6 ms·

The killer app for crypto is "KYC-less" which usually means "I can evade taxes or sell illicit goods". Otherwise, real money is faster, more scalable, and more

by mabbo 4y ago

The killer app for crypto is "KYC-less" which usually means "I can evade taxes or sell illicit goods". Otherwise, real money is faster, more scalable, and more resilient to users making mistakes. Nothing I do is illegal; I pay my taxes; sometimes I make mistakes. Why would I ever want to use crypto over real money?

throwaway98797 4y ago
i wonder what you think of tampons and hair extensions
- germinalphrase 4y ago
  What an odd… insult?
  - throwaway98797 4y ago
    it’s not an insult someone not using a product doesn’t mean it’s not useful
    - germinalphrase 4y ago
      Ah, got it. That didn’t come through for me (and for others judging by their downvotes).
- DonHopkins 4y ago
  I think weaving tampons into your hair expresses your unique individuality and shows strong character, and you should definitely go for it, especially if you will be attending weddings, funerals, speaking in public, going on a blind date, receiving an award, sitting for an oil painting, or giving an acceptance speech for being elected to public office. Just stay out of the rain!
luckylion 4y ago
Bitcoin will not freeze your assets for 90-180 days if you suddenly make twice as many sales.
- danaris 4y ago
  This is an argument for more regulation (of PayPal, and similar payment processors), not less, and certainly not for cryptocurrency.
  - luckylion 4y ago
    Is more customer-friendly regulation of Paypal (they're a bank in Europe, you don't get more regulation than that) really something that is reasonably going to happen? Lots of things would be vastly improved if only improbable things would happen (Google fights SEO-spam! Fusion brings unlimited energy too cheap to meter! Humanity unites in peace!), but would you place your bets on them happening instead of assuming the messed up reality we're in an dealing with it?
- acdha 4y ago
  That says you shouldn’t use PayPal, just as the billions locked or stolen by cryptocurrency exchanges says you should be careful about who you entrust with large amounts of money.
  - luckylion 4y ago
    > That says you shouldn’t use PayPal So you shouldn't use non-crypto convenient near-realtime payments? Stripe seems to have similar events regularly judging by the "Support HN" posts. It's an issue that seems to arise from misaligned incentives, and regulators are looking the other way, as they do on many things in banking.
    - acdha 4y ago
      PayPal is one of company of many. If you want bad customer service, they've been delivering that for a couple of decades but that's a problem specific to them and there are better alternatives available. It is definitely an area where regulation can help but the point is that you don't need to wait to give your business to someone else.
nroets 4y ago
Swift transfers are slower than crypto. And governments have placed various restrictions on it called "capital controls". They say it's to encourage investment into their own economies, but investors knows it doesn't achieve that.
- acdha 4y ago
  Some U.S. bank transfers are slow. This is not true globally or immutable, and the main reason it’s not a problem is that the payment systems the vast majority of Americans use are fast - much faster than cryptocurrencies. Capital controls are a political topic. You can disagree with them, dissent is important, but it’s also important to be honest and say that you’re seeing an advantage through breaking the law, which is like discovering that your business is more profitable if you don’t pay taxes.
dgb23 4y ago
Not an advocate for crypto. Quite the contrary. But legitimacy and legality diverge. Not sure if it’s marketing BS or similar, but I’ve read that some people used it to circumvent defunct government or hyper inflation. If that’s true, then I side with those that want to live a decent life despite corruption and (international) politics exploiting and oppressing them. Again, I don’t know how reliable that info is, and I doubt that there isn’t a better solution.
- SuoDuanDao 4y ago
  Given the transparent nature of the blockchain, it's actually very hard to hide illegal activity on it. Much of the reason for my bullishness on crypto is that it makes graft harder. I wonder how much of the sentiment against crypto stems from beneficiaries of opaque institutions.
angio 4y ago
Just out of curiosity, which country are you based in? Because for people based in countries with high inflation, crypto is a great tool to get paid in usd and reinvest it without being forced by their governement to convert it into their currency. Obviously, if you're based in a country with a strong currency and where all financial intstruments are available, that's not important.
- germinalphrase 4y ago
  “ Because for people based in countries with high inflation, crypto is a great tool to get paid in usd and reinvest it without being forced by their governement to convert it into their currency.” I hear this quite a lot. Do we have any figures that say it’s actually happening at any scale?
  - angio 4y ago
    Compare how many teams in crypto come from argentina (and latam in general) and south east asia compared to e.g. fintech or ai. In my experience many started by accepting remote jobs paid in crypto and then later working full time in the field.
  - 5040 4y ago
    This is a good article about the situation in Argentina: https://www.freethink.com/hard-tech/crypto-argentina-black-market-cash https://www.freethink.com/hard-tech/crypto-argentina-black-m...
- dmitriid 4y ago
  Ah yes. The well-known stability of crypto... with value swings that put most volatile currencies to shame.
  - angio 4y ago
    They use it for USDC, which is much better than buying dollars on the black market.
grapesurgeon 4y ago
[dead]
sidewndr46 4y ago
Have you ever paid for anything substantial with real money? It's a huge pain in the ass. I have to go into a bank, even during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. I have to pay outrageous fees to transfer money & participate in something called a "wire". Where my money will simply be magically transferred to another party somehow. There are a zillion steps, none of which are disclosed to me. It should work fine, but it is also takes an indeterminate amount of time. No one can explain where the money is in the interim period. Also the money could go to the wrong person. Also, the other party has no way of knowing the money arrived. I have to call them and remind them that I sent it & they need to check to see if their bank received it.
- vngzs 4y ago
  Good point, I've had one hell of a time making down payments on cars or first/last month's rent with cashier's checks when my bank doesn't have physical branches in my area. If I could have paid with, say, a dollar-backed stablecoin from a reputable institution, I could have made the payment digitally and closed the sale/rental without waiting days for a bank to mail me a check. In the apartment rental case, I might not have gotten passed up because someone else arrived check-in-hand ready to close the deal.
- mabbo 4y ago
  There's three arguments there: 1 - Banks can make mistakes. 2 - Banks can be slow. 3 - Banks making it really hard to do transfer large sums of money. I can't solve 1, but I can tell you that crypto definitely doesn't solve it. Because making a mistake with crypto is irreversible. The money is just gone. Mom forgot her password because she's getting old? Well, too bad, now Mom is broke and her money is gone forever. Two is a solvable problem and it's getting better over time. It used to be even slower. But 3, I'm in favour of. I want it to be hard for me to transfer away my life savings. I want there to be many steps in which my ID is checked and people look me in the eye and verify that yes, this is the thing I want to do. Because I am an idiot, and if you give me a gun I will shoot myself in the foot. I don't want it to be easy to accidentally go broke.
  - EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 4y ago
trotro 4y ago
Didn't think I'd see a "I've got nothing to hide" argument on HN. Are you also against E2E messaging apps for the same reason? Being able to anonymously transfer value should be a fundamental right, as part of our fundamental right to privacy. In the past, cash could be used for that, but with society going increasingly cashless and some governments trying to make large cash transfers illegal, crypto is now the only way to keep this right.
- mabbo 4y ago
  I feel like you're conflating my argument a bit. I'm not saying "People with nothing to hide... etc". I'm saying that as a user, I'm going to pick the option that is best for me. Crypto is never going to be the option that is best for me. Nor most of 8 billion other people on the planet.
- steego 4y ago
  When has anonymously transferring large values of money ever been a right? It’s never been a right. It’s like saying money laundering should be a right or evading taxes should be a right. Cash transactions and commerce has been regulated for most of human history, whether it’s been for tax collection purposes or to regulate certain types of transactions. People who work in cash businesses have never had a right to anonymity. They’ve always had to report sales receipts and earnings so they can pay income, sales taxes or value added taxes. If you want to buy things with cash, you can. If they don’t take paper currency, use a gift card. Keep in mind, you’re on camera everywhere and your phone is always tracking you. Practically speaking, it’s very unlikely you’ve been anonymous for some time.
  - ashwagary 4y ago
    >When has anonymously transferring large values of money ever been a right? Most of human history. People were born with this right.
    - empthought 4y ago
      I don't know where to begin telling you how wrong you are. Hammurabi's code has plenty of examples of a punishment of being put to death because you didn't have witnesses, a contract, or a receipt for paying for something. (It's easy for someone else to accuse you of stealing.)
rawoke083600 4y ago
Right... So my bank allows me to gamble online via my c.c (casino) but i am not allowed to buy crypto with my c.c So the bank is telling me what I may or may not do. Tomorrow, I might not be able to buy goods from some of their vertical intergrated partners. Freedom to transact has many forms. Sue you pay youre taxes and do nothing illegal now. But that is only true as far as you follow their laws of what is right and not illegal.
xtracto 4y ago
Mhmm I disagree. A couple of months ago someone in a city subreddit I frequent came asking for help. I wanted to give him some money anonymously, so I used a cryptocurrency to do it. Any other methods available in my country could trace de transfer to me. It was useful to me for that use case. How would you have done that?
EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 4y ago
Faster? It's been 4 days since I sent a wire to my family in another country and it's not there yet. I have been waiting for 2 weeks recently for an ACH transfer between my two accounts in the US.
LightHugger 4y ago
Because often payment processors arbitrarily agree with eachother decide not to do business with someone you want to do business with. With crypto, they can't stop you from paying for someone. Payment processors are currently a form of zero representation government that decides what businesses are allowed to exist online, and they frequently abuse this power. They can only by avoided by using crypto. This is the one big use case of crypto i see as important, really...

by mabbo 4y ago

throwaway98797 4y ago

i wonder what you think of tampons and hair extensions

germinalphrase 4y ago
What an odd… insult?
- throwaway98797 4y ago
  it’s not an insult someone not using a product doesn’t mean it’s not useful
  - germinalphrase 4y ago
    Ah, got it. That didn’t come through for me (and for others judging by their downvotes).
DonHopkins 4y ago
I think weaving tampons into your hair expresses your unique individuality and shows strong character, and you should definitely go for it, especially if you will be attending weddings, funerals, speaking in public, going on a blind date, receiving an award, sitting for an oil painting, or giving an acceptance speech for being elected to public office. Just stay out of the rain!

luckylion 4y ago

Bitcoin will not freeze your assets for 90-180 days if you suddenly make twice as many sales.

danaris 4y ago
This is an argument for more regulation (of PayPal, and similar payment processors), not less, and certainly not for cryptocurrency.
- luckylion 4y ago
  Is more customer-friendly regulation of Paypal (they're a bank in Europe, you don't get more regulation than that) really something that is reasonably going to happen? Lots of things would be vastly improved if only improbable things would happen (Google fights SEO-spam! Fusion brings unlimited energy too cheap to meter! Humanity unites in peace!), but would you place your bets on them happening instead of assuming the messed up reality we're in an dealing with it?
acdha 4y ago
That says you shouldn’t use PayPal, just as the billions locked or stolen by cryptocurrency exchanges says you should be careful about who you entrust with large amounts of money.
- luckylion 4y ago
  > That says you shouldn’t use PayPal So you shouldn't use non-crypto convenient near-realtime payments? Stripe seems to have similar events regularly judging by the "Support HN" posts. It's an issue that seems to arise from misaligned incentives, and regulators are looking the other way, as they do on many things in banking.
  - acdha 4y ago
    PayPal is one of company of many. If you want bad customer service, they've been delivering that for a couple of decades but that's a problem specific to them and there are better alternatives available. It is definitely an area where regulation can help but the point is that you don't need to wait to give your business to someone else.

nroets 4y ago

Swift transfers are slower than crypto. And governments have placed various restrictions on it called "capital controls". They say it's to encourage investment into their own economies, but investors knows it doesn't achieve that.

acdha 4y ago
Some U.S. bank transfers are slow. This is not true globally or immutable, and the main reason it’s not a problem is that the payment systems the vast majority of Americans use are fast - much faster than cryptocurrencies. Capital controls are a political topic. You can disagree with them, dissent is important, but it’s also important to be honest and say that you’re seeing an advantage through breaking the law, which is like discovering that your business is more profitable if you don’t pay taxes.

dgb23 4y ago

Not an advocate for crypto. Quite the contrary. But legitimacy and legality diverge. Not sure if it’s marketing BS or similar, but I’ve read that some people used it to circumvent defunct government or hyper inflation. If that’s true, then I side with those that want to live a decent life despite corruption and (international) politics exploiting and oppressing them. Again, I don’t know how reliable that info is, and I doubt that there isn’t a better solution.

SuoDuanDao 4y ago
Given the transparent nature of the blockchain, it's actually very hard to hide illegal activity on it. Much of the reason for my bullishness on crypto is that it makes graft harder. I wonder how much of the sentiment against crypto stems from beneficiaries of opaque institutions.

angio 4y ago

Just out of curiosity, which country are you based in? Because for people based in countries with high inflation, crypto is a great tool to get paid in usd and reinvest it without being forced by their governement to convert it into their currency. Obviously, if you're based in a country with a strong currency and where all financial intstruments are available, that's not important.

germinalphrase 4y ago
“ Because for people based in countries with high inflation, crypto is a great tool to get paid in usd and reinvest it without being forced by their governement to convert it into their currency.” I hear this quite a lot. Do we have any figures that say it’s actually happening at any scale?
- angio 4y ago
  Compare how many teams in crypto come from argentina (and latam in general) and south east asia compared to e.g. fintech or ai. In my experience many started by accepting remote jobs paid in crypto and then later working full time in the field.
- 5040 4y ago
  This is a good article about the situation in Argentina: https://www.freethink.com/hard-tech/crypto-argentina-black-market-cash https://www.freethink.com/hard-tech/crypto-argentina-black-m...
dmitriid 4y ago
Ah yes. The well-known stability of crypto... with value swings that put most volatile currencies to shame.
- angio 4y ago
  They use it for USDC, which is much better than buying dollars on the black market.

grapesurgeon 4y ago

[dead]

sidewndr46 4y ago

Have you ever paid for anything substantial with real money? It's a huge pain in the ass. I have to go into a bank, even during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. I have to pay outrageous fees to transfer money & participate in something called a "wire". Where my money will simply be magically transferred to another party somehow. There are a zillion steps, none of which are disclosed to me. It should work fine, but it is also takes an indeterminate amount of time. No one can explain where the money is in the interim period. Also the money could go to the wrong person. Also, the other party has no way of knowing the money arrived. I have to call them and remind them that I sent it & they need to check to see if their bank received it.

vngzs 4y ago
Good point, I've had one hell of a time making down payments on cars or first/last month's rent with cashier's checks when my bank doesn't have physical branches in my area. If I could have paid with, say, a dollar-backed stablecoin from a reputable institution, I could have made the payment digitally and closed the sale/rental without waiting days for a bank to mail me a check. In the apartment rental case, I might not have gotten passed up because someone else arrived check-in-hand ready to close the deal.
mabbo 4y ago
There's three arguments there: 1 - Banks can make mistakes. 2 - Banks can be slow. 3 - Banks making it really hard to do transfer large sums of money. I can't solve 1, but I can tell you that crypto definitely doesn't solve it. Because making a mistake with crypto is irreversible. The money is just gone. Mom forgot her password because she's getting old? Well, too bad, now Mom is broke and her money is gone forever. Two is a solvable problem and it's getting better over time. It used to be even slower. But 3, I'm in favour of. I want it to be hard for me to transfer away my life savings. I want there to be many steps in which my ID is checked and people look me in the eye and verify that yes, this is the thing I want to do. Because I am an idiot, and if you give me a gun I will shoot myself in the foot. I don't want it to be easy to accidentally go broke.
- EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 4y ago

trotro 4y ago

Didn't think I'd see a "I've got nothing to hide" argument on HN. Are you also against E2E messaging apps for the same reason? Being able to anonymously transfer value should be a fundamental right, as part of our fundamental right to privacy. In the past, cash could be used for that, but with society going increasingly cashless and some governments trying to make large cash transfers illegal, crypto is now the only way to keep this right.

mabbo 4y ago
I feel like you're conflating my argument a bit. I'm not saying "People with nothing to hide... etc". I'm saying that as a user, I'm going to pick the option that is best for me. Crypto is never going to be the option that is best for me. Nor most of 8 billion other people on the planet.
steego 4y ago
When has anonymously transferring large values of money ever been a right? It’s never been a right. It’s like saying money laundering should be a right or evading taxes should be a right. Cash transactions and commerce has been regulated for most of human history, whether it’s been for tax collection purposes or to regulate certain types of transactions. People who work in cash businesses have never had a right to anonymity. They’ve always had to report sales receipts and earnings so they can pay income, sales taxes or value added taxes. If you want to buy things with cash, you can. If they don’t take paper currency, use a gift card. Keep in mind, you’re on camera everywhere and your phone is always tracking you. Practically speaking, it’s very unlikely you’ve been anonymous for some time.
- ashwagary 4y ago
  >When has anonymously transferring large values of money ever been a right? Most of human history. People were born with this right.
  - empthought 4y ago
    I don't know where to begin telling you how wrong you are. Hammurabi's code has plenty of examples of a punishment of being put to death because you didn't have witnesses, a contract, or a receipt for paying for something. (It's easy for someone else to accuse you of stealing.)

rawoke083600 4y ago

Right... So my bank allows me to gamble online via my c.c (casino) but i am not allowed to buy crypto with my c.c So the bank is telling me what I may or may not do. Tomorrow, I might not be able to buy goods from some of their vertical intergrated partners. Freedom to transact has many forms. Sue you pay youre taxes and do nothing illegal now. But that is only true as far as you follow their laws of what is right and not illegal.

xtracto 4y ago

Mhmm I disagree. A couple of months ago someone in a city subreddit I frequent came asking for help. I wanted to give him some money anonymously, so I used a cryptocurrency to do it. Any other methods available in my country could trace de transfer to me. It was useful to me for that use case. How would you have done that?

EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 4y ago

Faster? It's been 4 days since I sent a wire to my family in another country and it's not there yet. I have been waiting for 2 weeks recently for an ACH transfer between my two accounts in the US.

LightHugger 4y ago

Because often payment processors arbitrarily agree with eachother decide not to do business with someone you want to do business with. With crypto, they can't stop you from paying for someone. Payment processors are currently a form of zero representation government that decides what businesses are allowed to exist online, and they frequently abuse this power. They can only by avoided by using crypto. This is the one big use case of crypto i see as important, really...