7 ms·

I what way does an average consumer/user get value from crypto?

by kwonkicker 3y ago

__loam 3y ago
Crypto is still one of the best ways to do foreign exchange even if the ecosystem is run by morally bankrupt hucksters.
charcircuit 3y ago
The ability to transact with people that card processors do not like. The ability to self custody.
- mminer237 3y ago
  The average person has no need to transact with people that card processors do not like. The most common scenario where that is the case is people "needing" to pay "Microsoft support".
  - jrockway 3y ago
    Yeah. I have to say, I've never needed to give money to someone my bank doesn't want me to give money to. As someone spending money, I don't want guarantees like "this transaction cannot be revoked". I want to revoke transactions sometimes! Thus, crypto is anti-value-add for me. (Some would argue, merchants would charge lower prices if all sales were final. That's probably true! But it would depend on them never making a mistake, and everyone makes mistakes.)
  - charcircuit 3y ago
    Expand card processors to payment processors. There is constantly sites that get unjustly restricted or banned from payment processor like PayPal and Stripe. Even Minecraft, one of the most popular games of all time, had issues with PayPal.
  - atrus 3y ago
    Porn and sexual stuff is always on shaky ground with card processors.
- SwiftyBug 3y ago
  The ability to self-custody is not something average, every day people need.
  - charcircuit 3y ago
    That is like saying insurance is not in not something average, every day people need. If the rare event doesn't happen to you then yes it is a waste of money, but if it does you will be thankful to have it.
    - SwiftyBug 3y ago
      The same thing can be said about having bulletproof cars, wearing a helmet anytime when you are outside, carrying a lifejacket with you all the time. Those are things that cater to specific threat models. And those are not the threat models of average, every day people.
      - charcircuit 3y ago
        Average people address it by having cash. If you want digital cash crypto is your best option.
- pavlov 3y ago
  In other words, extremely niche use cases. I'm a crypto sceptic but I wasn't always like that. There was a time many years ago when Ethereum was brand new and I was an eager early adopter. I tried creating wallets, tried running a node to see what it does, put in some money through an exchange, and then... Nothing. There was nothing to do after jumping through all those hoops. In fact, turns out the only thing to do with the crypto wallet was to wait for its value to maybe increase over time. (Hence the "number go up" meme.) And for that to be realized, I would need to sell the coins to a new sucker to get real money out again — suspiciously pyramid-like. And it's still like that today. There's no reason for me to ever open those old wallets again (and surely I don't even have the passwords anymore because self-custody is such a terrible idea UX-wise). And there's no reason to try any of the new stuff because it still obviously does nothing I'd need. The early Internet wasn't like that. There was plenty to see and try, and interesting people to interact with. Once you tried it, you probably wanted to go back. Today's early AI is like the early Internet in all the ways that crypto isn't and never will be. There's plenty you can do with ChatGPT and other models, right off the bat. You can install interesting stuff locally or run it on somebody else's server. You don't need to run the crypto-style terrible UX gauntlet and buy coins from a shady operator. AI is already so much easier and more useful and more powerful than crypto-web3-anything, it's competing in a completely different race. OpenSea has lost 99% of their transaction volume in the past year, and even more of their revenue. I'd be shocked if the same happens to OpenAI. One was a fad, the other isn't.
  - kkielhofner 3y ago
    You sound a lot like me. I ran full nodes, wrote smart contracts, even had 200 GPUs mining ethereum at one point. I still have a bunch of wallets, exchange accounts, ENS names, you name it. Interesting, kind of fun, but then a big "Ok, now what?". Turns out not much other than writing some crypto thing to do another crypto thing that does another crypto thing. Since getting generally disgusted with the sleaze I saw from the inside I haven't touched any of it in years. How much difference has this made in my life? Zero (other than not being grossed out on a regular basis). How many times have I had to dust off a wallet or write a smart contract to do something I couldn't do better, faster, and cheaper elsewhere? Zero. How many times have I wanted to buy something and needed crypto? Zero. My experience is an anecdote for the entire space - a lot of time, money, and energy spent with no tangible value and nothing to show for it. Ethereum is over eight years old, bitcoin nearly 15. ChatGPT has been out for less than a year and I use it on a daily basis to save time and come up with fairly novel things I'm not sure I could on my own. Of course the roots of ChatGPT go back quite far but then again so do merkle trees. I wish I would have saved the time, money, and grey hairs on crypto for "AI" - I have way more fun with Llama, Whisper, and dozens of other models with immediate and real use cases on a daily basis.
jejeyyy77 3y ago
send and receive money globally without any intermediary?
- lern_too_spel 3y ago
  So by breaking the law.
- pavlov 3y ago
  Let's say I want to send money from New York to Rome. How does crypto enable me sending USD and the receiver getting EUR without any intermediaries? You need exchanges to do anything useful in crypto. And as we've seen most recently in the FTX case, all the exchanges are wretched hives of scum and villainy.
  - damon_c 3y ago
    > all the exchanges Not really. There are plenty of decentralized exchanges which are proven, reliable, auditable, generally used by many without issues. see: https://uniswap.org https://uniswap.org https://curve.fi/ https://curve.fi/ https://1inch.io https://1inch.io It's the centralized exchanges, which are more akin to traditional financial institutions whose records are not on a publicly visible blockchain but rather private databases or... apparently spreadsheets... which fall victim to the same issues we have seen in the past in the traditional financial world.
    - pavlov 3y ago
      So how do I send USD to Uniswap, and how does my friend in Rome get EUR out of 1inch.io? If that's not possible, it's useless for the proposed use case: "send and receive money globally without any intermediary".
      - jejeyyy77 3y ago
        So how do I send gold to Chase, and how does my friend in Rome get receive a wire transfer in EUR?
TacticalCoder 3y ago
> I what way does an average consumer/user get value from crypto? Look at venezuela and turkey inflation rate these last two years (and the estimates for the coming years). Look at the SNAFU that happened in Iran and banks defaulting and now inflation kicking in. It may be an ultra risky bet (and there are serious opsec risks too) but when your savings are going lose 90% of their value in two years anyway, why not take it? Bitcoin was, after all, created as a gigantic middle finger in response to infinite money printing. The world is big and there are average consumers in countries other than the US or the EU.
keep_reading 3y ago
Look beyond the West for your answer

I what way does an average consumer/user get value from crypto?

__loam 3y ago

Crypto is still one of the best ways to do foreign exchange even if the ecosystem is run by morally bankrupt hucksters.

charcircuit 3y ago

The ability to transact with people that card processors do not like. The ability to self custody.

mminer237 3y ago
The average person has no need to transact with people that card processors do not like. The most common scenario where that is the case is people "needing" to pay "Microsoft support".
- jrockway 3y ago
  Yeah. I have to say, I've never needed to give money to someone my bank doesn't want me to give money to. As someone spending money, I don't want guarantees like "this transaction cannot be revoked". I want to revoke transactions sometimes! Thus, crypto is anti-value-add for me. (Some would argue, merchants would charge lower prices if all sales were final. That's probably true! But it would depend on them never making a mistake, and everyone makes mistakes.)
- charcircuit 3y ago
  Expand card processors to payment processors. There is constantly sites that get unjustly restricted or banned from payment processor like PayPal and Stripe. Even Minecraft, one of the most popular games of all time, had issues with PayPal.
- atrus 3y ago
  Porn and sexual stuff is always on shaky ground with card processors.
SwiftyBug 3y ago
The ability to self-custody is not something average, every day people need.
- charcircuit 3y ago
  That is like saying insurance is not in not something average, every day people need. If the rare event doesn't happen to you then yes it is a waste of money, but if it does you will be thankful to have it.
  - SwiftyBug 3y ago
    The same thing can be said about having bulletproof cars, wearing a helmet anytime when you are outside, carrying a lifejacket with you all the time. Those are things that cater to specific threat models. And those are not the threat models of average, every day people.
    - charcircuit 3y ago
      Average people address it by having cash. If you want digital cash crypto is your best option.
pavlov 3y ago
In other words, extremely niche use cases. I'm a crypto sceptic but I wasn't always like that. There was a time many years ago when Ethereum was brand new and I was an eager early adopter. I tried creating wallets, tried running a node to see what it does, put in some money through an exchange, and then... Nothing. There was nothing to do after jumping through all those hoops. In fact, turns out the only thing to do with the crypto wallet was to wait for its value to maybe increase over time. (Hence the "number go up" meme.) And for that to be realized, I would need to sell the coins to a new sucker to get real money out again — suspiciously pyramid-like. And it's still like that today. There's no reason for me to ever open those old wallets again (and surely I don't even have the passwords anymore because self-custody is such a terrible idea UX-wise). And there's no reason to try any of the new stuff because it still obviously does nothing I'd need. The early Internet wasn't like that. There was plenty to see and try, and interesting people to interact with. Once you tried it, you probably wanted to go back. Today's early AI is like the early Internet in all the ways that crypto isn't and never will be. There's plenty you can do with ChatGPT and other models, right off the bat. You can install interesting stuff locally or run it on somebody else's server. You don't need to run the crypto-style terrible UX gauntlet and buy coins from a shady operator. AI is already so much easier and more useful and more powerful than crypto-web3-anything, it's competing in a completely different race. OpenSea has lost 99% of their transaction volume in the past year, and even more of their revenue. I'd be shocked if the same happens to OpenAI. One was a fad, the other isn't.
- kkielhofner 3y ago
  You sound a lot like me. I ran full nodes, wrote smart contracts, even had 200 GPUs mining ethereum at one point. I still have a bunch of wallets, exchange accounts, ENS names, you name it. Interesting, kind of fun, but then a big "Ok, now what?". Turns out not much other than writing some crypto thing to do another crypto thing that does another crypto thing. Since getting generally disgusted with the sleaze I saw from the inside I haven't touched any of it in years. How much difference has this made in my life? Zero (other than not being grossed out on a regular basis). How many times have I had to dust off a wallet or write a smart contract to do something I couldn't do better, faster, and cheaper elsewhere? Zero. How many times have I wanted to buy something and needed crypto? Zero. My experience is an anecdote for the entire space - a lot of time, money, and energy spent with no tangible value and nothing to show for it. Ethereum is over eight years old, bitcoin nearly 15. ChatGPT has been out for less than a year and I use it on a daily basis to save time and come up with fairly novel things I'm not sure I could on my own. Of course the roots of ChatGPT go back quite far but then again so do merkle trees. I wish I would have saved the time, money, and grey hairs on crypto for "AI" - I have way more fun with Llama, Whisper, and dozens of other models with immediate and real use cases on a daily basis.

jejeyyy77 3y ago

send and receive money globally without any intermediary?

lern_too_spel 3y ago
So by breaking the law.
pavlov 3y ago
Let's say I want to send money from New York to Rome. How does crypto enable me sending USD and the receiver getting EUR without any intermediaries? You need exchanges to do anything useful in crypto. And as we've seen most recently in the FTX case, all the exchanges are wretched hives of scum and villainy.
- damon_c 3y ago
  > all the exchanges Not really. There are plenty of decentralized exchanges which are proven, reliable, auditable, generally used by many without issues. see: https://uniswap.org https://uniswap.org https://curve.fi/ https://curve.fi/ https://1inch.io https://1inch.io It's the centralized exchanges, which are more akin to traditional financial institutions whose records are not on a publicly visible blockchain but rather private databases or... apparently spreadsheets... which fall victim to the same issues we have seen in the past in the traditional financial world.
  - pavlov 3y ago
    So how do I send USD to Uniswap, and how does my friend in Rome get EUR out of 1inch.io? If that's not possible, it's useless for the proposed use case: "send and receive money globally without any intermediary".
    - jejeyyy77 3y ago
      So how do I send gold to Chase, and how does my friend in Rome get receive a wire transfer in EUR?

TacticalCoder 3y ago

> I what way does an average consumer/user get value from crypto? Look at venezuela and turkey inflation rate these last two years (and the estimates for the coming years). Look at the SNAFU that happened in Iran and banks defaulting and now inflation kicking in. It may be an ultra risky bet (and there are serious opsec risks too) but when your savings are going lose 90% of their value in two years anyway, why not take it? Bitcoin was, after all, created as a gigantic middle finger in response to infinite money printing. The world is big and there are average consumers in countries other than the US or the EU.

keep_reading 3y ago

Look beyond the West for your answer