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If there is one single thing I would absolutely give to crypto (in its essential form, not through centralized, heavily regulated intermediaries like Coinbase)

If there is one single thing I would absolutely give to crypto (in its essential form, not through centralized, heavily regulated intermediaries like Coinbase) it's that something like the above and the many stories in this comment thread can be circumvented if one is relatively careful about managing transfers, keys and basic use. Excepting truly major state-level interventions, almost nobody can stop you from collecting a payment from a third party or sending it to them, or keeping your payments collected secure from some bullshit arbitrary KYC corporate freeze. It works internationally, it works 24/7 and funds received are funds that are yours. Sure, the space as a whole is loaded with scammers, collapsed exchanges and etc, and its more technically difficult than using things like Paypal, but the essence I describe above is wonderful and should exist on a much broader scale as a basic right for people wishing to move funds and hold them. How you later convert them to fiat cash for daily spending is a separate debate. I can already image many people here in their bubbles of privilege decrying much of the above, or companies and governments not being able to randomly freeze funds and block their flow for individuals, but I invite you to deal with a corporate freeze of YOUR money, or simply live in a place where state-level corruption is endemic, frequent and hard to escape by any conventional means. Finally, Paypal truly is a hideous dumpster fire and deserves a slow, strangling corporate death. I look forward to a day in which that happens.

superzamp 4y ago
Well put. As great is the current financial system, seeing legitimate people and companies left on the sidelines for basically no reason aside factored in cost of applying the current regulation efficiently is quite maddening. Also well summarized by patio11 with [1]: > The actual probative value of SARs varies wildly; at the top of the spectrum, they can include sufficient investigatory work and documentation, produced by the analyst at the financial institution, to lead to convictions for e.g. human trafficking. > Across the financial industry, that SAR is wildly outnumbered by “Mohammed tried to do something, we didn’t let him, and when we told him that he became agitated.” > An example from here in Japan: an immigrant attempted to wire the equivalent of $600 to his cousin in Africa. He was asked the purpose of the wire and said it was for a tuition payment. Bank staff asked for supporting documentation like e.g. a tuition statement or student ID card for the cousin. The customer refused to provide that documentation. The bank refused the wire. The customer accused the bank staff of racially profiling him and raised his voice. > I was not a party to that transaction and, for clarity, it did not involve any employer or business partner of mine. I winced when reading a news report about it, because this is practically ripped from Compliance training. The customer is absolutely right and they are very likely getting a SAR filed on them. [1] https://www.bitsaboutmoney.com/archive/money-laundering-and-aml-compliance/ https://www.bitsaboutmoney.com/archive/money-laundering-and-...
PragmaticPulp 4y ago
> If there is one single thing I would absolutely give to crypto (in its essential form, not through centralized, heavily regulated intermediaries like Coinbase) it's that something like the above and the many stories in this comment thread can be circumvented if one is relatively careful about managing transfers, keys and basic use. That’s a very big “if” Cryptocurrency trades one set of problems for another set of problems. If you’ve ever seen the analytics for password reset at a large website (general, non-tech audience) and looked at the support statistics for account lockout help requests, you’d see why self-managed crypto is infeasible for any general market operations Tech people look at their own usage patterns and see that they can manage passwords and private keys just fine, but the same is not true for the general population. It’s not even close. Crypto also lacks one of the big selling points of credit cards and PayPal: Disputed transactions. Disputes are terrible when misused by lying customers, but disputes have also saved me from some sellers who never shipped the items I bought. With crypto, my money would be gone forever. Other scammers would see that there was no recourse and would start running more scams. Buyers would notice that crypto transactions have higher risk and would lower their purchase price tolerance. Sellers would notice and would offer alternate services at higher prices. And we’d be back to everyone using PayPal and similar services.
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Damogran6 4y ago
The number of exchanges with 'Multi Hundred Millions in losses' is higher than I'd like, to be honest.

superzamp 4y ago

Well put. As great is the current financial system, seeing legitimate people and companies left on the sidelines for basically no reason aside factored in cost of applying the current regulation efficiently is quite maddening. Also well summarized by patio11 with [1]: > The actual probative value of SARs varies wildly; at the top of the spectrum, they can include sufficient investigatory work and documentation, produced by the analyst at the financial institution, to lead to convictions for e.g. human trafficking. > Across the financial industry, that SAR is wildly outnumbered by “Mohammed tried to do something, we didn’t let him, and when we told him that he became agitated.” > An example from here in Japan: an immigrant attempted to wire the equivalent of $600 to his cousin in Africa. He was asked the purpose of the wire and said it was for a tuition payment. Bank staff asked for supporting documentation like e.g. a tuition statement or student ID card for the cousin. The customer refused to provide that documentation. The bank refused the wire. The customer accused the bank staff of racially profiling him and raised his voice. > I was not a party to that transaction and, for clarity, it did not involve any employer or business partner of mine. I winced when reading a news report about it, because this is practically ripped from Compliance training. The customer is absolutely right and they are very likely getting a SAR filed on them. [1] https://www.bitsaboutmoney.com/archive/money-laundering-and-aml-compliance/ https://www.bitsaboutmoney.com/archive/money-laundering-and-...

PragmaticPulp 4y ago

> If there is one single thing I would absolutely give to crypto (in its essential form, not through centralized, heavily regulated intermediaries like Coinbase) it's that something like the above and the many stories in this comment thread can be circumvented if one is relatively careful about managing transfers, keys and basic use. That’s a very big “if” Cryptocurrency trades one set of problems for another set of problems. If you’ve ever seen the analytics for password reset at a large website (general, non-tech audience) and looked at the support statistics for account lockout help requests, you’d see why self-managed crypto is infeasible for any general market operations Tech people look at their own usage patterns and see that they can manage passwords and private keys just fine, but the same is not true for the general population. It’s not even close. Crypto also lacks one of the big selling points of credit cards and PayPal: Disputed transactions. Disputes are terrible when misused by lying customers, but disputes have also saved me from some sellers who never shipped the items I bought. With crypto, my money would be gone forever. Other scammers would see that there was no recourse and would start running more scams. Buyers would notice that crypto transactions have higher risk and would lower their purchase price tolerance. Sellers would notice and would offer alternate services at higher prices. And we’d be back to everyone using PayPal and similar services.

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Damogran6 4y ago

The number of exchanges with 'Multi Hundred Millions in losses' is higher than I'd like, to be honest.