Re:FTX to file for U.S. bankruptcy, CEO resigns
by short_sells_poo on Monday November 14, 2022 @01:33PM
(#33598687)
> That doesn't bother anyone that buys a pop album off Amazon, but that's a different issue if you want to sell porn or drugs or whatever US morals have issues with and just get cut off from payments, so that your willing customers cannot pay you. When that happens, people get out the old "it's a private company, you have no right to their platform"-spiel and crypto-currencies solve that.
I'm sorry but I deeply disagree with this. If you want to do commerce and your area of business is shady/illegal, then the way to change it is to campaign for a change in the law. All that cryptocurrencies accomplish is that people are able to sidestep the law.
I'd like drugs to be legal, government controlled and taxed. But until that day comes, the fact that drug dealing can't be conducted using the official financial system is a feature, not a bug.
Banks controlling who gets to participate in sending and receiving payments is obviously bad in my opinion. Being able to participate in the economy is fundamentally important. The government cannot outlaw a legal business, but banks and payment providers can do it for them. That doesn't bother anyone that buys a pop album off Amazon, but that's a different issue if you want to sell porn or drugs or whatever US morals have issues with and just get cut off from payments, so that your willing customers cannot pay you. When that happens, people get out the old "it's a private company, you have no right to their platform"-spiel and crypto-currencies solve that.
Crypto-currencies are to finance what the fediverse is to social media. They have shortcomings, in a perfect world we wouldn't have any need for them, but they fill a niche in the real world we inhabit.