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> Objectively nobody actually uses this stuff. Spoken with a privilege of a first-country citizen with a working banking system. I personally know dozens of pe

> Objectively nobody actually uses this stuff. Spoken with a privilege of a first-country citizen with a working banking system. I personally know dozens of people who use crypto for their main purpose: to transact. Without it, they wouldn't have been able to earn their living or have any access to their money.

arcticbull 4y ago
Ah yes here comes the privilege argument to derail legitimate discourse. You love to see it. Your first approach should be a Wise multi-currency account. Where Wise doesn't work the only thing that makes any sense are stablecoins from a proper issuer, like USDC (definitely not USDT). These are of course issued and controlled by centralized entities, making them antithetical to the very principles of crypto. They may as well be private scrip CBDCs. Any decentralized/floating-rate coins are utter garbage for folks without access to meaningful banking systems in so-called third-world countries due to the volatility, embedded systemic leverage, high fees and potential long transaction times. These folks are the least able to stomach the 90% drawdowns (and 100% rug-pulls) we've seen market-wide. Frankly, I think the Turkish Lira has outperformed every major cryptocurrency for the last year. What these people need are actual privacy-preserving CBDCs, of which there are exactly zero in the market. Please put away the faux privilege defense. Folks of any level of privilege are able to comment meaningfully on the fitness of a technical system for purpose. Allow their arguments to stand on their own merits.
- michaelscott 4y ago
  Although I agree that the expression that OP made maybe wasn't the best, they do have a point. > Your first approach should be a Wise multi-currency account. Excellent example; Wise is not available for account setup in the vast majority of developing countries, so if that's your solution it's already a failure. But why? For the most part it seems to come down to banking and currency regulations, which is exactly what cryptocurrency (at least Bitcoin) was designed to circumvent. I'm not even talking about countries that are essentially kleptocracies and have moulded their regulations to fit that structure, or remittances that have become such a large industry they practically power the GDP of a number of extremely poor countries. > Any decentralized/floating-rate coins are utter garbage for folks without access to meaningful banking systems in so-called third-world countries due to the volatility, embedded systemic leverage, high fees and potential long transaction times. I'm not sure this argument still holds with all the defi options today, but if this is an improvement on the status quo I guarantee people in third world countries will use it in spite of its deficiencies. A central bank that throttles access to alternative currency options will practically shut down the use of existing banking infrastructure, whether it's good or not.
  - LegionMammal978 4y ago
    > Wise is not available for account setup in the vast majority of developing countries, so if that's your solution it's already a failure. Do you have a source for this? The closest thing I can find is this list of countries where it isn't allowed [0], which includes several developing countries but certainly not the vast majority of them. [0] https://wise.com/help/articles/2978049/which-countries-can-i-use-wise-in https://wise.com/help/articles/2978049/which-countries-can-i...
    - michaelscott 4y ago
      Personal experience attempting to open an account with them while living in a developing country. Granted, this was about 5 years ago so the situation may have changed since then.
  - arcticbull 4y ago
    > Wise is not available for account setup in the vast majority of developing countries, so if that's your solution it's already a failure. I was ranking options from worst to best. Best would be something like Wise. Second-best would be a stable coin from an issuer that isn't an outright fraud. And last would be any floating-rate coin. Last year Bitcoin literally hit transaction fees of 20% of the GDP per capita of the worst-off countries and then fell 75% in value. I wouldn't wish a system like that on my worst enemies let alone of people I claim to be trying to help. It was massively outperformed by the Lira. I can't even find one that wasn't outperformed by the Lira. It may have been designed to meet this need but it utterly failed by any measure. USDC is a strictly better option. And better than that would be a USDC like system that preserves privacy issued by a central bank. > I'm not sure this argument still holds with all the defi options today. Literally 10% of the entire TVL of DeFi was lost last year to hacks and shows somehow no sign of slowing down. The real privilege is believing that poor folks are as risk tolerant as you are in a first-world country and that this is somehow a better solution than a nice home-grown payment network like M-PESA. It’s like a cocaine-powered ruined fresco of the financial system.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
moritonal 4y ago
Neat, in what kind of industry/countries have you seen this?
- golergka 4y ago
  Russia, Ukraine and refugees from these countries all around the globe.
  - dgroshev 4y ago
    Russia doesn't have refugees, it has a tiny number of people seeking asylum after protesting against the regime. Middle class Russians fleeing conscription are not exactly comparable with people seeking refuge from Russian bombs, are they?
- michaelscott 4y ago
  Uptake in Zimbabwe, Nigeria and a number of other African countries has been climbing
Wata2 4y ago
dayve 4y ago
I am based in Nigeria, a ‘third-world country’, I work remotely for a company domiciled in the US and get paid in Stablecoins (USDC & USDT). Crypto has been a life saver for me. Before that, one alternative was to get a USD account in a local bank & get paid via Western Union. The challenges are numerous. To setup a USD account locally takes a long time & multiple requirements. Assuming that hurdle is crossed, the more challenging issue is how restrictive Central bank policies are. In an economy with high inflation & parallel market rates for USD, there’s an incentive for the government to retain as much USD in the economy due to poor trade policies preventing $ revenues from coming in. Withdrawal limits have been reduced over the last 2 years alone, & the flexibility to make $ payments is hindered by low transaction limits with a USD card ($15 per transaction). To navigate this, I tried creating a virtual USD bank account with a local Fintech, with which to receive salaries. However these virtual accounts can only receive payments from US accounts (via ACH transfers) so can be restrictive. The most seamless solution to my problem has been to setup a crypto wallet. In minutes I receive my salary and can spend any amount, whenever I like. Plus, it makes it easier to save in USD, avoiding the local currency devaluation (The Naira has fallen 52% in the last 7 years under the current regime). So speaking as a ‘third-country citizen’, crypto provide a far more effective banking system.
- vlovich123 4y ago
  > The Naira has fallen 52% in the last 7 years under the current regime How much has crypto grown in Nigeria? Is it possible that the migration to crypto / loss of faith in the local currency in lieu of USD is what’s actually behind the collapse vs government policies themselves?
  - lottin 4y ago
    It's usually a combination of both. When the local currency is unreliable, as a result of bad government policies, the locals will try get hold of a stronger foreign currency. They will sell the local currency to buy the foreign currency, which will contribute to the depreciation of the local currency, which in turn will make it even less attractive, prompting more people to sell, and so on so forth.
- 4y ago
tgv 4y ago
Strange. How did anybody live there before 2015?
freejazz 4y ago
Maybe people should be clear that they meant it'd only be useful in the context of living in the "third world"?

arcticbull 4y ago

Ah yes here comes the privilege argument to derail legitimate discourse. You love to see it. Your first approach should be a Wise multi-currency account. Where Wise doesn't work the only thing that makes any sense are stablecoins from a proper issuer, like USDC (definitely not USDT). These are of course issued and controlled by centralized entities, making them antithetical to the very principles of crypto. They may as well be private scrip CBDCs. Any decentralized/floating-rate coins are utter garbage for folks without access to meaningful banking systems in so-called third-world countries due to the volatility, embedded systemic leverage, high fees and potential long transaction times. These folks are the least able to stomach the 90% drawdowns (and 100% rug-pulls) we've seen market-wide. Frankly, I think the Turkish Lira has outperformed every major cryptocurrency for the last year. What these people need are actual privacy-preserving CBDCs, of which there are exactly zero in the market. Please put away the faux privilege defense. Folks of any level of privilege are able to comment meaningfully on the fitness of a technical system for purpose. Allow their arguments to stand on their own merits.

michaelscott 4y ago
Although I agree that the expression that OP made maybe wasn't the best, they do have a point. > Your first approach should be a Wise multi-currency account. Excellent example; Wise is not available for account setup in the vast majority of developing countries, so if that's your solution it's already a failure. But why? For the most part it seems to come down to banking and currency regulations, which is exactly what cryptocurrency (at least Bitcoin) was designed to circumvent. I'm not even talking about countries that are essentially kleptocracies and have moulded their regulations to fit that structure, or remittances that have become such a large industry they practically power the GDP of a number of extremely poor countries. > Any decentralized/floating-rate coins are utter garbage for folks without access to meaningful banking systems in so-called third-world countries due to the volatility, embedded systemic leverage, high fees and potential long transaction times. I'm not sure this argument still holds with all the defi options today, but if this is an improvement on the status quo I guarantee people in third world countries will use it in spite of its deficiencies. A central bank that throttles access to alternative currency options will practically shut down the use of existing banking infrastructure, whether it's good or not.
- LegionMammal978 4y ago
  > Wise is not available for account setup in the vast majority of developing countries, so if that's your solution it's already a failure. Do you have a source for this? The closest thing I can find is this list of countries where it isn't allowed [0], which includes several developing countries but certainly not the vast majority of them. [0] https://wise.com/help/articles/2978049/which-countries-can-i-use-wise-in https://wise.com/help/articles/2978049/which-countries-can-i...
  - michaelscott 4y ago
    Personal experience attempting to open an account with them while living in a developing country. Granted, this was about 5 years ago so the situation may have changed since then.
- arcticbull 4y ago
  > Wise is not available for account setup in the vast majority of developing countries, so if that's your solution it's already a failure. I was ranking options from worst to best. Best would be something like Wise. Second-best would be a stable coin from an issuer that isn't an outright fraud. And last would be any floating-rate coin. Last year Bitcoin literally hit transaction fees of 20% of the GDP per capita of the worst-off countries and then fell 75% in value. I wouldn't wish a system like that on my worst enemies let alone of people I claim to be trying to help. It was massively outperformed by the Lira. I can't even find one that wasn't outperformed by the Lira. It may have been designed to meet this need but it utterly failed by any measure. USDC is a strictly better option. And better than that would be a USDC like system that preserves privacy issued by a central bank. > I'm not sure this argument still holds with all the defi options today. Literally 10% of the entire TVL of DeFi was lost last year to hacks and shows somehow no sign of slowing down. The real privilege is believing that poor folks are as risk tolerant as you are in a first-world country and that this is somehow a better solution than a nice home-grown payment network like M-PESA. It’s like a cocaine-powered ruined fresco of the financial system.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

moritonal 4y ago

Neat, in what kind of industry/countries have you seen this?

golergka 4y ago
Russia, Ukraine and refugees from these countries all around the globe.
- dgroshev 4y ago
  Russia doesn't have refugees, it has a tiny number of people seeking asylum after protesting against the regime. Middle class Russians fleeing conscription are not exactly comparable with people seeking refuge from Russian bombs, are they?
michaelscott 4y ago
Uptake in Zimbabwe, Nigeria and a number of other African countries has been climbing

Wata2 4y ago

dayve 4y ago

I am based in Nigeria, a ‘third-world country’, I work remotely for a company domiciled in the US and get paid in Stablecoins (USDC & USDT). Crypto has been a life saver for me. Before that, one alternative was to get a USD account in a local bank & get paid via Western Union. The challenges are numerous. To setup a USD account locally takes a long time & multiple requirements. Assuming that hurdle is crossed, the more challenging issue is how restrictive Central bank policies are. In an economy with high inflation & parallel market rates for USD, there’s an incentive for the government to retain as much USD in the economy due to poor trade policies preventing $ revenues from coming in. Withdrawal limits have been reduced over the last 2 years alone, & the flexibility to make $ payments is hindered by low transaction limits with a USD card ($15 per transaction). To navigate this, I tried creating a virtual USD bank account with a local Fintech, with which to receive salaries. However these virtual accounts can only receive payments from US accounts (via ACH transfers) so can be restrictive. The most seamless solution to my problem has been to setup a crypto wallet. In minutes I receive my salary and can spend any amount, whenever I like. Plus, it makes it easier to save in USD, avoiding the local currency devaluation (The Naira has fallen 52% in the last 7 years under the current regime). So speaking as a ‘third-country citizen’, crypto provide a far more effective banking system.

vlovich123 4y ago
> The Naira has fallen 52% in the last 7 years under the current regime How much has crypto grown in Nigeria? Is it possible that the migration to crypto / loss of faith in the local currency in lieu of USD is what’s actually behind the collapse vs government policies themselves?
- lottin 4y ago
  It's usually a combination of both. When the local currency is unreliable, as a result of bad government policies, the locals will try get hold of a stronger foreign currency. They will sell the local currency to buy the foreign currency, which will contribute to the depreciation of the local currency, which in turn will make it even less attractive, prompting more people to sell, and so on so forth.
4y ago

tgv 4y ago

Strange. How did anybody live there before 2015?

freejazz 4y ago

Maybe people should be clear that they meant it'd only be useful in the context of living in the "third world"?