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One of the greatest uses of crypto is the ability to transfer any amount of money to any point on earth for next to nothing and no questions asked. That is wor

One of the greatest uses of crypto is the ability to transfer any amount of money to any point on earth for next to nothing and no questions asked. That is worth more than most any other use for crypto.

bandushrew 2y ago
Except that you cant, in a practical sense. I can sell crypto to anyone, anywhere. That cannot be used to purchase anything, anywhere. Its only useful for a very narrow subset.
- solumunus 2y ago
  It can be exchanged for other currencies.
  - ryan_lane 2y ago
    Which requires KYC in most places, and then you're going to start getting asked about the source of those funds. You'll also need to claim it on taxes, which if lied about will cause additional issues. So, yeah, the "no questions asked" part is wrong. You can send money to anyone on earth, after a middleman takes a cut on your fiat exchange, the transfer, and the next fiat exchange, with questions asked, public for the world to see.
    - behringer 2y ago
      You're not being very creative if you can't find someone to buy your crypto.
    - ozgrakkurt 2y ago
      Why is this a problem if you are not doing anything illegal? It is much easier to send and receive money using blockchains
      - ryan_lane 2y ago
        It's not. It's way easier and cheaper to send a bank transfer or wire. Bank transfers and wires also offer more privacy. Unless you're actually going to directly use the cryptocurrency (which is generally impossible), it needs to be converted to/from fiat, which requires a bank transfer.
        ozgrakkurt 2y ago
        For you maybe, but not for me. Wire is 15 usd on receiving end fixed + some percentage of the amount sent. An ethereum transfer is 2 usd or so into my exchange and exchange charges nothing for withdrawal. Wire transfer takes 3-4 days in best case and bank calls me for some bs after 10 days in the worst case and I have to talk to them to approve it. So after 20 mins of clicking some buttons I get my fiat currency in my bank account. And it costs 2 usd + some negligible amount.
evilfred 2y ago
but you can't. you can't send Bitcoin or Eth around the world for "next to nothing" today. not in a reasonable time frame. and that isn't accounting at all for the massive power wastage in the Bitcoin case.
- kfrzcode 2y ago
  My brother, have you heard of HBAR? Hedera is the way.
  - Delmololo 2y ago
    So how would that help me to make sure I retrieve a product or service? What happens when the product is faulty or not even arriving?
    - behringer 2y ago
      How do you get cash back in those cases?
      - Delmololo 2y ago
        You exchange cash only local and either take it back or call the police. That's part of proof of stake of our society. The same with lawyers and normal contracts. All of it is part of our proof of stake. Visa provides insurance and fraud detection.
        behringer 2y ago
        You can do all the above with crypto. Except for the visa thing, which has nothing to do with cash.
        Delmololo 2y ago
        That's not the point. Crypto promised solving the issues of the fiat. It just doesn't do that at all and need all of the mechanics of our proof of stake system while consuming a lot of energy for it's own proof of work.
unusualmonkey 2y ago
So you can use it to conduct illegal cross border money transfers... of course most cryptos aren't anonymous and even those are you still need to transfer it to a local currency etc. for that functionality to be useful.
- csomar 2y ago
  > So you can use it to conduct illegal cross border money transfers That's exactly the use of crypto. Illegal being based on a random law by a random government in a random country.
- behringer 2y ago
  Making it illegal to bring money across borders is the crime.
- ozgrakkurt 2y ago
  Getting payment is crypto is excellent if you live in a third world country like me. And a lot of services are enabling crypto payments so illegal stuff isn’t really all of it. One example is grab app which is huge in asian market. Getting payment and transferring to local currency takes about 20 mins included manual clicks for me. Comparing this to bank system which takes a week and has at least 30x cost, it is obviously a huge improvement.
  - jen729w 2y ago
    OP for this bit of thread here; can confirm that as an Aussie who recently visited Malaysia, getting cash on to Grab was a proper pain in the ass. Had I been able to transfer Eth, which I didn’t see as an option last August, I would have been delighted with such a choice.
Delmololo 2y ago
It's worth basically nothing because no normal human only sends 'value' without receiving something. Bitcoin did not solve any real problem and you still need an additional mechanism to make sure that the thing you get back, actually happens.

bandushrew 2y ago

Except that you cant, in a practical sense. I can sell crypto to anyone, anywhere. That cannot be used to purchase anything, anywhere. Its only useful for a very narrow subset.

solumunus 2y ago
It can be exchanged for other currencies.
- ryan_lane 2y ago
  Which requires KYC in most places, and then you're going to start getting asked about the source of those funds. You'll also need to claim it on taxes, which if lied about will cause additional issues. So, yeah, the "no questions asked" part is wrong. You can send money to anyone on earth, after a middleman takes a cut on your fiat exchange, the transfer, and the next fiat exchange, with questions asked, public for the world to see.
  - behringer 2y ago
    You're not being very creative if you can't find someone to buy your crypto.
  - ozgrakkurt 2y ago
    Why is this a problem if you are not doing anything illegal? It is much easier to send and receive money using blockchains
    - ryan_lane 2y ago
      It's not. It's way easier and cheaper to send a bank transfer or wire. Bank transfers and wires also offer more privacy. Unless you're actually going to directly use the cryptocurrency (which is generally impossible), it needs to be converted to/from fiat, which requires a bank transfer.
      - ozgrakkurt 2y ago
        For you maybe, but not for me. Wire is 15 usd on receiving end fixed + some percentage of the amount sent. An ethereum transfer is 2 usd or so into my exchange and exchange charges nothing for withdrawal. Wire transfer takes 3-4 days in best case and bank calls me for some bs after 10 days in the worst case and I have to talk to them to approve it. So after 20 mins of clicking some buttons I get my fiat currency in my bank account. And it costs 2 usd + some negligible amount.

evilfred 2y ago

but you can't. you can't send Bitcoin or Eth around the world for "next to nothing" today. not in a reasonable time frame. and that isn't accounting at all for the massive power wastage in the Bitcoin case.

kfrzcode 2y ago
My brother, have you heard of HBAR? Hedera is the way.
- Delmololo 2y ago
  So how would that help me to make sure I retrieve a product or service? What happens when the product is faulty or not even arriving?
  - behringer 2y ago
    How do you get cash back in those cases?
    - Delmololo 2y ago
      You exchange cash only local and either take it back or call the police. That's part of proof of stake of our society. The same with lawyers and normal contracts. All of it is part of our proof of stake. Visa provides insurance and fraud detection.
      - behringer 2y ago
        You can do all the above with crypto. Except for the visa thing, which has nothing to do with cash.
        Delmololo 2y ago
        That's not the point. Crypto promised solving the issues of the fiat. It just doesn't do that at all and need all of the mechanics of our proof of stake system while consuming a lot of energy for it's own proof of work.

unusualmonkey 2y ago

So you can use it to conduct illegal cross border money transfers... of course most cryptos aren't anonymous and even those are you still need to transfer it to a local currency etc. for that functionality to be useful.

csomar 2y ago
> So you can use it to conduct illegal cross border money transfers That's exactly the use of crypto. Illegal being based on a random law by a random government in a random country.
behringer 2y ago
Making it illegal to bring money across borders is the crime.
ozgrakkurt 2y ago
Getting payment is crypto is excellent if you live in a third world country like me. And a lot of services are enabling crypto payments so illegal stuff isn’t really all of it. One example is grab app which is huge in asian market. Getting payment and transferring to local currency takes about 20 mins included manual clicks for me. Comparing this to bank system which takes a week and has at least 30x cost, it is obviously a huge improvement.
- jen729w 2y ago
  OP for this bit of thread here; can confirm that as an Aussie who recently visited Malaysia, getting cash on to Grab was a proper pain in the ass. Had I been able to transfer Eth, which I didn’t see as an option last August, I would have been delighted with such a choice.

Delmololo 2y ago

It's worth basically nothing because no normal human only sends 'value' without receiving something. Bitcoin did not solve any real problem and you still need an additional mechanism to make sure that the thing you get back, actually happens.