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There are plenty of real world uses. - https://time.com/5486673/bitcoin-venezuela-authoritarian/ https://time.com/5486673/bitcoin-venezuela-authoritarian/ - h

There are plenty of real world uses. - https://time.com/5486673/bitcoin-venezuela-authoritarian/ https://time.com/5486673/bitcoin-venezuela-authoritarian/ - https://coincodecap.com/danish-reporters-in-ukraine-buy-used-car-with-bitcoins https://coincodecap.com/danish-reporters-in-ukraine-buy-used... - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33644090 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33644090 People from wealthy countries tend to reject the legitimacy of these uses because "my country is stable and could never have these problems", or "if buying food is illegal, you shouldn't buy food, you financial criminal", or "I have no trouble sending fiat money where I need to at the click of a button", but that doesn't mean everyone on the planet is in as fortunate a position as you. It's quite selfish to say a technology is useless unless it benefits you personally. I wish humanity as a species could rise above that level of selfishness. Crypto gets its value from being a system that continues working quietly and reliably in the background when other centralized systems falter or turn against their users. As long as it's still helping people, we should keep building it.

jacksnipe 3y ago
People tend to reject it because it makes negative economic sense for a country with a powerful currency to allow the replacement of that currency, so they won’t. Becoming the next Greece cannot save you.
- lordfrito 3y ago
  Yes, this exactly. The Greek economy may be better than the Somalian economy, but that doesn't make it The Future of Finance.
lordfrito 3y ago
> As long as it's still helping people, we should keep building it. What if it's hurting more people than it's helping? Just seems like a handwavy way to ignore the scams, fraud and collateral damage. We're talking billions. If we want to spend capital to help people in other countries, there are better ways of doing so. I do not believe for one second that the people from rich countries spending money in this space are doing it to help poor people in other countries. It's great spin though.
- EscapeFromNY 3y ago
  If it's hurting more than it's helping, then we should probably get rid of it. But you'd need to bring some data proving as much. The attention grabbing headlines that linger in your memory are a biased sub-sample. For bitcoin specifically, a notable crypto skeptic Igor Makarov determined[1]: > illegal transactions, scams and gambling together make up less than 3% of volume To me, 3% is an acceptable level. It's a lower percentage than the black market in many countries even. The reasons people contribute to crypto projects are as diverse as the reasons people contribute to open source in general. Some people want to get rich overnight, others contribute as part of their day job so they can go home at 5pm, and others are genuinely altruistic, though you may not believe it. It's reductive to paint everyone with the same broad brush. [1]: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3942181 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3942181
  - greatwave1 3y ago
    > illegal transactions, scams and gambling together make up less than 3% of volume > To me, 3% is an acceptable level. It's a lower percentage than the black market in many countries even. Yeah, but that's because the vast majority of volume comes from speculation and wash trading lmao. What do you think the ratio of speculation and illegal activity to legitimate use cases is? I'd be willing to be it's greater than 10:1, maybe even 100:1
    - EscapeFromNY 3y ago
      You don't have to bet, the data is in the paper I linked. 75% of bitcoin volume is speculation. Meanwhile in the traditional economy, 95% of global financial activity is speculation (see below). What level of speculation would you say is high enough to justify throwing away the remaining productive uses of an asset class? --- In 2019, forex volume was $6.6T per day[1], or $1716T per year. In 2019, global GDP was $87.3T[2]. That's less than 5% economically meaningful activity. [1]: https://www.financemagnates.com/institutional-forex/execution/bis-survey-daily-fx-volumes-jump-30-to-6-6-trillion-in-2019/ https://www.financemagnates.com/institutional-forex/executio... [2]: https://www.statista.com/statistics/268750/global-gross-domestic-product-gdp/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/268750/global-gross-dome...
pessimizer 3y ago
This is the same use: evading local laws. You just think it's good when it's a government you don't like.
- EscapeFromNY 3y ago
  Sometimes yes, sometimes no. In the second and third links, what laws were being evaded?

jacksnipe 3y ago

People tend to reject it because it makes negative economic sense for a country with a powerful currency to allow the replacement of that currency, so they won’t. Becoming the next Greece cannot save you.

lordfrito 3y ago
Yes, this exactly. The Greek economy may be better than the Somalian economy, but that doesn't make it The Future of Finance.

lordfrito 3y ago

> As long as it's still helping people, we should keep building it. What if it's hurting more people than it's helping? Just seems like a handwavy way to ignore the scams, fraud and collateral damage. We're talking billions. If we want to spend capital to help people in other countries, there are better ways of doing so. I do not believe for one second that the people from rich countries spending money in this space are doing it to help poor people in other countries. It's great spin though.

EscapeFromNY 3y ago
If it's hurting more than it's helping, then we should probably get rid of it. But you'd need to bring some data proving as much. The attention grabbing headlines that linger in your memory are a biased sub-sample. For bitcoin specifically, a notable crypto skeptic Igor Makarov determined[1]: > illegal transactions, scams and gambling together make up less than 3% of volume To me, 3% is an acceptable level. It's a lower percentage than the black market in many countries even. The reasons people contribute to crypto projects are as diverse as the reasons people contribute to open source in general. Some people want to get rich overnight, others contribute as part of their day job so they can go home at 5pm, and others are genuinely altruistic, though you may not believe it. It's reductive to paint everyone with the same broad brush. [1]: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3942181 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3942181
- greatwave1 3y ago
  > illegal transactions, scams and gambling together make up less than 3% of volume > To me, 3% is an acceptable level. It's a lower percentage than the black market in many countries even. Yeah, but that's because the vast majority of volume comes from speculation and wash trading lmao. What do you think the ratio of speculation and illegal activity to legitimate use cases is? I'd be willing to be it's greater than 10:1, maybe even 100:1
  - EscapeFromNY 3y ago
    You don't have to bet, the data is in the paper I linked. 75% of bitcoin volume is speculation. Meanwhile in the traditional economy, 95% of global financial activity is speculation (see below). What level of speculation would you say is high enough to justify throwing away the remaining productive uses of an asset class? --- In 2019, forex volume was $6.6T per day[1], or $1716T per year. In 2019, global GDP was $87.3T[2]. That's less than 5% economically meaningful activity. [1]: https://www.financemagnates.com/institutional-forex/execution/bis-survey-daily-fx-volumes-jump-30-to-6-6-trillion-in-2019/ https://www.financemagnates.com/institutional-forex/executio... [2]: https://www.statista.com/statistics/268750/global-gross-domestic-product-gdp/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/268750/global-gross-dome...

pessimizer 3y ago

This is the same use: evading local laws. You just think it's good when it's a government you don't like.

EscapeFromNY 3y ago
Sometimes yes, sometimes no. In the second and third links, what laws were being evaded?