The other use is providing online payments to people who aren't in the banking system. The banking system requires trust, and shuts untrustworthy people out - both at the level of individuals and entire regions. Bitcoin eliminates the need for trust (on the monetary layer) and can thus reach more people.

Both are great applications. They are largely irrelevant in the West because only a tiny fraction of us experience those problems, but that doesn't mean they don't exist elsewhere.

Oh, and it’s actually neither of those but if you wish _reaaaaly_ hard and ignore all the practical problems, it might be, someday.

> helps people without access to banking but with a stable, constant internet connection and perfect operational security

You don't need constant internet connection unless you are mining or want to verify a payment right now. And mobile internet and smartphones are surprisingly prevalent in the third world (and among homeless in the first world).

Maybe not a lot, but people literally do use it for this purpose everyday. You can't just wave that away, given that it is working to some extent now.

So as a store of value Bitcoin actually has a good track record and is trending towards lower volatility as adoption grows.

People really need to stop thinking in absolute terms regarding value storage. It’s analogous to energy storage. Batteries leak energy over time, but we don’t sit around yelling about how they are not stores of energy.

Oh, and gambling/speculating of course.

That doesn't change the fact that the only killer app is criminal activity. Of course you -can- do non-criminal things with it, but frankly as a currency it's terrible. It's way too volatile, and transactions are both too expensive and too slow.

I get the goals - decentralisation, limited money supply (which in theory is supposed to limit inflation, but doesn't) and so on. Unfortunately the volatility dwarfs any inflation hedging etc. It's also super-risky right now, so I recommend holding your own coins. Not your keys not your money.

Sure it's different. Sure it's idealistic. But it's also, well, a terrible currency.

Which means mostly it serves as a nice way to do criminal transactions.

This was done in USD. Maybe crime wouldn't be whitelist only on a transparent blockchain and that is what is feared? Money is the root of most activity in this world, criminal or good. Transparent transactions bring all crime into the spotlight and for some that is problematic.

Yes.

Does that make him wrong? Or somehow not a reliable commentator on the thinking at the SEC (which is what the actual article is about), given his having worked there? Bias could be an issue if he were speaking about crypto per se, but this is about the SEC.

The question is, "Is this guy right about centralized platform regulation causing industry-wide collapse?"

crypto can hypothetically be every bit a brilliant new wheel paradigm as the marketers would suggest (it isn't, but whatever) and that won't stop entities with legal authority to eviscerate all current corporate entities associated with it from doing so (they are).

ya'll wanna believe that binance and coinbase can fight the massive legal assault on their business practices and come out on top simply by virtue of the nobility of the crypto ideal, go right ahead

That's irrelevant. The question is whether crypto in particular facilitates crime, and it does. All airplanes facilitate passenger death, but some are far more dangerous than others. If I'm considering boarding a plane, don't tell me 'well, any plane might crash' - I don't care, I care about this plane, this pilot, etc.

also many linked sources here: https://www.cato.org/blog/overstating-crypto-crime-wont-lead...

crypto = crime narrative is provably false but how many search or care for the truth?

Bitcoin may be an attempt to make funding crime easier but it hasn't been very successful. USD is still king for funding any criminal endeavors.

How is that relevant? Silver and papyrus were once popular too.

> it will always be far easier to commit crimes with cash than with anything else

It's not easy if I want to pay someone who isn't local to me, or whom I don't want to meet in person, or if I don't want to possess physical criminal assets.

> it will always be far easier to commit crimes with cash than with anything else and that will never change until humans find a better way to fund crime.

A bit circular?

evandale: Cash has been used for facilitating crime since currency was invented

wolverine876: How is that relevant?

The question obviously isn't whether crypto facilitates crime because USD facilitates crime better. If the ability to facilitate crime was a question of whether you should use a currency or not then we wouldn't be using USD anymore.

> It's not easy if I want to pay someone who isn't local to me, or whom I don't want to meet in person, or if I don't want to possess physical criminal assets.

No idea what you're trying to say here but it doesn't seem like you're arguing in good faith. Everybody will accept USD for any good or service anywhere in the world and USD is less traceable and more anonymous than bitcoin which defeats another "bitcoin is only used for crime" argument. No. It isn't only used for crime. It's actually a terrible thing to use for crime because of how traceable it is.

What am I missing here? What are the cool things bitcoin does that something like visa cannot? I've read Satoshi's paper and Vitalik Buterin's book. I want crypto to work, and I'm really searching hard for a problem crypto solves for which we don't already have a better solution.

Violating sanctions is a crime. Given the trend we've seen people should start getting used to being considered criminals.

>What am I missing here? What are the cool things bitcoin does that something like visa cannot?

It's easier to send Bitcoin to people without doxing myself than a visa transfer.