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This is great, we just need more of these shadow banking crypto exchanges to implode and for the entire crypto industry to disappear. There really and objectiv
by colesantiago 4y ago
This is great, we just need more of these shadow banking crypto exchanges to implode and for the entire crypto industry to disappear.
There really and objectively is no reason for cryptocurrencies to exist at all.
- washedup 4y agoMillions of people in nations with severe currency and asset issues (inflation, access, or otherwise, often in third world countries) disagree. But yes, I am glad to see these shady institutions taken down. Only once they are gone, and SEC puts proper regulations in place, the industry will likely thrive.
- colesantiago 4y agoNo. We don't need crypto to thrive at all. We already have Pix (Brazil), UPI (India), M-Pesa (Africa) and now the US is beginning to roll out FedNow in the US. The legitimate and regulated solutions are already being built and have been proven as it has been in India at scale to the tune of hundreds of millions of users. Crypto or blockchain cannot and can never scale at all.
- idiotsecant 4y agoWe don't need crypto if we're OK with permissioned currency systems being the only ones that are allowed to exist. I'm not sure I'm OK with that.
- rmbyrro 4y agoPix is 100% controlled by the Brazilian government, which does not have a trustworthy track record in taking care of its citizens' money. Buy they do apologize... 30 years later [1]. [1] https://www.riotimesonline.com/brazil-news/brazil/politics-brazil/former-brazilian-president-collor-apologizes-for-seizing-savings-30-years-later/ https://www.riotimesonline.com/brazil-news/brazil/politics-b...
- colesantiago 4y ago> Pix is 100% controlled by the Brazilian government... I would argue this is still better than losing your money completely in crypto or getting your money hacked by connecting your wallet. There are thousands of examples of people losing hundreds of millions of their money in crypto and the criminals who are going this are not sorry. https://web3isgoinggreat.com/?theme=hack%2CrugPull%2Cshady%2Ccollapse https://web3isgoinggreat.com/?theme=hack%2CrugPull%2Cshady%2...
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- TheOtherHobbes 4y agoIf you held crypto on an exchange that imploded you don't even get an apology.
- super256 4y ago> No. We don't need crypto to thrive at all. I know two people from Argentina and Colombia, and both of them use USDC to get their hands on US Dollars. Apparently, crypto dollars are popular among countries with massive inflation. I really have no idea about the countries you mentioned (Brazil, India, Africa), but I assume those apps introduced there don't offer the option for foreign exchange? When a currency is under massive inflationary pressure, policymakers will introduce heavy restrictions on FX. This would happen to any app like those you mentioned in countries like Argentinia and Colombia, rendering those apps worthless like Pesos. And this is also the very reason, why those countries have a parallel black market currency like Dólar Blue [1]. Edit: ok, I got the crypto part wrong. Apparently, they only use USD paper money. I always assumed they are using crypto for this for some reason. I apologize. [1] https://bluedollar.net/ https://bluedollar.net/
- comte7092 4y agoCrypto hasn’t changed the reality on the ground all that much in any of those places. In all instances I’m aware of, what matters is the ability to get your hands on dollars. Crypto, at best, ends up being an intermediary for that exchange, and at worst ends up being a scam for people who aren’t technical enough to understand how it actually works.
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- washedup 4y ago"In all instances I'm aware of..." It helps to research this stuff in depth a bit. USD is definitely still very much desired in many many parts of the world, but there are many instances where people still need to send "value" across borders. Bitcoin is, in a lot of places, the only way to do this. That's just one of many use-cases for people where there are massive asset and currency restrictions.
- comte7092 4y agoI’m speaking from directly reported experiences of people I know who live in such countries. They’ve dabbled in crypto, gotten scammed, successfully used it for a bit, but now moved away from it entirely. At the end of the day, the only reason why you’d _need_ to use Bitcoin for this is to evade the law, which, if you’re living under an unstable government with a collapsing currency, may not be the best course of action.
- LastTrain 4y agoLol "...and that is what crypto is all about Charlie Brown.."
- root_axis 4y ago> Millions across the world in nations with severe currency and asset issues (inflation, access, or otherwise, often in third world countries) disagree. Oft repeated but not actually true. The people living in the places you describe often don't have the luxury of access to stable electricity, internet, capable technology, technical knowledge etc. More importantly, people living in these places can't afford to tie up their money in useless crypto tokens, they need real money they can use to buy goods and services. Cryptocurrency is a game for the affluent.
- onlyrealcuzzo 4y agoAlso - if regulations don't allow them to have stocks & dollars - then either the regulations are there for good reason, or we should change the regulations - not just skirt them.
- lazide 4y agoNuking KYC/AML rules (the biggest issues) would certainly help bank large swathes of the population that currently are excluded. If you think that is a good thing or a bad thing depends a lot on various highly polarizing religious and political discussions that are unlikely to be solved... well, at all, frankly. Maybe ever. Based on the human history I've been able to find and read, anyway.
- notch898a 4y agoI like to tell the story of the time I was moving from one state to another and did not have housing yet. The bank refused to open an account. With a passport, plus license with outdated address. Said it violates KYC w/ no proof of address. Meanwhile, with no documentation (no id, passport, etc) I could legally conceal carry a gun in the bank. I can't believe it's gotten to the point where you can be trusted to legally have a gun in the bank but considered too dangerous to hand over $5.
- lazide 4y ago
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- infamouscow 4y agohttps://twitter.com/ukraine/status/1497594592438497282 https://twitter.com/ukraine/status/1497594592438497282
- vkou 4y agoWhy, when you can just wire USD to Ukraine? It's not sanctioned. Hell, you can even wire USD to many Russian banks. It's sanctioned, but not that sanctioned.
- notch898a 4y agoA sizeable portion of Ukrainians live(d) in Russia. Which is easier / lower risk for them, a wire from their Russian account or a crypto transfer? I would be surprised if it even went through. Also, there are a lot of things you can do that fall under "legal but the less explicitly obvious the better." Frequent wire transfers to Russia by some random Joe probably falls under that one.
- infamouscow 4y agoSanctions have nothing to do with it. Go to your local bank and ask to wire 100 USD to the government of Ukraine. Let me know if they do anything except give you a blank stare.
- yunohn 4y agoGo to your local blockchain and ask to wire 100 USDC to the government of Ukraine. Let me know if they do anything except give you a blank stare.
- red-iron-pine 4y agoHave you ever actually wired money to someone before? Gotta have an account number. The routing number for Bank of Ukraine is 222382221. Easily found via google. Any bank in the US isn't going to look these things up for you, you walk in and say "I wanna wire money" and they're going to ask for the account and routing numbers. Or failing that, search for "Ukraine Charity" and several of them have options for paypal and other ways to donate money. Like, literally just 30 seconds on google. I bet plenty of them will take wire donations, and most of them, probably, will make it to someone in the Ukraine.
- epgui 4y agoI personally have no interest in buying any crypto, and I find the whole ecosystem super sketchy, but to say that there is “zero” use case or rationale is just as unreasonable as the hodl-zealots… Replace “zero” with “limited” and you’re back in reasonable territory IMO.
- colesantiago 4y agoI'll go further: There is no solution crypto has legitimately solved that isn't already solved by the current system that has hundreds of millions of users that is not pure speculation, fraud, ransomware or complete gambling. Seriously, crypto, blockchains and all the rest of it has no legitimate use case.
- mrguyorama 4y agoI will add to this: The oracle problem prevents crypto from having any useful interaction with the real world, and prevents crypto from having any useful purpose that isn't just playing around with money.
- red-iron-pine 4y agodon't forget buying drugs
- rmbyrro 4y agoI think one may say "there really and objectively is no reason for me to use cryptocurrencies at all." And that's totally fine. But your statement is out of place in a free society, in my opinion. It resembles what I see in authoritarian regimes.
- rnk 4y agoWhy is it out of place in a free society to point to questionable value based donations? If you want to send someone something that you believe has value that they can convert to dollars or regular fiat currency, like tether or magic the gathering cards you can. The question is really is this a good way to do it. Bitcoin has value of billions of dollars currently, it has convertible value to dollars, just like the supposed crypto dollar coins. But they fluctuate a lot. After the next few huge crypto exchanges die, will there be any left? Bitcoin will still "work" because the blockchain exists, but the value would probably be reduced.
- jjk166 4y agoQuestioning the value is fine, refusing to acknowledge others' point of view is the authoritarian bit. Like I'm not going to use magic the gathering cards as a store of value, I think they're dumb, but I recognize others think differently and I wouldn't rejoice in a magic the gathering card broker going out of business. It's existence does no harm to me or anyone else.
- jMyles 4y ago> There really and objectively is no reason for cryptocurrencies to exist at all. Are we just destined to loop over this argument `while True`? Without byzantine-fault tolerant decentralized currencies, how do you deprecate state control of economies? If the answer is "you don't", then you are positioning yourself outside the extremely obvious long-term evolutionary path of the internet. Why would the internet, and AI, continue to abide rent-seeking central banks? A simple litmus test is this: can you buy prohibited plants and compounds over the internet with a given currency and its ecosystem of marketplaces? If the answer is "no", then you that currency probably has more state control than the internet is likely to tolerate in the long-term.
- birracerveza 4y agoPeople are so blinded by their hatred for crypto that they do not understand that yes, crypto has been mainly been used to transact scams and ponzis and whatever it is, but we're still talking about an absolutely insane amount of value being transacted with no middleman. How is that useless? What even is your definition of useless?
- tsimionescu 4y agoThere's also a lot of value being transacted in WoW gold, FF14 Gil and other such coins - not to mention the hundreds of billions of Monopoly money being exchanged every day all around the globe, in a fully decentralized system.
- mrguyorama 4y agoFuck, half the younger people on this blog probably sold or bought Runescape accounts, that doesn't make them a useful currency.
- jMyles 4y agoWoW gold and FF14 Gil are not decentralized, and Monopoly money cannot be sent over the internet.
- rationalist 4y agoI dislike having liabilities: whether that's cash in a precarious financial system, or physical assets that I have to protect from theft. Cryptocurrency is the answer IF it was reliable, stable, and ubiquitous. It is none of those things for me.