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And too right the critics like Molly are about crypto. There is no need to kid ourselves here anymore to even entertain crypto. Crypto is a complete scam, wit

And too right the critics like Molly are about crypto. There is no need to kid ourselves here anymore to even entertain crypto. Crypto is a complete scam, with no legitimate or legal use case and nothing else to offer anybody. I only wish crypto died sooner and that nobody uses it. We have other systems that are more robust than crypto that is used in the order of hundreds of millions such as UPI, PIX, Wise, Mpesa, Sendwave, etc that has time and time again proved to be better than crypto. FedNow is coming in a months time so it should hasten crypto’s inevitable downfall faster.

UncleOxidant 3y ago
Just googled FedNow and there's FAQ where one of the questions is "Will FedNow replace services like Venmo, Cashap, zelle..." and the answer there is no... which doesn't make sense if it's suppose to be a way to instantly transfer money. Wouldn't FedNow replace all of those?
- ttyprintk 3y ago
  Prior commentary: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32510581 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32510581
- ianburrell 3y ago
  FedNow is the replacement for ETF. It is a service not an app. Venmo, Cashapp, and Zelle apps are built on top of ETF service. Those apps will presumably switch to FedNow. It is will likely be integrated into bank apps sort of like Zelle is now. I really hope that different apps will be able to send money to each other.
jahsome 3y ago
Slightly off-topic rant: it seems (at least in hn circles) all the crypto buzz generation has found a new target in AI. Whereas prior to GPT-3 _every_ problem's solution according to a certain crowd was a hefty dose of web3/crypto, it seems now the consensus among a comparably sized crowd is that AI is actually the answer to all of humanity's pressing issues.
- amalcon 3y ago
  https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/39828-i-ve-come-up-with-a-set-of-rules-that-describe https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/39828-i-ve-come-up-with-a-s... I'm not sure what fraction of HN is between 15 and 35 years old, but it's probably pretty high. Lots of people want to get a career in the new and exciting thing. (I jest, but I do think there's some truth at the core here)
  - jahsome 3y ago
    I tend to agree, and appreciate the reference! I will also age out of this bracket in the latter half of this year :) I just find it so funny, almost like someone did a s/crypto/ai in the uberelite techie hivemind.
- scottiebarnes 3y ago
  Social media is media. Media surfaces to the top any subject which draws attention.
  - jahsome 3y ago
    I'm more taken by the degree of apparent fervor and unceremonious abandonment for the next shiny thing. I'm not surprised, I am just disappointed. Perhaps it's ego, but I expect better out of hn participants.
- wustangdan 3y ago
  IMO you just found another area where Sturgeon's Law applies (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturgeon%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturgeon%27s_law).
  - jahsome 3y ago
    I wasn't personally aware of this Law. In recent years I have worked quite hard to rid myself of such thinking, in favor of a more positive outlook, even if it's slightly forced. As a result, I've found myself much more at peace with the world, and generally in a better mood. I'd like to think I'm a better version of myself sans cynicism but maintain a healthy dose of skepticism. I'm not sure I bought in at first, but I've slowly come to realize the benefit of actively acknowledging goodness. +1 for "fake it til ya make it." That said, there's certainly a significant part of my psyche with which the sentiment of the law resonates.
throw3052023 3y ago
[flagged]
wustangdan 3y ago
No legal use case? Really? Honest question are you legitimately excited for FedNow? What problem will it solve? What does FedNow have to do with cryptos downfall? Does FedNow fix our 120% debt to gdp ratio? Estimates of inflation required to get our debt to gdp back to 50% is 4-5 years of 12-20% inflation. You don't want inflation? Well then I guess the US is going to default on our loans. 98% of countries in the last 120 years that had a debt to gdp of 130% has either defaulted or had massive inflation (only exception is Japan which is still in progress, currently holding off because its positive NIIP, US has negative NIIP). For the US it's either default, print, or hope for a miracle.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- ceejayoz 3y ago
  > 98% of countries in the last 120 years that had a debt to gdp of 130% has either defaulted or had massive inflation Sounds impressive, but this stat relies heavily on a) developed world nations and b) nations back when we had the inflexible gold standard. The US also benefits dramatically from being able to issue debt in USD, which it controls.
  - wustangdan 3y ago
    Yes exactly, on gold standard they would default, now they inflate. The US can issue debt in USD and even print 1 trillion USD coins. But what happens to the value of the currency when they repeatedly do that? Crypto (and other assets obviously) can act as a hedge against such bad government behavior.
    - ceejayoz 3y ago
      > The US can issue debt in USD and even print 1 trillion USD coins. But what happens to the value of the currency when they repeatedly do that? Thus far, not all that much of consequence. > Crypto (and other assets obviously) can act as a hedge against such bad government behavior. Objection, Your Honor. Assumes facts not in evidence.
super256 3y ago
I tried wise some time ago. I wanted to send Euros to them, convert it to USD and then send it from my wise account to an American Bank account. To my dismay, I found that wise doesn't do Swift transactions in USD to bank accounts in the USA. I actually thought that was the whole idea behind wise, but apparently not? The other option was to pay my bank an additional 40€+ fee for each Swift transaction, which is too much if you need to wire money every month to the states. USDC was the cheapest option in the end (Coinbase doesn't charge for SEPA -> Coinbase and the EUR/USDC exchange rate is closely tracking EUR/USD). I would agree that >99% of the tokens and cryptocurrencies are garbage. But I would be sad to see Bitcoin and Monero dying.
- bentcorner 3y ago
  I'm not a banking person but if you have a US bank account can't you do an ACH transfer from Wise to your bank?
  - wiredfool 3y ago
    Yeah, I don’t know why you’d want to use Swift, as that’s more an international rail. ACH or Wire are the standards inside the US, along with some of the newer proprietary stuff like Zelle.
    - super256 3y ago
      Wire costs 40€ from my bank which I didn’t want to pay.
      - philipwhiuk 3y ago
        How much did you pay in BTC fees?
        MacsHeadroom 3y ago
        He said he used USDC, likely on a rollup which is typically around 1 cent to 50 cents.
scottiebarnes 3y ago
Your mistake is in understanding that crypto (Bitcoin) isn't just a transmission network, it is protocol with a defined supply rate. Your payment pipelines become less valuable when nobody wants those Liras, Bolivars, Argentine Pesos, etc. transmitted over them. And if you don't think that the US dollar is at risk of debasing itself, you should qualify why.
- gitfan86 3y ago
  The USD lost 98% of its value before bitcoin ever existed. The idea that sophisticated investors have been putting their money into USD and need crypto people to explain inflation to them is ridiculous. It is equally ridiculous that crypto people think that having a fixed supply of something makes it valuable. Oceanfront property in Miami is also limited, but crypto people are not pumping that because they are not invested in Miami oceanfront property.
  - scottiebarnes 3y ago
    > The idea that sophisticated investors have been putting their money into USD and need crypto people to explain inflation to them is ridiculous. "Sophisticated investors" never had access to an asset whose supply was predictable (resistant to debasement), but also decentralized and permissionless to participate in. "Sophisticated investors" should probably know their monetary history, including why gold evolved as a world standard until Bretton Woods. And the types of money societies used before that. > It is equally ridiculous that crypto people think that having a fixed supply of something makes it valuable. Oceanfront property in Miami is also limited, but crypto people are not pumping that because they are not invested in Miami oceanfront property. Not sure what you mean, the lead up to 2008 was a pretty interesting time for real estate developers, why would crypto people be talking about condos?
    - gitfan86 3y ago
      Sophisticated investors generally do not want "decentralized and permissionless" assets. They want government and legal protections. Maybe you thing they are wrong for wanting that, because maybe you think the government is a threat to their wealth, and that is fine to have that opinion but the market for "decentralized and permissionless" isn't very big, which is why you don't see much money going into crypto anymore.
bscphil 3y ago
Part of the issue is that rightly or wrongly, all of its strengths have effectively been regulated out of existence. I needed to quickly send some money internationally for a perfectly legal purpose. I have an old Coinbase account I wanted to use for the purpose that I hadn't left any money in (because crypto is not a good investment vehicle). Thanks to changes in KYC laws, I found myself completely unable to do this. I had to give them a very uncomfortable amount of information just to unlock the account (including a scan of my driver's license and my social security number). At this point, they still wouldn't let me deposit any cash without further verification. They then proceeded to refuse to let me verify every payment method I tried using (including debit card, PayPal, checking account... they were "unable to verify" any of them). There was some third party service they wanted to use that would literally log into my bank account to provide verification (??!!), but I drew the line there. So I just ... gave up. Forget any of the more interesting uses of crypto. We're not even talking gray market goods here (it would be interesting for people who need cheap insulin to be able to order it from international pharmacies in countries with lax laws, for example). We're talking boring ordinary transfers, effectively made impossible by regulation. And yes, there are a lot of scams in crypto. It's not very economically or environmentally efficient (usually). Maybe it deserves to be regulated out of existence. But I do know that for a while it was able to do some things that were difficult or annoying to do in other ways.
- eli 3y ago
  Well yeah of course it would be easier to send money without any KYC laws. That has nothing to do with crypto.
  - bscphil 3y ago
    The point is that crypto used to be able to do that, trivially. So it very much speaks to the question of whether crypto has any strengths versus other approaches to the same problems. It used to, and doesn't anymore.
    - jandrese 3y ago
      Unfortunately, that strength mostly boils down to "you can launder money with it". The idea that it would maintain that property indefinitely seems naiive at best. "I've made the perfect platform for criminals, but for some reason there are a lot of people using it for crimes and now law enforcement is shutting me down! This is an outrage!" This reminds me of why there are so few ways to simply send someone a large file on the Internet. All of the easy ways make it too easy to spread copyrighted worked, so they all need to suck in one way or another to avoid being shut down.
JumpCrisscross 3y ago
> Crypto is a complete scam, with no legitimate or legal use case and nothing else to offer anybody It’s gambling. It should be regulated and taxed like gambling. It shouldn’t be banned, and academic exploration should be unfettered. But anyone making money off it should be monitored by the public and the law, and pay for that oversight.
- goodpoint 3y ago
  It's much worse than that. It's a huge enabler for ransomware and other crimes with a side serving of environmental impact.
  - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
    > a huge enabler for ransomware This is a downside. But I don’t think it’s a crippling one. Tax and regulate the people proximate to it, and the system should net out.
bertil 3y ago
“Crypto” was started by a paper that suggested solving the two-general problem, a question of coordination without trust, with a very expensive solution and sensitive to a Sybil attack. For every technology, if you ask “What problem does it solve?” and take into account what limits it has, you can backtrack where it’s useful. Something autonomous, expensive, rugged? Talk to the Army. Something that allows no recourse? Probably people outside of the court system. Crypto makes sense for people who are doing something the government doesn't like, but that isn’t something three-letter agencies are willing to spend billions to fix. So not support terrorism, but possibly extracting currency from a controlled regime. It’s not useless, but it’s not big money, as far as I can tell. I have friends who got in trouble with their government (the spicy kind of ecologists). They have an interesting project around Crypto: communication to evade surveillance. I’m not sure there are many others legitimate uses. But it’s not zero.
- saurik 3y ago
  > Something that allows no recourse? Probably people outside of the court system. Craigslist--when you go to like, sell your old TV--actively tells people not to accept online payments from people because they can be reversed. Why? Because the risk to someone who has a single TV to sell is very different from the risk to someone selling hundreds of TVs, and so the person you need to protect is the seller, not the buyer. Also, you can totally build a system on top of crypto platforms that supports reversing transactions: it is, at the end of the day, fully programmable money. It's main claim to fame is that it is decentralized and transparent in implementation, and I'd have thought those would be universally good things, right? But like, frankly, your position here just sounds like some naive form of how we should refuse to give anyone autonomy (which almost all of these systems provide) or privacy (which the better systems provide) because good people have nothing to hide :(. Everyone deserves end-to-end encrypted permissionless communication, and the same everyone deserves zero-knowledge protocol permissionless payments.
- philipwhiuk 3y ago
  > So not support terrorism, but possibly extracting currency from a controlled regime We have controls on regimes normally because the two are highly correlated.
mattdesl 3y ago
All of these proposed alternatives are centrally owned either by a private company or state central bank, and only work in and between specific countries. Crypto lies in stark contrast as a shared and open source protocol across the globe, that is not as easily centrally owned. Whether that is worth the pains of self custody, throughput and volatility is going to depend on who you ask.
- philipwhiuk 3y ago
  Rubbish, there's already big companies set up to re-centralise it. What wallet are you using. You don't have to use a regular bank either you know, cash is way less traceable than Bitcoin.
  - mattdesl 3y ago
    > What wallet are you using. There are hundreds of wallets, some of them OSS, some of them closed source, some of them homebrew. I have used several different wallets, including some that I have coded myself from lower level cryptographic APIs. This is the beauty of it: users are not limited to MetaMask, just like users are not limited to browsing the web in Chrome - despite it obviously having major market share. And cash is a poor substitute.
    - retornam 3y ago
      Where do you live? Almost all of Africa, many parts of South-East Asia, India, many parts (if not all) of China, and nearly all of South America are heavily cash-based societies. Try to work your way up to Northern Burkina Faso, which has little to no electricity in most places, and your stance on cash being a poor substitute will quickly change.
      - mattdesl 3y ago
        The context of my original post is referring to transactions across the globe, for which cash is obviously a poor substitute.
splinter_cell 3y ago
All those payment systems you mentioned are centralized and the gov can shut you down if they dont like you. The UPI in specific has been used to shut down protestors across India who dare to protest agaist the fascist Indian regime. Waving flags for payment systems that enable fascist wannabe dictators to cling on to power - well done. "FedNow is coming in a months time so it should hasten crypto’s inevitable downfall faster." You arent even trying to be original here. Wonder which twitter account you stole that from

UncleOxidant 3y ago

Just googled FedNow and there's FAQ where one of the questions is "Will FedNow replace services like Venmo, Cashap, zelle..." and the answer there is no... which doesn't make sense if it's suppose to be a way to instantly transfer money. Wouldn't FedNow replace all of those?

ttyprintk 3y ago
Prior commentary: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32510581 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32510581
ianburrell 3y ago
FedNow is the replacement for ETF. It is a service not an app. Venmo, Cashapp, and Zelle apps are built on top of ETF service. Those apps will presumably switch to FedNow. It is will likely be integrated into bank apps sort of like Zelle is now. I really hope that different apps will be able to send money to each other.

jahsome 3y ago

Slightly off-topic rant: it seems (at least in hn circles) all the crypto buzz generation has found a new target in AI. Whereas prior to GPT-3 _every_ problem's solution according to a certain crowd was a hefty dose of web3/crypto, it seems now the consensus among a comparably sized crowd is that AI is actually the answer to all of humanity's pressing issues.

amalcon 3y ago
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/39828-i-ve-come-up-with-a-set-of-rules-that-describe https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/39828-i-ve-come-up-with-a-s... I'm not sure what fraction of HN is between 15 and 35 years old, but it's probably pretty high. Lots of people want to get a career in the new and exciting thing. (I jest, but I do think there's some truth at the core here)
- jahsome 3y ago
  I tend to agree, and appreciate the reference! I will also age out of this bracket in the latter half of this year :) I just find it so funny, almost like someone did a s/crypto/ai in the uberelite techie hivemind.
scottiebarnes 3y ago
Social media is media. Media surfaces to the top any subject which draws attention.
- jahsome 3y ago
  I'm more taken by the degree of apparent fervor and unceremonious abandonment for the next shiny thing. I'm not surprised, I am just disappointed. Perhaps it's ego, but I expect better out of hn participants.
wustangdan 3y ago
IMO you just found another area where Sturgeon's Law applies (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturgeon%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturgeon%27s_law).
- jahsome 3y ago
  I wasn't personally aware of this Law. In recent years I have worked quite hard to rid myself of such thinking, in favor of a more positive outlook, even if it's slightly forced. As a result, I've found myself much more at peace with the world, and generally in a better mood. I'd like to think I'm a better version of myself sans cynicism but maintain a healthy dose of skepticism. I'm not sure I bought in at first, but I've slowly come to realize the benefit of actively acknowledging goodness. +1 for "fake it til ya make it." That said, there's certainly a significant part of my psyche with which the sentiment of the law resonates.

throw3052023 3y ago

[flagged]

wustangdan 3y ago

No legal use case? Really? Honest question are you legitimately excited for FedNow? What problem will it solve? What does FedNow have to do with cryptos downfall? Does FedNow fix our 120% debt to gdp ratio? Estimates of inflation required to get our debt to gdp back to 50% is 4-5 years of 12-20% inflation. You don't want inflation? Well then I guess the US is going to default on our loans. 98% of countries in the last 120 years that had a debt to gdp of 130% has either defaulted or had massive inflation (only exception is Japan which is still in progress, currently holding off because its positive NIIP, US has negative NIIP). For the US it's either default, print, or hope for a miracle.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
ceejayoz 3y ago
> 98% of countries in the last 120 years that had a debt to gdp of 130% has either defaulted or had massive inflation Sounds impressive, but this stat relies heavily on a) developed world nations and b) nations back when we had the inflexible gold standard. The US also benefits dramatically from being able to issue debt in USD, which it controls.
- wustangdan 3y ago
  Yes exactly, on gold standard they would default, now they inflate. The US can issue debt in USD and even print 1 trillion USD coins. But what happens to the value of the currency when they repeatedly do that? Crypto (and other assets obviously) can act as a hedge against such bad government behavior.
  - ceejayoz 3y ago
    > The US can issue debt in USD and even print 1 trillion USD coins. But what happens to the value of the currency when they repeatedly do that? Thus far, not all that much of consequence. > Crypto (and other assets obviously) can act as a hedge against such bad government behavior. Objection, Your Honor. Assumes facts not in evidence.

super256 3y ago

I tried wise some time ago. I wanted to send Euros to them, convert it to USD and then send it from my wise account to an American Bank account. To my dismay, I found that wise doesn't do Swift transactions in USD to bank accounts in the USA. I actually thought that was the whole idea behind wise, but apparently not? The other option was to pay my bank an additional 40€+ fee for each Swift transaction, which is too much if you need to wire money every month to the states. USDC was the cheapest option in the end (Coinbase doesn't charge for SEPA -> Coinbase and the EUR/USDC exchange rate is closely tracking EUR/USD). I would agree that >99% of the tokens and cryptocurrencies are garbage. But I would be sad to see Bitcoin and Monero dying.

bentcorner 3y ago
I'm not a banking person but if you have a US bank account can't you do an ACH transfer from Wise to your bank?
- wiredfool 3y ago
  Yeah, I don’t know why you’d want to use Swift, as that’s more an international rail. ACH or Wire are the standards inside the US, along with some of the newer proprietary stuff like Zelle.
  - super256 3y ago
    Wire costs 40€ from my bank which I didn’t want to pay.
    - philipwhiuk 3y ago
      How much did you pay in BTC fees?
      - MacsHeadroom 3y ago
        He said he used USDC, likely on a rollup which is typically around 1 cent to 50 cents.

scottiebarnes 3y ago

Your mistake is in understanding that crypto (Bitcoin) isn't just a transmission network, it is protocol with a defined supply rate. Your payment pipelines become less valuable when nobody wants those Liras, Bolivars, Argentine Pesos, etc. transmitted over them. And if you don't think that the US dollar is at risk of debasing itself, you should qualify why.

gitfan86 3y ago
The USD lost 98% of its value before bitcoin ever existed. The idea that sophisticated investors have been putting their money into USD and need crypto people to explain inflation to them is ridiculous. It is equally ridiculous that crypto people think that having a fixed supply of something makes it valuable. Oceanfront property in Miami is also limited, but crypto people are not pumping that because they are not invested in Miami oceanfront property.
- scottiebarnes 3y ago
  > The idea that sophisticated investors have been putting their money into USD and need crypto people to explain inflation to them is ridiculous. "Sophisticated investors" never had access to an asset whose supply was predictable (resistant to debasement), but also decentralized and permissionless to participate in. "Sophisticated investors" should probably know their monetary history, including why gold evolved as a world standard until Bretton Woods. And the types of money societies used before that. > It is equally ridiculous that crypto people think that having a fixed supply of something makes it valuable. Oceanfront property in Miami is also limited, but crypto people are not pumping that because they are not invested in Miami oceanfront property. Not sure what you mean, the lead up to 2008 was a pretty interesting time for real estate developers, why would crypto people be talking about condos?
  - gitfan86 3y ago
    Sophisticated investors generally do not want "decentralized and permissionless" assets. They want government and legal protections. Maybe you thing they are wrong for wanting that, because maybe you think the government is a threat to their wealth, and that is fine to have that opinion but the market for "decentralized and permissionless" isn't very big, which is why you don't see much money going into crypto anymore.

bscphil 3y ago

Part of the issue is that rightly or wrongly, all of its strengths have effectively been regulated out of existence. I needed to quickly send some money internationally for a perfectly legal purpose. I have an old Coinbase account I wanted to use for the purpose that I hadn't left any money in (because crypto is not a good investment vehicle). Thanks to changes in KYC laws, I found myself completely unable to do this. I had to give them a very uncomfortable amount of information just to unlock the account (including a scan of my driver's license and my social security number). At this point, they still wouldn't let me deposit any cash without further verification. They then proceeded to refuse to let me verify every payment method I tried using (including debit card, PayPal, checking account... they were "unable to verify" any of them). There was some third party service they wanted to use that would literally log into my bank account to provide verification (??!!), but I drew the line there. So I just ... gave up. Forget any of the more interesting uses of crypto. We're not even talking gray market goods here (it would be interesting for people who need cheap insulin to be able to order it from international pharmacies in countries with lax laws, for example). We're talking boring ordinary transfers, effectively made impossible by regulation. And yes, there are a lot of scams in crypto. It's not very economically or environmentally efficient (usually). Maybe it deserves to be regulated out of existence. But I do know that for a while it was able to do some things that were difficult or annoying to do in other ways.

eli 3y ago
Well yeah of course it would be easier to send money without any KYC laws. That has nothing to do with crypto.
- bscphil 3y ago
  The point is that crypto used to be able to do that, trivially. So it very much speaks to the question of whether crypto has any strengths versus other approaches to the same problems. It used to, and doesn't anymore.
  - jandrese 3y ago
    Unfortunately, that strength mostly boils down to "you can launder money with it". The idea that it would maintain that property indefinitely seems naiive at best. "I've made the perfect platform for criminals, but for some reason there are a lot of people using it for crimes and now law enforcement is shutting me down! This is an outrage!" This reminds me of why there are so few ways to simply send someone a large file on the Internet. All of the easy ways make it too easy to spread copyrighted worked, so they all need to suck in one way or another to avoid being shut down.

JumpCrisscross 3y ago

> Crypto is a complete scam, with no legitimate or legal use case and nothing else to offer anybody It’s gambling. It should be regulated and taxed like gambling. It shouldn’t be banned, and academic exploration should be unfettered. But anyone making money off it should be monitored by the public and the law, and pay for that oversight.

goodpoint 3y ago
It's much worse than that. It's a huge enabler for ransomware and other crimes with a side serving of environmental impact.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago
  > a huge enabler for ransomware This is a downside. But I don’t think it’s a crippling one. Tax and regulate the people proximate to it, and the system should net out.

bertil 3y ago

“Crypto” was started by a paper that suggested solving the two-general problem, a question of coordination without trust, with a very expensive solution and sensitive to a Sybil attack. For every technology, if you ask “What problem does it solve?” and take into account what limits it has, you can backtrack where it’s useful. Something autonomous, expensive, rugged? Talk to the Army. Something that allows no recourse? Probably people outside of the court system. Crypto makes sense for people who are doing something the government doesn't like, but that isn’t something three-letter agencies are willing to spend billions to fix. So not support terrorism, but possibly extracting currency from a controlled regime. It’s not useless, but it’s not big money, as far as I can tell. I have friends who got in trouble with their government (the spicy kind of ecologists). They have an interesting project around Crypto: communication to evade surveillance. I’m not sure there are many others legitimate uses. But it’s not zero.

saurik 3y ago
> Something that allows no recourse? Probably people outside of the court system. Craigslist--when you go to like, sell your old TV--actively tells people not to accept online payments from people because they can be reversed. Why? Because the risk to someone who has a single TV to sell is very different from the risk to someone selling hundreds of TVs, and so the person you need to protect is the seller, not the buyer. Also, you can totally build a system on top of crypto platforms that supports reversing transactions: it is, at the end of the day, fully programmable money. It's main claim to fame is that it is decentralized and transparent in implementation, and I'd have thought those would be universally good things, right? But like, frankly, your position here just sounds like some naive form of how we should refuse to give anyone autonomy (which almost all of these systems provide) or privacy (which the better systems provide) because good people have nothing to hide :(. Everyone deserves end-to-end encrypted permissionless communication, and the same everyone deserves zero-knowledge protocol permissionless payments.
philipwhiuk 3y ago
> So not support terrorism, but possibly extracting currency from a controlled regime We have controls on regimes normally because the two are highly correlated.

mattdesl 3y ago

All of these proposed alternatives are centrally owned either by a private company or state central bank, and only work in and between specific countries. Crypto lies in stark contrast as a shared and open source protocol across the globe, that is not as easily centrally owned. Whether that is worth the pains of self custody, throughput and volatility is going to depend on who you ask.

philipwhiuk 3y ago
Rubbish, there's already big companies set up to re-centralise it. What wallet are you using. You don't have to use a regular bank either you know, cash is way less traceable than Bitcoin.
- mattdesl 3y ago
  > What wallet are you using. There are hundreds of wallets, some of them OSS, some of them closed source, some of them homebrew. I have used several different wallets, including some that I have coded myself from lower level cryptographic APIs. This is the beauty of it: users are not limited to MetaMask, just like users are not limited to browsing the web in Chrome - despite it obviously having major market share. And cash is a poor substitute.
  - retornam 3y ago
    Where do you live? Almost all of Africa, many parts of South-East Asia, India, many parts (if not all) of China, and nearly all of South America are heavily cash-based societies. Try to work your way up to Northern Burkina Faso, which has little to no electricity in most places, and your stance on cash being a poor substitute will quickly change.
    - mattdesl 3y ago
      The context of my original post is referring to transactions across the globe, for which cash is obviously a poor substitute.

splinter_cell 3y ago

All those payment systems you mentioned are centralized and the gov can shut you down if they dont like you. The UPI in specific has been used to shut down protestors across India who dare to protest agaist the fascist Indian regime. Waving flags for payment systems that enable fascist wannabe dictators to cling on to power - well done. "FedNow is coming in a months time so it should hasten crypto’s inevitable downfall faster." You arent even trying to be original here. Wonder which twitter account you stole that from