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Banks are under the same political pressure as Mt Gox is, they're just better at handling pressure and playing nicely with politicians, so you don't hear about
by cynicalkane 13y ago
Banks are under the same political pressure as Mt Gox is, they're just better at handling pressure and playing nicely with politicians, so you don't hear about it as much.
Ever tried to send money to Somalia? If you think that's a silly question, there are a lot of Somalians here in Minneapolis who would like to feed their families back home (and a lot of banks who would like to make money by helping out). But politics makes that very, very hard. This is just one example.
- vacri 13y agoMy friend's Russian father lived in Serbia with his mother when he was a young child. He was entitled to a wage in rubles - he was employed by the Russian government - and he had a nice little triangle going. The Russians had pegged the ruble to the US dollar (or close enough) to avoid looking weak, so the ruble was artificially inflated. Yugoslavia didn't do that, so it had a much weaker currency. He would make his paycheck go ruble > USD > yugoslav currency (can't recall the name) and he made quite a bit of 'free' money that way.
- stfu 13y agoFor things like these Hawala systems are existing ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawala http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawala ). Really a great tool to cut out banks and government control in financial transactions. I wish this somewhat would find its way into the digital age.
- hendzen 13y agoRipple [0] has some similarities to a digital Hawala system. [0] - https://ripple.com/ https://ripple.com/
- junto 13y agoInteresting project. Has it got any traction?
- tixocloud 13y agoThere doesn't seem to be any information about who's behind this? I can see OpenCoin Inc but their site seems to be down. HN effect at work perhaps?
- rfugger 13y agoRipple is run by Jed McCaleb, founder of Mt.Gox, and Chris Larsen, founder of Prosper.com.
- cynicalkane 13y agoYes, and almost all Minneapolis banks will refuse to do business with the hawalas, and hawalas have to move money, and they are also subject to US regulations. I'm not making up issues, you know. Inability to move money to Somalia is a real thing. Here's one link: http://www.startribune.com/local/minneapolis/136396028.html http://www.startribune.com/local/minneapolis/136396028.html
- hippich 13y agoBitcoin IS Hawala =) Just standardized and widespread.