3 ms·

This is a complete BS, currently I'm in a country with very unstable currency that lost so much value during the last 2 crypto booms(2017, 2021) and I know what

by mrtksn 4y ago

This is a complete BS, currently I'm in a country with very unstable currency that lost so much value during the last 2 crypto booms(2017, 2021) and I know what actually happened on the ground. Crypto adoption is indeed high, much more than the western world but people are not in it to protect themselves from a volatile exchange rates but because they are desperate for a side hustle to make the ends meet. Those who are interested in preserving value simply buy USD, EUR or gold. The "unbanked" concept is also complete BS, in those 3.rd world countries the banking systems and the fintech infrastructure is much more advanced than the ones in the west. There are indeed millions of "unbanked" people but they are unbanked due to political reasons and as a result they use alternatives payment processors which are not banks(or just use cash). When Europe was introduced to easy to use mobile banking with things like Monzo or Revolut and USA was adopting contactless payments or Chip&Pin these were already the norm. Before the iPhone&Android proliferation, people were able to do much of this stuff through the ATMs and payments systems integrated with the SIM cards. People from 3rd world visiting EU or the USA are often shocked when see how primitive retail banking and payment systems are. I guess the rhetoric of "banking the unbanked in the poor countries" comes from the idea that "if we the rich have so many troubles with payments, surely it must be much worse in the poor countries". I assure you, this is not the case, the west is the one with primitive fintech. The value of crypto came from the ability to speculate. Everyone younger than 30 was in it and some people made good money. These days everyone is in the stock market, anyone can buy and sell stocks from their banking app and all taxes and fees are handled so its easy as buying and selling candies.

thepangolino 4y ago
Providing banking services to people who are unbanked for political reasons is one of the main advantages of crypto imho. This is something you can get hit by in so called democratic countries as Canada demonstrated last year. https://www.businessinsider.com/trudeau-canada-freeze-bank-accounts-freedom-convoy-truckers-2022-2?op=1&r=US&IR=T https://www.businessinsider.com/trudeau-canada-freeze-bank-a...
- mrtksn 4y ago
  This is not true at all. If the government doesn't want you to do something with your money its only a matter of time to catch up. So you got untouchable by the banks because you participated in a political uprising that failed? You think that crypto will save you? Think again because it's only matter of time before the government makes it illegal to accept payments from that alternative payment method or from you directly. The only thing that works is hard cash. The electronic stuff don't work because they by design work by bookkeeping(remember the ledger on the blockchain) and when there is a bookkeeping there are ways to trace and prevent. Oh you will use a coin tumbler? Money that went through it automatically becomes unusable. You will use somethingprivacy oriented like Monero? If the origin is untraceable its illegal. Laundering money is getting harder every day. It doesn't matter if you agree or disagree with the motives, if you live in a society that agreed on how the society should work and they decided that certain activities are legal and certain taxes must be paid you will squeezed out. The wealthy are still finding ways but the wealthy are not unbanked, they set up shell corporations, move cash with private jets etc. Crypto was another opportunity but once it become large enough it got noticed.
  - miracle2k 4y ago
    The government can also make the use of cash illegal. They can also put a huge dent into encrypted messaging by sending anyone caught using straight to the electric chair. They can drag you out of your home at night. (So can your neighbour for that matter). The argument was never that crypto is some kind of magic shield against bullets. It's simply a tool. It raises the cost of certain kinds of abuses for the state. In the balance between the individual and the state, it shifts the power, ever so slightly, to the former.
    - mrtksn 4y ago
      In that regard, crypto is like hard to use easy to lose cash. Cash, unlike crypto, is hard to trace. The best can do is to use chemical markers. Government making cash illegal doesn’t mean much as it is pure p2p with no integrated bookkeeping or remote sensing.
- 4y ago
zinekeller 4y ago
> The "unbanked" concept is also complete BS, in those 3.rd world countries the banking systems and the fintech infrastructure is much more advanced than the ones in the west. I've always noticed this hole said by cryptobros, and 4/5 of them who says this are Americans who never have interacted even with SEPA or (Canadian) Interac. It seems that this disconnect that "since American banks are already worse imagine what banks these people do have" without realising that the US has one of the worst domestic interbanking systems in developed countries - actually, delete developed as you correctly pointed out that developing countries have way better interbanking systems than the US. (To be fair, some of the hurdles apparently have legal concerns, but most of them can be explained by "(US) banks don't care about new technology".) Edit: I have actually explained years ago why the unbanked are usually unbanked: it's not really solvable by technology. - Wars. Most people in warzones don't want to hold a bank account because it is very unreliable. Cryptocurrency won't solve that problem, in fact it will exacerbate the problem because of your phone or computer is damaged it's game over*. Also, how do you even transact when you don't have any form of communication? - Actually don't have anything to bank on. Their money is just enough to survive, so they can't even bank, regardless of its form. Giving cryptocurrency is often a proposed solution, while forgetting that regular currency works fine too in these situations. - Cultural differences. Most, to be honest, don't want to depart their money to someone they don't know. They were introduced to money just a generation or two ago, so they are relatively new here. Good luck convincing that cryptocurrency is trustworthy in a way that can be easily understand. * I mean you could write them on paper, but that's really stretching it, mainly because you need a computer to execute transactions.
- mrtksn 4y ago
  Exactly, just added that to my post and noticed your comment. The "bank the unbanked" feed on the ignorance and superiority complex of the people in the western word. I guess they imagine that they are providing technology to people living in huts. How do they even imagine making money from this? Is it something like the guy in the hut is actually resource rich but wasn’t able to get a bank account to do business so they will enable him sell the milk and they will get a cut?

by mrtksn 4y ago

thepangolino 4y ago

Providing banking services to people who are unbanked for political reasons is one of the main advantages of crypto imho. This is something you can get hit by in so called democratic countries as Canada demonstrated last year. https://www.businessinsider.com/trudeau-canada-freeze-bank-accounts-freedom-convoy-truckers-2022-2?op=1&r=US&IR=T https://www.businessinsider.com/trudeau-canada-freeze-bank-a...

mrtksn 4y ago
This is not true at all. If the government doesn't want you to do something with your money its only a matter of time to catch up. So you got untouchable by the banks because you participated in a political uprising that failed? You think that crypto will save you? Think again because it's only matter of time before the government makes it illegal to accept payments from that alternative payment method or from you directly. The only thing that works is hard cash. The electronic stuff don't work because they by design work by bookkeeping(remember the ledger on the blockchain) and when there is a bookkeeping there are ways to trace and prevent. Oh you will use a coin tumbler? Money that went through it automatically becomes unusable. You will use somethingprivacy oriented like Monero? If the origin is untraceable its illegal. Laundering money is getting harder every day. It doesn't matter if you agree or disagree with the motives, if you live in a society that agreed on how the society should work and they decided that certain activities are legal and certain taxes must be paid you will squeezed out. The wealthy are still finding ways but the wealthy are not unbanked, they set up shell corporations, move cash with private jets etc. Crypto was another opportunity but once it become large enough it got noticed.
- miracle2k 4y ago
  The government can also make the use of cash illegal. They can also put a huge dent into encrypted messaging by sending anyone caught using straight to the electric chair. They can drag you out of your home at night. (So can your neighbour for that matter). The argument was never that crypto is some kind of magic shield against bullets. It's simply a tool. It raises the cost of certain kinds of abuses for the state. In the balance between the individual and the state, it shifts the power, ever so slightly, to the former.
  - mrtksn 4y ago
    In that regard, crypto is like hard to use easy to lose cash. Cash, unlike crypto, is hard to trace. The best can do is to use chemical markers. Government making cash illegal doesn’t mean much as it is pure p2p with no integrated bookkeeping or remote sensing.
4y ago

zinekeller 4y ago

> The "unbanked" concept is also complete BS, in those 3.rd world countries the banking systems and the fintech infrastructure is much more advanced than the ones in the west. I've always noticed this hole said by cryptobros, and 4/5 of them who says this are Americans who never have interacted even with SEPA or (Canadian) Interac. It seems that this disconnect that "since American banks are already worse imagine what banks these people do have" without realising that the US has one of the worst domestic interbanking systems in developed countries - actually, delete developed as you correctly pointed out that developing countries have way better interbanking systems than the US. (To be fair, some of the hurdles apparently have legal concerns, but most of them can be explained by "(US) banks don't care about new technology".) Edit: I have actually explained years ago why the unbanked are usually unbanked: it's not really solvable by technology. - Wars. Most people in warzones don't want to hold a bank account because it is very unreliable. Cryptocurrency won't solve that problem, in fact it will exacerbate the problem because of your phone or computer is damaged it's game over*. Also, how do you even transact when you don't have any form of communication? - Actually don't have anything to bank on. Their money is just enough to survive, so they can't even bank, regardless of its form. Giving cryptocurrency is often a proposed solution, while forgetting that regular currency works fine too in these situations. - Cultural differences. Most, to be honest, don't want to depart their money to someone they don't know. They were introduced to money just a generation or two ago, so they are relatively new here. Good luck convincing that cryptocurrency is trustworthy in a way that can be easily understand. * I mean you could write them on paper, but that's really stretching it, mainly because you need a computer to execute transactions.

mrtksn 4y ago
Exactly, just added that to my post and noticed your comment. The "bank the unbanked" feed on the ignorance and superiority complex of the people in the western word. I guess they imagine that they are providing technology to people living in huts. How do they even imagine making money from this? Is it something like the guy in the hut is actually resource rich but wasn’t able to get a bank account to do business so they will enable him sell the milk and they will get a cut?