If you use almost any goods or services almost anywhere in the world, you at least indirectly benefit from or use the global banking system, as it is the de facto (and probably quite often de jure) system for payments. There are no alternatives that are as good as it, on pretty much any axis. This includes all crypto.

I'm not trying to unfairly critique your personal choices, but that's just the reality. Just like how you basically can't possibly survive in a city without participating somehow in the global capitalist market economy, you can't claim to personally not partake in the global banking system. It's everywhere, and you might personally take issue with it and of course can critique it, but you can't claim to not partake or even partly benefit.

that’s what crypto is trying to be - the alternative to the global banking system, because the banking system has some issues.

My comment is a response to a specific point that was being made, mostly encapsulated by this quotation:

> Crypto is a needed option, it can be made to be more environmentally friendly. I personally often do not (and cannot) benefit from the global banking system despite all the waste it produce from electricity to wasted manpower to the carbon footprint of material for buildings and offices.

I'm choosing to ignore the parts about buildings because the appropriate comparison is with electronic payments. A transition from in-person banking to Bitcoin is less likely and more costly than a continued transition from in-person banking to purely online electronic banking (not that I think it'll be desirable to anywhere near 100% complete such a transition in my lifetime).

So doing an apples-to-apples comparison, even assuming crypto ever actually becomes meaningfully more environmentally friendly, how does crypto replacing the current global banking system lead to a less wasteful system, measured in environmental terms? I see no way it can.

I also think:

> There are no alternatives that are as good as [the current system], on pretty much any axis. This includes all crypto.

Crypto has far more issues beyond environmental ones, and the very real issues with the current system are not meaningfully helped by crypto. The issues are political problems without much in the way of a technological solution, except at the margins. If crypto wants to stay relevant there, at the margins, that's mostly fine by me.

My main issue with banking is that I cannot use it to its full extent, I am not from a Western country.

Also because how bad banking is, clients find all excuses to not buy you sometimes. I lost one month of income because a European startup was claiming all kind of problems with wiring me my salary (3 different ones), with waiting weeks between every "try" and gaslighting me into asking my bank to do some paper work that will easify the process, something that simply not in my power to do.

With crypto you either have the money and you pay me or you don't.

I'm not actually in your situation so take this with a hefty pinch of salt, but if I was, I wouldn't like to keep that received money in crypto, unless I was speculating. It's not like you can use it as a currency (in terms of purchase goods or services directly in the currency, and even if you can, prices are never set in terms of crypto because it is too volatile, and therefore there are constant arbs... the problems stack up). And I presume there are difficulties in turning crypto into local currency, the same way there are difficulties with international payments. If not, then I would suspect those companies were just bullshitting you or being lazy -- no technological solution for that.

If you've managed to successfully navigate all these difficulties, then congratulations and I'm not telling you you're doing anything wrong, but I don't see a budding alternative in the making, I see uneven economic development.

I do not keep my money as crypto, mainly because there is bills to pay, and things to buy, it was money I used to move out, buy furniture slowly, get a car... etc. It was not hard to convert it to the local currency at all, it was instant.

About the bullshitting, it is just interesting that banking does encourage bullshitting.

Even one of my best employers who pay me in time, was always asking me to confirm if I received the money, and sometimes it take way longer, and he sometimes get concerned about it.

The bigger issue with banking is there is no way to debug it, like the CTO of the European startup used to tell me he talked to the accounting people and they are sending me my money, then 10 days later after me being super careful about it being a local issue, he is coming up with some other excuse.

Is there issues with crypto? yes a lot: inefficiencies, scams, gold rush mentality. Some of those can be solved, other will go away with time. But even if so, my point is that crypto has value and change livelihoods of some people.

> Crypto is a needed option, it can be made to be more environmentally friendly.

This argument has never made sense to me. BTC is fundamentally proof-of-work, and attempts to switch it to some other “green” mechanism will almost certainly fail (see Bitcoin Cash). Ethereum has been promising PoS for nearly as long as ETH has existed. Other “green” coins are either tech-demos, ponzi schemes, or some amalgam of the two.

The ball is rolling, the train has left the station, BTC and ETH have the momentum. Other than rug-pull incentives like airdrops, why would those in the “circle of adoption/need” choose green crypto over what is established?

It's reasonable for Wikimedia to adopt a "wait and see" approach.

If in a few years the whole world adopts crypto for payments, then perhaps they should review that.

Until then I'm not sure it's in Wikimedia's interests to be a pioneering "early adopter/supporter" of crypto payments, given the legitimate ethical concerns.

> it can be made to be more environmentally friendly

You don't get points for what *can be* but *what is*.