivotal - we're building the infrastructure of the modern world. We need to use our skills to improve things. The most obvious way to improve the situation is to carefully choose who we work for.
- dragandj 4y ago
  At first I was excited to hear more about the process of “sending money” you had mentioned, but then I read your post, and realized that there weren’t any money involved, but “BTC/ETH/USD”...
  - zimbatm 4y ago
    How is that not the same thing? If you can reliably exchange it from one to the other?
legutierr 4y ago
Here are three things that are extremely valuable about blockchain technology: * Financial infrastructure that is transparent and does not rely on corporate CEOs being honest: Enron, Lehman Brothers, and now FTX have shown that global regulators cannot be trusted to protect ordinary people when institutions are corrupted from the top. DeFi markets are fully transparent—with code and data being open and replicated thousands of times over—and users maintain custody of their assets at all times. * Instantaneous settlement for payments and trades: With blockchain tech, vendors and merchants don't need to wait for credit-card payments to be deposited in their bank accounts—tokens are transferred in real-time. Traders don't need to wait for the proceeds of their sale to be wired to them two days after the trade takes place—settlement happens instantaneously with each DeFi trade. In some developed parts of the world, these settlement delays are slowly being fixed, but blockchain technology does this out of the box, today, and works everywhere. * Security and automatic transfer of lending collateral: Overcollateralized DeFi loans hold collateral on-chain, and will instantly liquidate any outstanding loan that dips below the collateralization ratio. This is one reason that even through all the recent turbulence in crypto markets no one who leant money through DeFi on an overcollateralized basis—including, for instance, to Celsius—has lost money. (Note however that the courts have not yet ruled as to the disposition of these DeFi loans in bankruptcy cases.) I think it's also important to differentiate between "crypto" and "blockchains". Cryptocurrencies are a type of application that can run on blockchains, and they play an important role by creating a unified market to reimburse providers for delivering the computation and storage services that blockchains depend upon. I would agree with those that believe that they have been overhyped, however.
- Nursie 4y ago
  The point made in this article applies to your first point - companies like FTX playing fast and loose can tank your value even if you are playing as your own bank. Not using their custody doesn’t fully protect you from their actions. Cryptocurrency does not settle instantaneously, in fact credit cards are usually faster. Nobody is “waiting” for settlement. The transaction is done very fast. Defi collateralised loans have actually had several instances of losing money and whole schemes failing - ‘whales’ holding illiquid assets have taken out massive loans with no intention of repaying, and the collateral is sometimes only “over” on paper.

luciusdomitius 4y ago

TBH, BTC has always been quite alright, but those so-called altcoins are becoming more and more ridiculous by the day. Once the NFT craze was in full swing, I thought we had reached peak comedy, but it seems my imagination was too poor. Also, I thought that not every single alt-coin is a ponzi-like fraud, but I will probably be disproven once again.

practice9 4y ago

Tell that to Argentinians, Venezuelans, Iranians where US dollar stablecoins are much more popular among general population. For different reasons: - easier & safer to store - much more stable than their countries own currency - not controlled by the regime And they will likely keep using it, despite major crypto exchanges crashing down, or despite the unclear dangers of USDT.

bluepizza 4y ago
I just did. None of them ever heard of crypto. It might seem like crypto is all the rage online, but most people don't actually live in this bubble.
- squidbeak 4y ago
  You managed to canvass Iranians, Venezuelans and Argentinians in 9 minutes flat?
  - bluepizza 4y ago
    Helps when you are actually Argentinian.
  - prepend 4y ago
    It’s actually pretty easy if you’re in a cafe in Venezuela and do a quick sample of 20 random urban caracans to ask if anyone uses crypto. Obviously not a proper sample or authoritative, but pretty easy way to counter “these countries love crypto.”
    - scotty79 4y ago
      > caracans In Poland it's a mild slur meaning short man
      - ISL 4y ago
        The capital of Venezuela is Caracas.

black_13 4y ago

phpisthebest 4y ago

Ahh the privilege of not living under an authoritarian government combined with the arrogance to believe your government will never turn on you... Crypto is no more of a Ponzi Scheme than Fiat currency is, the big difference is Fiat currency is back by threats of violence (aka government).

drewcon 4y ago
…which has proven to be a remarkably effective way to create relatively stable currencies peoples actually use vs. utopian fever dreams that have largely ended in instability, corruption, and financial ruin.
actionfromafar 4y ago
I think you have to take into the account that a competent government turning on you (US) would give you a hard time, crypto or no crypto. It’s different if you are under Venezuelan rule, it’s government is small, authoritarian and incompetent.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
deepsun 4y ago
As Robert A. Heinlein put it: "When you vote, you are exercising political authority, you're using force. And force, my friends, is violence. The supreme authority from which all other authorities are derived."
- jfengel 4y ago
  Force is a big part of it, but the flip side is that a vote is also consent to abide by the outcome without force. The force is there, invisible, and most people don't even notice it exists because they consent. That's a delicate illusion and does not survive well when largish minorities declare the social contract void.
  - 4y ago

super256 4y ago

> For me crypto was always Ponzi scheme and nothing more, but it is because I don't laundry money or sell drugs, so I am not the target for crypto. I find Bitcoin very intriguing because unlike TradFi it is not built in debt. Every dollar you have in your account is someone else's debt to you. Which is also the reason Bitcoin gets compared so much to gold! There is a fixed amount of nuggets and no debt is involved. (Yes, I know that about 8% of the gold demand is actually driven by the technology sector, but the majority of gold's price is driven through pure speculation on... nothing productive! Gold's price is mostly driven by greed / price action.) I think if you call gold or Bitcoin a Ponzi, you're using the wrong term. Greater Fool Theory is more fitting.

BobbyJo 4y ago
I think the debt model is more true to what a currency is supposed to represent though. You can ignore the entire regulatory structure and just imagine there was some magic substance that was created out of thin air whenever you gave someone something, and consumed when you received something. Debt is exactly what it would represent. You to others and others to you.
lottin 4y ago
Every dollar that you have is not somebody else's debt. You're completely misinterpreting what a dollar is.
- super256 4y ago
  No, you're wrong. The whole money supply is controlled by the Federal Reserve through purchasing and selling securities. When the FED purchases a security, the money gets deposited in the reserves of commercial banks, which then increases the money in circulation through making loans to consumers and businesses. And the mentioned securities are, uhhh, treasuries! To break it down: If I have 1 dollar in my account, the bank owes me 1 dollar. And this goes all the way up.
  - lottin 4y ago
    You have 1 dollar in your account, and the bank owes you 1 dollar. So you have 2 dollars?

eternalban 4y ago

I favor a conspiracy theory. For me, Bitcoin (and the whole disappearing creator act and hints of NSA involvement) has always been a tinfoil moment. This is the perfect mechanism for total economic awareness not the supposed virtues, such as anonymity, that it does not really have. The Ponzi schemes seem to have been permitted to establish the necessary infrastructure (mining, exchanges, etc.) and normalize the technology. Next stop should be the regulators post MSM preparatory media campaign (“Explainer: why we need crypto regulations today”). Then it will likely support CBDCs transactions (the CBDCs being the actual main event here btw). You will get a ‘wallet’ at birth and say goodbye to banks and remember that all you spendings are now recorded for posterity. (Remember “cash is bad” & is also a vector of nasty viruses). If the big 5 scammers go to real jail — double digit billions of dollars are involved here — and don’t end up suiciding themselves, i will reconsider my current take on this entire affair.

luciusdomitius 4y ago
There is quite some evidence pointing to that. SBF's ma and pa seem to be quite involved in the ban-cash crowd[1][2]. However, S.Nakamoto was always anonymous and Bitcoin never stated to be anonymous, not even in the white paper. I think that the correct term here is pseudonymous. P.S. To those suggesting regulation, do you realise that regulations are being crafted by people like these (SBF's family)? Is it really going to improve anything or just equalise it all with the absolute worst? 1. https://law.stanford.edu/directory/joseph-bankman/ https://law.stanford.edu/directory/joseph-bankman/ 2. https://law.stanford.edu/directory/barbara-fried/ https://law.stanford.edu/directory/barbara-fried/

x86x87 4y ago

The narrative that crypto is usefull jusy for buying drugs or laundering money is ridiculous. A couple a weeks ago I did a wire half way across the globe. It took almost 7 days for the money to arrive. With bitcoin? 60 minutes. Remember when OnlyFans was in trouble because of the payments processors wanting to pull the rug? You probably don't and you probably are not aware how many people would have been impacted. Do you watch porn? How many times have have sites that provide it been in trouble because of some puritan bs from the dark ages? Do you know this is the majority of the internet? Are you aware that a lot of innovations (the internet included) took off and became mainstream because of porn? Do you know about civil asset forfeiture? How do you feel about losing everything you own just on the suspicion that maybe you did something? You are a target for crypto. You believe you are not because of all the bs the media peddles. Stick with Bitcoin and ETH and treat it as a high risk investment and you'll be fine. Apart from everything else, even if all crypto goes away tomorrow, the real innovation when it comes to crypto is the blockchain. Without the blockchain crypto is just digital money (and 90%+ of money is already digital - ie numbers in bank systems, ie not real). Blockchain tech is here to stay.

HNDen21 4y ago
Why did it take 7 days? wire from Netherlands to US (ING to BofA) took 2 minutes
- lottin 4y ago
  If it took 7 days it was probably due to AML/KYC issues. Bitcoin would have been faster, of course, because it doesn't do AML/KYC, but that just means it's unsuitable for conducting business (other than businesses that are outside the law).
  - Kinrany 4y ago
    There's no good reason for KYC to take days. It's perfectly reasonable for the party receiving the funds to ask for a proof that the money didn't come from human trafficking. But that should be a fully automated process in most cases, and no one but the receiving party should have anything to say.

AtlasBarfed 4y ago

1) the article is very good news, because Crypto the hype newsline word is dead. This means we are past the hype phase of the hype cycle and collapsed to the steady climb of actual usefulness. The US Dollar is a big scam too, if COVID didn't highlight that then... well, it doesn't really matter.

rhaway84773 4y ago
How the hell did COVID, a period over which the dollar’s value has increased, reveal the USD as a scam? What COVID did is reveal what a currency actually is. It’s a bet on the reliability of the backers of the currency. In the case of the USD, that would be the US government and economy. BTC only has value because people don’t seem to understand this basic fact of a currency.
- Kinrany 4y ago
  Anything with fixed supply that can be used as medium of exchange has non-zero value to market makers.

fmajid 4y ago

No, it's unfair to belittle all the financial innovation in crypto. There are pump-and-dump schemes, pig-butchering scams, outright embezzlement, and many other schemes, not just pyramid schemes.