4 ms·

The point of crypto is that trading parties don't have to trust each other and have no recourse to fix issues post payment. The problem with that is, only illeg

by mrtksn 4y ago

The point of crypto is that trading parties don't have to trust each other and have no recourse to fix issues post payment. The problem with that is, only illegal transactions happen between parties that don't trust each other. Therefore, this having a KYC probably narrows its use cases quite a bit. You won't be able to sell drugs, you won't be be able to collect ransomware payments. It work only in the US, which means its not good for international payments. Unbanked people either don't have money or keep their funds outside of the governments reach for tax or legal reasons, therefore not good for them too. What you can do? Maybe if you are so much and crypto and what to do transactions in crypto as an ideological performance, then this could be for you.

rt4mn 4y ago
> The problem with that is, only illegal transactions happen between parties that don't trust each other. This is patently untrue. When I buy something with cryptocurrency, its not because I don't trust the merchant or am doing something illegal, its because I care about my privacy and dont want a huge list of my financial transactions available to visa/mastercard/paypal/the government, and I don't want to schlep to the gas station to buy a prepaid debit card with cash, which is the only other way to maintain a semblance of financial privacy if you want to buy things online.
- mrtksn 4y ago
  What did you bought?
  - rt4mn 4y ago
    Food, Electronics, web hosting, gifts, etc. you know. stuff. I'm normally a cash in person guy but sometimes I'm feeling lazy and just want to order a big box of candy and be pleasantly surprised and mildly guilty when it arrives.
    - mrtksn 4y ago
      What was the benefit of using crypto instead of a card or direct deposit etc?
      - rt4mn 4y ago
        > because I care about my privacy and dont want a huge list of my financial transactions available to visa/mastercard/paypal/the government, and I don't want to schlep to the gas station to buy a prepaid debit card with cash, which is the only other way to maintain a semblance of financial privacy if you want to buy things online.
        mrtksn 4y ago
        Looks like ideological to me, not a choice for practical reasons.
        rt4mn 4y ago
        If it where purely ideological I would not be buying things online at all. I like buying stuff online because its convenient, and Cryptocurrency is the most practical way to buy stuff online while still protecting my privacy to some extent. But cryptocurrency does not protect my privacy completely, if I was a purist I would not buy things online at all. Privacy is a lot like other civil liberties, it feels ideological and airy-fairy until you need it and don't have it. Take for example web hosting. I could have paid for the website that we used to lambast the Minneapolis police department and argue that they should not have access to the toys they want using a credit card, but then the Minneapolis police could send a sternly worded letter to the webhost and learn where I live. Which is a reasonable consern if you know anything at all about the Minneapois police department. So I pay for webshosting with cryptocurrency. That's a real clear cut example of why financial privacy matters, but that same concern extends to pretty much every thing you do online. Cardinal Richelieu has the right of it when he said "If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him", and recall that The US government kills people based on metadata. Its easy to dismiss me buying a box of candy as not important enough to worry about, but its the entire history of every financial transaction you make that paints a very accurate and very useful picture of who you are what you get up to that is of great interest to people who can do you real harm.
- chrisbaker98 4y ago
  I remember a few websites having "buy with Bitcoin" buttons circa 2015 but they all seem to have disappeared by now. What can you still you buy with cryptocurrency, except drugs or tickets to crypto conferences?
  - colinsane 4y ago
    from the privacy angle GP highlights, there are loads of VPS, VPN, and storage (e.g. backups) providers that accept a basket of cryptocurrencies. for physical products… it looks like Newegg still supports Bitcoin. overwhelmingly, the more tech-adjacent the product, the easier it is to find vendors that accept cryptocurrency.
  - andirk 4y ago
    I use it for my degenerate sports gambling. I also give it as gifts for first borns. If you invest in gold, you won't be able to even gamble with it. In fact, you won't even have any gold at all. You'll have a certificate from someone claiming that someone else has your gold stashed somewhere.
    - notch656a 4y ago
      If you want paper gold instead of real gold you should probably be holding gold mining company ownership instead.
    - manigandham 4y ago
      You can buy real gold bars.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
meowkit 4y ago
> The point of crypto is that trading parties don't have to trust each other and have no recourse to fix issues post payment. You trust random people on the street? This comment falls apart because your premise here is wrong. All trading parties (and the individuals that make them up) do NOT trust each other without shared history. Crypto as a base layer recognizes this - the base layer is supposed to be trustless with game theoretic rules to keep the system functional and secure. Layers on top of crypto can have all the rules and functionality you desire. That includes KYC, that includes reversing transactions, that includes wallet recovery through social multi sig mechanisms.
- mrtksn 4y ago
  > You trust random people on the street? All the time, no transaction is possible without trust. The crypto enables one sided trust, i.e. the payee doesn't have to trust anyone but the payer needs to trust that will receive whatever is promised. You pay your ransom with hope that the attackers will unlock your files, the attacker doesn't have to hope. When you build traditional system over crypto, you don't use crypto. Like exchanges basically being unregulated banks that might just disappear with your money. Your money is now gone because you wasn't using crypto, you were using an illegal service and you were paying with crypto and that's what crypto is good for.
- satvikpendem 4y ago
  > You trust random people on the street? I'm no crypto fan but this is a strange question. Yes, generally people trust each other on the street. If I were walking and someone dropped something, I would (at least attempt to) hand it back to them. Same as if I visit a new store, I generally trust the cashier or storeowner not to take my money and run.
- tsimionescu 4y ago
  > All trading parties (and the individuals that make them up) do NOT trust each other without shared history. Really? When you're paying at the supermarket, you have no trust that the cashier won't just run away with your cash? When you pay someone in the market, you don't trust that they will give you your bags after counting the cash? I've seen this with lots of crypto enthusiasts, where they seem to live in a parallel dimension where people only comply with basic social norms under fear of loss or violence. The reality is of course the opposite: most people trust random merchants (especially in person) not to screw them over much more than they trust the police to get their money back if they are screwed over.

by mrtksn 4y ago

rt4mn 4y ago

> The problem with that is, only illegal transactions happen between parties that don't trust each other. This is patently untrue. When I buy something with cryptocurrency, its not because I don't trust the merchant or am doing something illegal, its because I care about my privacy and dont want a huge list of my financial transactions available to visa/mastercard/paypal/the government, and I don't want to schlep to the gas station to buy a prepaid debit card with cash, which is the only other way to maintain a semblance of financial privacy if you want to buy things online.

mrtksn 4y ago
What did you bought?
- rt4mn 4y ago
  Food, Electronics, web hosting, gifts, etc. you know. stuff. I'm normally a cash in person guy but sometimes I'm feeling lazy and just want to order a big box of candy and be pleasantly surprised and mildly guilty when it arrives.
  - mrtksn 4y ago
    What was the benefit of using crypto instead of a card or direct deposit etc?
    - rt4mn 4y ago
      > because I care about my privacy and dont want a huge list of my financial transactions available to visa/mastercard/paypal/the government, and I don't want to schlep to the gas station to buy a prepaid debit card with cash, which is the only other way to maintain a semblance of financial privacy if you want to buy things online.
      - mrtksn 4y ago
        Looks like ideological to me, not a choice for practical reasons.
        rt4mn 4y ago
        If it where purely ideological I would not be buying things online at all. I like buying stuff online because its convenient, and Cryptocurrency is the most practical way to buy stuff online while still protecting my privacy to some extent. But cryptocurrency does not protect my privacy completely, if I was a purist I would not buy things online at all. Privacy is a lot like other civil liberties, it feels ideological and airy-fairy until you need it and don't have it. Take for example web hosting. I could have paid for the website that we used to lambast the Minneapolis police department and argue that they should not have access to the toys they want using a credit card, but then the Minneapolis police could send a sternly worded letter to the webhost and learn where I live. Which is a reasonable consern if you know anything at all about the Minneapois police department. So I pay for webshosting with cryptocurrency. That's a real clear cut example of why financial privacy matters, but that same concern extends to pretty much every thing you do online. Cardinal Richelieu has the right of it when he said "If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him", and recall that The US government kills people based on metadata. Its easy to dismiss me buying a box of candy as not important enough to worry about, but its the entire history of every financial transaction you make that paints a very accurate and very useful picture of who you are what you get up to that is of great interest to people who can do you real harm.
chrisbaker98 4y ago
I remember a few websites having "buy with Bitcoin" buttons circa 2015 but they all seem to have disappeared by now. What can you still you buy with cryptocurrency, except drugs or tickets to crypto conferences?
- colinsane 4y ago
  from the privacy angle GP highlights, there are loads of VPS, VPN, and storage (e.g. backups) providers that accept a basket of cryptocurrencies. for physical products… it looks like Newegg still supports Bitcoin. overwhelmingly, the more tech-adjacent the product, the easier it is to find vendors that accept cryptocurrency.
- andirk 4y ago
  I use it for my degenerate sports gambling. I also give it as gifts for first borns. If you invest in gold, you won't be able to even gamble with it. In fact, you won't even have any gold at all. You'll have a certificate from someone claiming that someone else has your gold stashed somewhere.
  - notch656a 4y ago
    If you want paper gold instead of real gold you should probably be holding gold mining company ownership instead.
  - manigandham 4y ago
    You can buy real gold bars.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

meowkit 4y ago

> The point of crypto is that trading parties don't have to trust each other and have no recourse to fix issues post payment. You trust random people on the street? This comment falls apart because your premise here is wrong. All trading parties (and the individuals that make them up) do NOT trust each other without shared history. Crypto as a base layer recognizes this - the base layer is supposed to be trustless with game theoretic rules to keep the system functional and secure. Layers on top of crypto can have all the rules and functionality you desire. That includes KYC, that includes reversing transactions, that includes wallet recovery through social multi sig mechanisms.

mrtksn 4y ago
> You trust random people on the street? All the time, no transaction is possible without trust. The crypto enables one sided trust, i.e. the payee doesn't have to trust anyone but the payer needs to trust that will receive whatever is promised. You pay your ransom with hope that the attackers will unlock your files, the attacker doesn't have to hope. When you build traditional system over crypto, you don't use crypto. Like exchanges basically being unregulated banks that might just disappear with your money. Your money is now gone because you wasn't using crypto, you were using an illegal service and you were paying with crypto and that's what crypto is good for.
satvikpendem 4y ago
> You trust random people on the street? I'm no crypto fan but this is a strange question. Yes, generally people trust each other on the street. If I were walking and someone dropped something, I would (at least attempt to) hand it back to them. Same as if I visit a new store, I generally trust the cashier or storeowner not to take my money and run.
tsimionescu 4y ago
> All trading parties (and the individuals that make them up) do NOT trust each other without shared history. Really? When you're paying at the supermarket, you have no trust that the cashier won't just run away with your cash? When you pay someone in the market, you don't trust that they will give you your bags after counting the cash? I've seen this with lots of crypto enthusiasts, where they seem to live in a parallel dimension where people only comply with basic social norms under fear of loss or violence. The reality is of course the opposite: most people trust random merchants (especially in person) not to screw them over much more than they trust the police to get their money back if they are screwed over.