3 ms·
It's also the #1 use case for $100 US dollar bills. Most US $100 bills, in fact, are not even in the US.[a][b] US $100 bills are the currency of choice for sma
by cs702 8mo ago
It's also the #1 use case for $100 US dollar bills. Most US $100 bills, in fact, are not even in the US.[a][b]
US $100 bills are the currency of choice for small-time crooks and evildoers around the world.
They are also the currency of choice for big-time crooks and evildoers. Briefcases of US $100 bills have long been used for illicit payments, as depicted in numerous books and movies.
Just because crooks and evildoers use US $100 bills doesn't mean they are not useful and valuable to honest people too.
What Binance did was wrong, no doubt, but Binance ≠ crypto.
--
[a] https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-economy/2022/oct/innocent-greenbacks-abroad-us-currency-held-internationally https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-economy/2022/oct/innocent-...
[b] https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2013/04/12/177051690/most-100-bills-live-outside-the-u-s https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2013/04/12/177051690/most...
- dylan604 8mo ago> Just because criminals and evildoers use US $100 bills doesn't mean they are not useful and valuable to honest people too. Like all of the ATMs near a dispensary that was always out of cash because 20 individual $20 bills runs out a lot faster than 4 $100 bills. Until dispensaries became legal, it was rare for me to see an ATM with anything other than $20s. Now, I see $20, $50, $100 dispensing machines regularly.
- michaelt 8mo ago> Now, I see $20, $50, $100 dispensing machines regularly. There's also been a lot of inflation. If you held a $50 bill in 1997, or a $20 bill in 1978, then you held a note worth more than a $100 bill today.
- crazygringo 8mo agoThere's a major distinction, however, in that it's a heck of a lot harder to safely and reliably lug briefcases or suitcases full of $100 bills from Chicago to Tehran, than it is to click and transfer some Bitcoin. Which is the whole point.
- cs702 8mo agoYeah, crypto is a safer, more reliable alternative for many use cases, including those that are fundamentally honest. For instance, if you're an honest person trapped as a citizen in a despotic authoritarian state that doesn't respect your property rights, crypto may be the safest, most reliable alternative for storing and transferring your hard-earned savings.
- gpt5 8mo agoIronically, crypto has developed something significantly better for these use cases called stablecoin, which isn't really decentralized.
- hephaes7us 8mo agoA currency peg is a double-edged sword in and of itself, to say nothing of the risk brought into the equation by having to trust a stablecoin issuer.
- jazzyjackson 8mo agoYes, mostly they are distributed via pallets out the back of C130s (Definitely in Iraq and Afghanistan, I don't know if there's any back channel deals at the moment paying off Iranians in 100$ bills but I wouldn't be surprised if we were nudging for regime change by funding revolutionaries)
- crazygringo 8mo agoYeah, I'm pretty sure that's limited exclusively to countries the US is currently invading...
- dpc050505 8mo agoThat cash keeps circulating among global black markets after any given invasion.
- cyberax 8mo agoA briefcase of $100 notes is just around 1 million. That's like a tip you give to a waiter these days in the world of crypto. At the scale of cryptocrime, you'd be looking at trucks filled with $100 notes.
- m463 8mo agoI knew someone who ran an exchange house (like the kind you find in airports) He said that euros are very popular because there are 500 euro bills. I guess they stopped making them.