L2s and decentralized stablecoins keep the dream of a free decentralized economy alive. It's a smaller community for sure (as most pretend enthusiasts aren't actually interested when there's no Ponzi in it for them, and most detractors would rather focus on easier strawmen), but it exists and it's thriving.

Stable coins do not solve the money printing problem at all. Their existence is mostly for avoiding tax events when speculators sell tops and buy dips. Also they are as centralized as it gets.

The term "decentralized stablecoins" itself precludes the USD-pegged voucher tokens you're referring to.

I'm talking about things like Reflexer's RAI[1], which is designed to have stable value independently of any singular currency, and whose most centralized component is price oracles (so not very centralized).

[1]: https://reflexer.finance/

Are you sure that if the dev team will ababdon the project tomorrow it will b existent and people will trust it 5 years for now? If not, it's centralized. Also, how can it be a stable coin if there is nothing explicitly stated as peg?

I can use Bitcoin to safely, reliably and conveniently send money to people/organisations the US government doesn't like - eg, Wikileaks.

It is hard to understate how radical that is. Such an act of quiet resistance against the powers that be was somewhere between extremely difficult and impossible in 2005.

You can pretty much make the same case for the Internet. "Before I couldn't do X, bcs repression, mass media elite etc. but then the internet etc." The "quiet resistance" narrative is overshadowed by its primary function to make people money.

And so what if it does make some people money? Its other use cases all work just the same and as the points above mention, it can be used for a number of good things.. Does criminals using house purchases to invest laundered money make buying a house evil? It does not, but the hate just keeps getting dumped on bitcoin by people who should know better.

People don't hate Bitcoin, they just hate the MLM style marketing pitches from randos.

Sounds great btw, amazing product, can't wait to sell it to my friends and neighbors.

Then there are cases like this, one example among many in which there is a genuine case to be made for bitcoin and crypto. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28453256. This is not to mention all the others that are possible and have been the case. For example, how do you think Sci-hub continues to function financially?. Regardless of how certain whales and other speculators use bitcoin et al to pump and dump, or how criminals use them to get and launder money, these negative things are secondary to two basic points that deserve much more respect than they often get:

1. At least so far, Bitcoin and the rest do indeed let you and anyone send or receive money regardless of what political institution, corrupt government or censorious, politically pressured private company prohibits or selectively permits (think Visa/mastercard/paypal and their bullshit arbitrary restrictions on all kinds of things they or some politician decided to call "immoral")

2. Anybody can access the BTC blockchain and most other blockchains with minimal cost, extremely minor technical knowledge that they could easily pick up, and use them for money transfers. Playing along with the pump and dump bullshit or falling victim the bubbles is strictly optional.

In these things, it is indeed revolutionary in a quiet but important way, and I have a hard time understanding the sheer amount of snarky, hateful commentary from so many people on this site. Where the goddam fuck did the scrappy, freedom-loving respect for technologies that help individuals avoid arbitrary rules go?

It's snarky bcs people are sick of hearing sales pitches for moon money.