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Moving money internationally

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Re: Moving money internationally

#131

Post by EGreg »

izzydata wrote: post #62
everfree wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The phrase "ponzi scheme" has been thrown around liberally in regards to cryptocurrency, especially on this forum, but I've never heard a convincing argument that it actually fits the definition.

It's weird because it seems like you can point to various aspects of crypto and maybe identify them as being a pyramid scheme, but I don't feel like that definition holds up as it gets sufficiently large and self sustaining. Otherwise you could point to a number of other very large money machines like the stock market or even money itself and say it is also a pyramid scheme. Maybe it is though. Perhaps the entire eco…

The same can be said of any startups. They are pyramid schemes until they finally offer utility to customers.

What is sometimes up for debate is whether something is serious utility, such as “owning” a picture anyone can look at, or a digital experience in the metaverse with artificial scarcity.

But then again, under the capitalist system, we need to introduce scarcity even where it’s not easy to do so, in order to recoup initial venture capital. So for example, I remember stories about SWAT teams raising grandmas for downloading movies illegally, or about manufacturing companies all forced to cripple their software with DRM, or the blowup at the W3C, or crackz of popular software that kiddies handed out until all these companies like Adobe went full SAAS. It’s an antipattern that is the direct result of any capitalist system.

By contrast, open source, creative commons etc. doesn’t have that issue.

Re: Moving money internationally

#132

Post by SamReidHughes »

listenallyall wrote: post #116
glerk wrote: post #77

For those saying that crypto is useless, here is a great use case. Authoritarian governments are currently preventing individuals from moving their property across borders. Crypto fixes that.

> moving their property across borders This seems rather naïve. If you can't leave a country because your government requires you to fight a war rather than leave, how do you get yourself, or any physical property, out? If you're in jail, justified or not, how does crypto help you move your property? Or the government you live under simply doesn't allow exiting? What if all international airports refuse to allow flig…

It helps in the case where you can move your body across the border, but not physical property.

Re: Moving money internationally

#133

Post by webmobdev »

im3w1l wrote: post #48
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> can easily bypass SWIFT restrictions and transact with the affected Russian banks directly “Easily” is the squishy bit here. If they’re settling in dollars, probably not, unless someone’s carting around paper dollars. (This has been done.) If they’re settling in rubles or yuan, for most definitions of “easily,” yes.

What about just... not settling. Like instead, just keep track of which sides owes the other how many dollars, and ensure it doesn't get crazy imbalanced. Or very similarly transact in dollar denominated Chinese/Russian issued bonds.

Kind of like bartering. India and Iran did something like that, when Iran was sanctioned. Both India and Iran kept track of their foreign trades and issued payment locally. India is also going to do something like that with Russia, if sanctions increase.

Re: Moving money internationally

#134

Post by runnerup »

syntheweave wrote: post #121
pavlov wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, if crypto actually became popular for international money transfers, it seems almost inevitable that it would acquire the same kind of regulatory regime that already exists for Western currencies. The exchanges can be compelled either directly or by choking their banking relationships.

As I've seen pointed out on crypto Twitter, the net effect of a public blockchain ala Bitcoin is that the actions of large whale accounts(hence oligarchs etc.) are highly visible and constitute prizeworthy targets for everyone who wants to take a shot(regulators, thieves, etc). Small accounts and transactions don't raise the same level of alarm. While you can try to spread out your balance among many wallets and smal…

Or we could all use Monero. Especially if it’s a situation where using crypto would be illegal anyways (e.g. during a government crisis)

Re: Moving money internationally

#135

Post by listenallyall »

SamReidHughes wrote: post #132
listenallyall wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> moving their property across borders This seems rather naïve. If you can't leave a country because your government requires you to fight a war rather than leave, how do you get yourself, or any physical property, out? If you're in jail, justified or not, how does crypto help you move your property? Or the government you live under simply doesn't allow exiting? What if all international airports refuse to allow flig…

It helps in the case where you can move your body across the border, but not physical property.

Yes, I agree, it certain situations, under certain circumstances, it helps. But the parent comment was "Crypto fixes that", as if it universally removes all barriers and obstacles, which it most definitely does not.

I would also pose a question, in the case where you have to leave NOW in order to cross that border -- would you rather have all your money in a bank with accounts currently frozen, or have crypto keys stored physically in an apartment or bank in an active war zone that you are unable to reach and faces a real possibility of being destroyed/bombed/flattened at any moment?

Re: Moving money internationally

#136

Post by cesarb »

olegious wrote: post #70
Nursie wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How so? Because it looks to me like the current state of crypto is worse than ever - https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-less-green-than-ever-before... Emissions on a par with Greece. And just for one coin. Ethereum is still going to PoS any day now, totally, just a few months off. Like it has been for several years. So what is it about "the current state of crypto" that you think you know better than these?

The ETH PoS chain is already in beta with the expectation of transition (the merge) later this year. BTC mining is creating new business models for renewable energy [0][1], BTC uses less energy than many other activities that don't get the same flack- AC usage, Data Centers, etc [1] [0] https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2021/10/11/bitcoin-mining-is... [1] https://blockworks.co/mining-mutualism-renewable-energy-and-...…

> Finally, if energy is one of your biggest expenses, you're economically incentivized to reduce those costs as much as possible.

Unfortunately, with Bitcoin (and other Proof-of-Work blockchains), the economic incentive is the opposite: to use as much energy as possible, until the return from the block rewards and transaction fees is smaller than the price you pay for that energy. Reducing the energy costs only allows you to use even more energy before reaching that limit, increasing the total costs again.

Re: Moving money internationally

#137

Post by pinephoneguy »

__d wrote: post #128
bjornsteffanson wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What services are the best for transferring large sums of money cheaply, safely, and quickly? In my experience, you can only choose one. I would prefer to chose two: cheaply and safely. I am not as worried about time. Recommendations?

I use TransferWise (aka Wise now)

I said no hassle, that was a lot of hassle last time I tried it.

Re: Moving money internationally

#138

Post by pinephoneguy »

Nursie wrote: post #98
everfree wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't disagree with most of your comment, but I do want to point out that the code to power Ethereum's switch to PoS is actually built out now and is in its final stages of testing. The latest Kiln test network is effectively a release candidate. At no point in the past several years has that been true, so it's comparing apples to oranges to say it's been "about to go" for that long.

I will welcome it when it does, don't get me wrong. That honestly removes a major issue I have with cryptocurrency (at least with Ether, anyway). There are a host of more theoretical reasons I'm not buying into the ecosystem, but remove that negative externality and hey - you do you, not my bag but you aren't hurting others. I'm sure it is closer than ever, if it wasn't then there's something wrong with the developme…

Don't forget that traditional banks consume lots of energy as well. Their armies of employees and tellers are required to drive an hour or so every day, they maintain tons of physical buildings, truck around piles of physical currency etc. Traditional fiat is given legitimacy based on government's monopoly on violence inside their borders which often result in wars. Nothing is free and I'm fairly certain that crypto will end in less energy consumption, not more.

Re: Moving money internationally

#139

Post by netheril96 »

listenallyall wrote: post #116
glerk wrote: post #77

For those saying that crypto is useless, here is a great use case. Authoritarian governments are currently preventing individuals from moving their property across borders. Crypto fixes that.

> moving their property across borders This seems rather naïve. If you can't leave a country because your government requires you to fight a war rather than leave, how do you get yourself, or any physical property, out? If you're in jail, justified or not, how does crypto help you move your property? Or the government you live under simply doesn't allow exiting? What if all international airports refuse to allow flig…

There are plenty of cases where you can leave a country, but not with large amount of cash or gold. Like nowadays in Russia. Crypto allows you leave with your property in these cases.

Re: Moving money internationally

#140

Post by CryptoPunk »

Nursie wrote: post #69
CryptoPunk wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>What exactly about the current state of crypto is incompatible with this critique? Ethereum is by far the most widely used cryptocurrency network, and while it consumes a lot of energy relative to the number of transactions in processes, and a lot of energy in absolute terms, it consumes on the order of a thousandths (0.1%) of the world's energy output. It will have switched to Proof of Stake long before it grows l…

Ethereum is now estimated to consume energy equivalent to or greater than mid-sized countries like Greece[1]. You can paint it as tiny, but 0.1% of world energy output is still enormous, for providing what is for the most part a highly speculative set of financial instruments to a limited audience. It's been "about to go PoS" for several years now. The fact is it hasn't. When it does, you can tell people their concer…

0.1% is huge, but in no reasonable terms can it be called "planet destroying", when it's slated to be mostly eliminated within 6 months with the transition to Proof of Stake. The characterization is hyperbole.

As for the transition to PoS, the first phase of the transition was implemented on December 1st, 2020, with the launch of the Proof of Stake Beacon Chain. The Beacon Chain has been running without problems for over a year now.

The testnet for the second phase of ETH2 - which is when the execution chain is merged into the Beacon Chain so that Ethereum can fully switch from PoW to PoS and reduce its energy consumption by 99.95% - was launched on December 20th, 2021:

https://blog.ethereum.org/2021/12/20/kintsugi-merge-testnet/

The second phase is expected to be completed before the end of 2022.

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