If it was just a backup against failing/weak institutions it would be relavively benign, but the problem is that it incentivises machiavellian types to undermine society and nation states for their own personal profit - see e.g. The Sovereign Individual[0].

Combined with effective accelerationism[1] you can see why we could be heading towards somewhere a whole lot worse than The Bad Place.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sovereign_Individual

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effective_accelerationism

Proponents of weak and failing institutions would make this exact claim about any sort of backup or alternative.

Two things can be true at the same time.

However, I think there's an argument that the existence of that backup, or at least its marketing, might of itself encourage people to make the institutions fail so they can profit from it.

That's a weak argument. If the institutions can collapse because a few powerful people can work against it, then the institution has already failed in the first place.

Trump and the general rise of Populism is not the cause of the fall of Western democracies, it is a consequence.

You don't seem to grasp that the answer isn't "oh well, Western democracies were just going to fail I guess"

The answer to what?

The answer to institutional collapse, the topic of the post to which I replied.

You're going to have to show your work on that one. Western democracies are suffering not because they are failing, but because they have been chipped away at for decades by fanatical right wing billionaires intent on eliminating taxes and securing their place in a perpetual oligarchy.

It's not even useful for that, it's controlled by those same institutions now.

Except it requires institutions in order to work.

Yes, but the institutions don't need to be performing their function particularly well.

> Exactly. Cryptocurrency is useful as as a backup system against failing/weak institutions. Just that. Like insurance, it was not there to make anyone's lives better but simply to become a safeguard to avoid complete collapse.

Meh, it's arbitrage against slow moving financial regulations.

There are times when financial regulations are "bad" in a way that this trait is desireable - i.e. your failing institutions use case - but in many cases these regulations are, actually, there for a reason.

And now in practice crypto transactions for "normal" people are performed by bank-like institutions who log every transaction anyway, so this characteristic is really only valuable to the people deeply involved in the crypto world who are using it mainly to do "normal" crimes.

It doesn't even do that. If there's complete collapse, there won't be a reliable network to transact over, and not reliable electricity to run the network and do the processing.

What are you thinking of when you say "complete collapse"? Zimbabwe's currency collapsed yet they still had access to electricity and a networks. It sounds like you're envisioning an apocalypse.

> Just that. Like insurance, it was not there to make anyone's lives better

This is revisionism. That is not at all how it started.

Let's talk;

You're in Crimea right now. You want some gasoline. You have some magic numbers in your magic rock. It needs you to cast a spell to transmit those magic numbers to someone else. I guess it probably also needs ... some electricity and some network access and some time to make those magic numbers update in the gas station's magic number.

In what way is this actually going to help you in a total collapse? Let's stand around over my iphone and cold wallet and spacex terminal while we wait for things to beep the right number of beeps?

In the off-chance you find yourself in this situation, what's to stop the party with the gasoline from just pointing a gun at you or your corgi and asking you to add some zeros to the number of magic beans you're zapping into their magic number?

Now, perhaps you as an international agent of mystery, can use some shiny rocks or magic pieces of paper to make your escape, and you can then, once safely back in a stable society, use your magic numbers and spells to transfer "wealth" to some organization closer to your new physical location (let's say belize?) -- in which case, to avoid a bunch of tedious laws and such, perhaps that magic trick will work in the way you suggest.

But, when things go haywire and there's just Hobb's all against all, I'm not sure a magic cold wallet of certificates is going to do much.

If your only idea of "institutional collapse" is "living in a war zone", then I envy you and your sheltered life.

Can you describe a "society collapse" where your cold wallet _can_ get you out of trouble, and why that particular situation isn't subject to "I will shoot your corgi." coercion?

If you're dealing with a peer you can't trust (like the US government) that will ask for your passphrase and then not torture you for it if you refuse, I'd suggest you're not really in a situation where society has broken down.

You've created a strawman. In no point a said "society collapse". I am talking about failing institutions.

You can find on this very same comment section a handful of people who live in places where cryptocurrency enables people to work around failing institutions and/or protect their wealth from systemic corruption.

I think I offered a pretty concrete example of a real situation and how the imagined utility of crypto magic isn't actually all that helpful.

Now, perhaps what you're suggesting is "I've got millions of units of money that I've acquired through locally illegal means and I want to transport that money someplace else and I don't feel like renting a private airplane and diamonds up my prison wallet are uncomfortable and I don't want to pay taxes or otherwise explain why I have a brand new S class I paid cash for." then yes, I'll accept that there is some grey area where crypto has a place (to explicitly work around legal regimes I dislike, would like to degrade further, and don't feel like dealing with).

How is the view from your imaginary moral high horse?

Try this: you are a paralegal working with translating/notarizing documents from Spanish to English in Argentina. You have clients in the UK - a wine importer. You send an invoice for your work, it's circa GBP 500, about 1 million Argentinian Pesos.

Then, you tell them about the payment options:

- pay via SWIFT. will have a 30% surcharge to account for difference between the "official" exchange rate and the "black" one, and the fact that it takes at least 7 days to clear. Keep in mind that you live in a country facing 30%+ annual inflation rate.

- pay via cryptocurrency, which can be settled immediately, you can convert to Pesos faster and at a better rate than the official one.

Are you saying that the only correct moral action is to go through the banks?

Sorry; one final edit:

What you're describing is "bank" where the financial organizations settle transactions using a private media ("the crypto"); but each individual is still dealing with "a bank". In "crypto" you trust "the math" and you don't need to worry about the counterparty absconding with the money. In your scenario, the Argentine service provider is in a position where they trust "the app" not "the math"

Banking is fine; I'm okay with banking. Crypto is also fine, if you're doing one of the 3-4 things "crypto" is good at (mostly crime, but whatever).

But what you're describing is "bank, with settlement not using SWIFT"

Anyhow; my original statement is:

Which shitcoin or shitcoin network is "cryptocurrency" ? Do you mean you're just pushing fiat through stable coins into an exchange? Is the exchange even converting from one cryptothing to another? Are you just asking the peer to shovel bits into a some shitcoin address? If you're just putting fiat into an "exchange" and then pulling fiat out, congratulations, you've invented a pretty ordinary financial service.

You're not describing an actual financial exchange; you're making up some vague situation.

You're probably also breaking some laws around paying taxes unless someone's going out of their way to actually report these activities.

Regardless, please be specific about "pay via cryptocurrency" otherwise you may as well say "pay via paypal" or "pay via putting dollars into a bank of america account I keep open since I was a student abroad."

"cryptocurrency" is doing a lot of work here. I don't see where there's some magic "crypto ledger" in your getting paid for a service. Just an internet service that promises to transmit money from one place to another.

You continue with the strawmen. This is beyond grating.

> Do you mean you're just pushing fiat through stable coins into an exchange?

Not necessarily. The idea is that crypto allows you a backup. If it's possible to work with an exchange, fine. If not, then quite likely people will be able to make do by making transactions in person. And yes, I've been to Argentina and I exchanged ETH for ARS in person. It's almost as easy to find someone who exchanges crypto as it is to find someone who exchanges USD or EUR. It's not a hypothetical or vague situation.

> you may as well say "pay via paypal" or "pay via putting dollars into a bank of america account I keep open since I was a student abroad." (...) I don't see where there's some magic "crypto ledger"

There isn't any magic. It's just that you take everything for granted and you had the privilege to live in a world where "just use paypal" or "just use a foreign bank account when I was studying abroad" is completely ordinary.