how about all of the people who don't have banking infrastructure, but do have smartphones

Yes excellent. Exactly what those people who live on $2 per day need is to have their $2 fluctuate wildly from 2c to $6 on an hourly basis.

Stablecoins pegged to the dollar and various other currencies of the "real world" have existed for many years now. Stop acting in bad faith.

Until the peg is lost, like what happened with UST (now USTC).

https://jumpcrypto.com/the-depegging-of-ust/

That coin was supposed to be pegged to $1 USD.

With the number of collapsed stablecoins this year and the biggest one of them all being a complete fraud, I'm not sure they're any safer. Also, every fiat-backed stablecoin is by definition 100% centralized to a single legal entity.

What is your point?

My point is anyone with an internet connection can give their savings 100% exposure to any centralized fiat currency, _if they so choose._

I'm not saying you should or you have to. I'm just saying this gives people the option to do that. What's bad about that? What's wrong with that? Should only US citizens be allowed to save US dollars?

You mean like Terra (Classic) which went from being $1 to being $0?

Yes, Terra had quite insane ponzinomics. But that is a poor argument against what stablecoins could be.

Why are you arguing against letting anyone with an internet connection save US dollars? Should only US citizens be allowed to save US dollars? Why should we prevent humans from having that option?

> But that is a poor argument against what stablecoins could be.

Why did the argument suddenly switch from "have been for years" to "theoretically there could exist a stable coin that isn't outright fraud"? Is the reason that you can't think of a single example that is actually trust worthy?

> you can't think of a single example that is actually trust worthy

In addition to USDC, USDH, and DAI, we've also got GUSD, RAI, LUSD, and USDP in terms of trustworthy stablecoins.

All of them are audited in reputable ways, either by large accounting firms or directly on-chain by cryptography:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31381864

> All of them are audited

USDC decided to remove guarantees from its site and invest its reserves as it saw fit without any guarantees or limitations on risk in 2021 before returning to form several months later. This happened despite the reserves being subjected to attestations every month. So it might be a good idea to start a list of trust worthy stable coins with just about anything else, especially if you want to give the impression that the attestations are actually worth the paper they are printed on.

USDC, USDH, DAI, the list goes on

I like how as soon as you mention stablecoins, everyone starts replying with the most god-awful trash examples of shady stablecoins they can think of, as if those cherry-picked dumpster fires represent the best that stablecoins can and will ever be able to offer.

Yeah and we’ve seen how well they’re going.

Which begs the question, why not just use Dollars?

Because in many countries throughout the world it is illegal to save and spend US dollars.

Or you can do it, but suffer extortionist fees.

Classic first-worlder, thinking corrupt, authoritarian regimes which arbitrarily seize assets and cut off access to basic financial services do not exist.

Hundreds of millions of people in India are using fiat payment apps like Google Pay, PayTM etc. I don't know how they make it work but I doubt they're all conventionally banked people.

couldn't they connect to "classical" financial services using big-ass Oracle databases for their ledgers?

Not if your country is under tyrannical or authoritarian rule and disallows access to basic financial services for some arbitrary reason.

In that instance their smartphone access and traffic is almost certainly monitored too making the point somewhat moot.

"The oppressor has the upper hand so we shouldn't try to help the oppressed!"

It's about giving people slightly better odds of escaping abuse. It's about helping humanity.

This seems disingenuous. If this system wasn't making money for the people developing it, they wouldn't care at all about 'unbanked' people. Because it does, they can use that as a 'but think of the poor oppressed people' as a lever to shut up critics. It reminds me too much of 'think of the children' that gets used whenever someone criticizes a 'we want to own all the decryption keys' system or similar.

> If this system wasn't making money for the people developing it, they wouldn't care at all about 'unbanked' people.

No, THAT seems disingenuous.

I am working on crypto because I want to help these oppressed, unlucky people who are born into terrible regimes that are very hard to escape. I literally work on open source, gratis projects that do not generate any money for me.

Can you blame people for being cynical about that, though?

> It's about giving people slightly better odds of escaping abuse. It's about helping humanity.

Save pontification for investors.

Crypto is a first-world solution to mostly non-existent problems. "The poor unwashed and huddled masses of unbanked in authoritarian regimes will surely be helped by a system that requires smartphones, always-on internet, and trips to limited offline currency exchanges (heavily monitored in authoritarian regimes) to get any value out of fictional tokens" isn't a solution you want to make others believe it is.

False. It doesn't require smart phones.

False. It doesn't require always-on internet.

False. It doesn't require offline currency exchanges.

Try fleeing Brazil or Russia with significant amounts of cash. Either you cannot do it through legacy banking systems, or you cannot do it in real life with cash, or you have to pay an extortionist bribe in real life.

"Not if your country is under tyrannical or authoritarian rule and disallows access to basic financial services for some arbitrary reason." became "flee Brazil or Russia with financial assets".

Why is it that "we're providing basic financial services to the unwashed and huddled poor masses of the unbanked" always becomes "move large amounts of money from one jurisdiction to another without any government control look Russia Brazil" (but in reality international monetary fraud).

Moving large amounts of money IS basic financial services.

Would you argue Jews should leave all their money behind in Nazi Germany when fleeing?

By your logic, Nazi Germany should have the right to inspect and disallow the transfer.

Just because it is a government making an arbitrary decision, that doesn't make it morally right.

> By your logic, Nazi Germany

Mmm. Godwin's Law. I haven't seen one in the wild for a loooong time.

Well what is your rebuttal?

Godwin's Law does not involve any rebuttals. Neither does reductio ad absurdum. You've managed to do both.

Adieu.

Remind me in 10 years.

A lot of people like trading, just look at Robinhood. It would be good if an app like Robinhood existed that ensured cryptographic guardrails to prevent the platform owners from lying about their solvency.

Isn't that effectively an admission that the only use case for crypto is gambling?

If you look at crypto's daily price action, the majority of it is attributable to trading and speculation. I think this is pretty common knowledge.

If you feel stocks and equities is gambling, then you might also feel that this sector of crypto is gambling.

But there are other sectors of crypto that don't register on this price graph, maybe because price is not the only metric of their success, or because their volume is lower. Smart contracts, non custodial wallets, ENS, trustless payments, DEXes like Uniswap, are all interesting and valid use cases of crypto and blockchain tech.