The comments defending crypto seem to all anchor on the argument on what crypto "can" be. Anything "can" be anything. Maybe it is what it is and it has to be something totally different to be different.

The "can" is not hypothetical. There are plenty of times and people who have used crypto as a way to get around dysfunctional institutions. It's just that those stories get drown-out by the ones looking for a quick way to be rich, the scammers and all the chaos that always come with any new technology.

Edge cases don't make much of an argument.

They tend to be edge case for HN users. That is, male, educated, well off/affluent and living in a first world country. All the benefits of cryptocurrency are already available in their privileged position and they cannot understand that others do not have the same options/access to financial instruments.

One trip to Argentina is all it takes for someone to get crypto.

Thanks for the details. I guess we'll have to go to Argentina to learn more.

So it's not an edge case for female, uneducated, poor people from third world countries?

I guess this is the "you won't get it" defense. Maybe the real problem is that we do get it.

>>>So it's not an edge case for female, uneducated, poor people from third world countries?

When a Philippine friend of mine lacked capital to purchase inventory for her business at the start of lockdowns last year, I sent her some Bitcoin. She didn't fully understand how crypto worked but I talked her through the basics (wallets, etc...) She converted the BTC to pesos locally, and paid me back in Bitcoin, with interest. She got the capital injection she couldn't find elsewhere, and I added to my BTC pile (at a time when BTC was just under $10k, as I knew it would go up again).

Disingenuous much?

That's called a strawman argument, I never made the claim yet you are making a statement as if I had said that.

Either you understand my point and are being deliberately obtuse or you need to re-read my comment and go away and think about it. Either way you are not adding any value to the conversation. So please don't respond to me again.

I'm helping you reconsider a weak argument. You're hoping your statements are self explanatory.

Also don't direct the behavior of people on a comment board. There's other places to go where you can feel good about yourself.

They are not edge cases for the people who use it out of need.

Feel free to provide details.

Try making an international transfer to a country that does not use USD/EUR/GBP without losing more than 5% of the total value to exchange fees ("official vs parallel") and government taxes on finance operations. Brazil not until long ago had a tax of 0.38% on every bank transfer (both ways!) and they have been talking about bringing it back.

Try working as a service provider with international customers, receive a payment from the client but getting notice from the bank saying it will take them 60 days to clear the money order, or that you can take it right away if they skim some of it.

Try living in Venezuela and seeing the government confiscating whatever property they can if you happen to be in the opposition. Try to keep up with hyperinflation while all of those in the elites can park their cash offshore.

Try to withdraw more than 600€ from your bank in Greece.

Try using an international contract as proof-of-income in a bank, in case you want to get a loan for your business. Try searching for a micro-credit solution that is not going to charge you usury rates.

Try running a business that is deemed "offensive" and see how you can not accept credit card payments. Not illegal. Just "offensive".

It's amazing that crypto has solved all of these problems, I wonder why people still have them.

It's not a problem anymore for those that are using crypto.

Why is it so hard for you to accept that you don't have a valid argument? Do you think that playing dumb and taking cheap jabs at what other people do gives you any moral superiority?

It's because you don't care if you're actually right. The proposals you're presenting are obviously not solved nor does Bitcoin solve them. If you have a problem paying 5% transaction fees than why would use Bitcoin (not to mention every transaction is subject to tax which gov'ts haven't been aggressive at collecting now, but can choose to collect it retroactively at any point having a public ledger to reference whenever they need it).

- I don't use Bitcoin, not anymore anyway. Stop assuming that crypto = Bitcoin, or that everyone that sees the value in blockchain believes in or depends on BTC.

- I am not in the US, so what you are talking about taxes make absolute zero sense. Stop assuming that everyone lives like you.

- Transaction fees are fixed, so while you certainly don't want to use it (at the moment) for transfer if small value, it is certainly an advantage to use for larger sums. Also, you can use a middleman who will take obviously less than banks.

But anyway, please continue telling me how the problems that I and others managed to solve or alleviate through crypto were not real.

Bitcoin already acts as a hedge against inflation, since its supply is relatively fixed (90% of all the maximum supply of Bitcoin has been mined).

Taleb would like to have a word with you.

(Or probably not, he would just call you a Bitidiot for parroting this argument and block you on Twitter)

It's a hedge against economics in general.

> A centralized exchange is the exact opposite of "running your own bank".

I assume the argument is that if a large company with this much money on the line can't figure out how to securely run a bank, how would I be able to?

I disagree with that argument, though, as I think it is in fact the large amount of money on the line managed by a large number of people that makes running an exchange difficult.

I think we 100% agree. Thanks for elaborating. I am including banks/exchanges in the set of things that need regulation. I understand the way I worded my comment implies retail did something wrong, that was not the intention. I was more tying to highlight that this stuff is important and there’s a reason people lean on 3rd party entities to help them manage and trade their assets—it’s too complex to do alone for most. So we’re gonna need L2 institutions that handle large amounts of consumer assets and so we’re going to need to impose regulatory requirements surrounding e.g. key storage and access. Deploy root-chain-enforced multi-signature requirements, perhaps entertain transaction revocation for sufficiently large sums, etc.

> so we’re going to need to impose regulatory requirements surrounding e.g. key storage and access

This is the part that I said I knew I'd disagree about scale. ;)

Instead of hoping for any kind of "imposed" solution, I'd rather prefer a myriad of different providers and wait to see what patterns emerge and what becomes the best practices. Bottom-up, evolutionary approaches always beat top-down designs in the long run.

More than a hedge against dysfunctional institutions, it hastens the downfall of those institutions by removing their leverage. Imagine if the US government had to collect more taxes and police the blockchains to enforce it instead of just printing money, it would push them to the brink. Grab your popcorn. Crypto is a self fulfilling prophecy of government failure.

Hmm curious to hear more about this, do you have any examples?

El Salvador? How else would you explain an authoritarian leader of a narco-sponsored state and paramilitary groups being so interested in promoting Bitcoin?

Crypto doesn't fix the failed state.

There are a lot more problems there then: "bought the dip" lol

Evolution does not work by "fixing" anything, just by removing what is not suitable for the environment.

Crypto is not going to "fix" anything. Crypto is just an alternative for those who live on places that the institutions are broken, and the more the institutions are broken the more compelling crypto will become.

The problem in the first place was internet access to rural areas to enable easy banking.

This is the type of comment that could've been taken out of an episode of Silicon Valley. It's like what happens when techbros who never left their homes think they can solve social issues with tech.

To have "easy banking", first you need to live in a place with healthy financial and banking institutions.

To have that, you need to have a government that is able to give confidence to investors that the money is not going to be misused or appropriated.

To have that, you need solid political institutions, corruption can not be systemic, and leadership needs to have a sense of stability in regards to social-economic policy.

El Salvador has none of that. Farmers can have smartphones and even good data connectivity, they still won't be able to get credit to invest on their work, they still will depend in large landowners for their livelihood, they will still be coerced to vote for the local baron who has the connection with higher officials and with the drug traffickers, etc.

Internet access is the lowest hanging-fruit and the least of the concerns.

Going to a bank requires a drive of 4 hours with public transport in El Salvador and is one of the many issues for rural areas.

But yeah, eg. Africa uses sms for lending and transferring money. Which is also perfectly fine and it works there.

Lookup 'mobile payment banking' and it works there, even with corrupt governements.

( I'm not saying the situation is perfect. But for access to money, borrowing, saving and banking, it's a solution)