I disagree- I have many of the same questions this person is asking. And like them, I haven't seen answers that really address the questions.

To add another voice: I "get" Bitcoin- I've owned some myself since 2014. I have never been able to "get" Ethereum. Its proponents always talk about "smart contracts" and the like, and how powerful the language is and all of that. Can you provide a real-world, actual example of how this has been used? Something to help it "click" for me?

The actual difference is that Bitcoin has problems with lacking incentives for developing the software. Ethereum has much more development happening because they were able to create useful social norms around funding the research & development of new products. The current capabilities of the two platforms and how they compare right now are secondary.

I challenge you read his various responses. To me they read as a person who is totally anti-crypto and trying to egg people on with borderline troll comments, not someone interested in changing their mind. Hence why many were flagged.

I don't even understand if they even provide a real service.

But - for the sake of argument - if they do, I don't see the unique selling points.

Crypto is easy to transfer and keep and has more lasting value in countries that are facing hyperinflation, often moreso than USD. This particularly applies to Venezuela, which is exerting extra pressures and taxes in foreign currencies.

Venezuelan here, to scape from inflation I buy USD. I dont need anything else other than that green bill or a zelle transfer. Bitcoin is pretty much useless in venezuela and the few people who uses it, also uses it to buy "cheaper" currency exchange of VES/USD since its literally just a bunch of corrupts and drugdealers trying to wash their USD so you usually get more VES per 1USD/BTC than per 1 USD

PS: bitcoin holder since 2014, so im not here with anti crypto propaganda

PS2: i find it weird that noone here talks about USDT

Forget about the developing world.

I'm an American living in Europe. My money is in the US banking system and in crypto.

There's no easy way for me to "Venmo" money to my friends here, I'd have to use an international bank transfer which would take over a week and cost high fees.

But with my friends in crypto: I can just transfer them Dai. It takes about 15 seconds and costs less than a dollar (and will get cheaper with things like Eth2)

And what about the costs of then converting eth for each person to a useable currency? What if you were to make a mistake and send money to the wrong person? What if someone hacks into whereever you are storing your eth and you lose them?

I mean I get what you are saying, but you just leave out all the pesky little details which at the end of the day are very important and why there are costs associated to banking.

> So it's basically irrelevant for the USA and Europe. Then why is it such a hot topic on Hacker News?

This is just plain racist. HN is not just for US and Europe people.

- I imagine that some HN users are not from USA or Europe.

- A lot of them are very into get-rich-quick-by-"disruption".

- A lot of them are complexity fetishists.

1. with crypto you go on dark net and pay some people to drop illegal chemical substances somewhere and message GPS coordinates of that drop place to you 2. you can break into computer network of large company, encrypt their data with ransomware and get ransom in crypto

Honestly, the selling point is it is a demonstration of global consensus. whether that is useful as a service is debatable I suppose.