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Crypto Winter, or Crypto Ice Age?

technollama.co.uk

111–120 of 167 posts

Re: Crypto Winter, or Crypto Ice Age?

#111
post #66
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wire transfers in North America are literally 40 years behind the evolution of bank transfers in EU and UK. Sending money in Europe is free and increasingly often instantaneous 24/7. It will be very difficult for crypto to reach the level of convenience available on unified infrastructure created through sensible regulation. Lacking that, maybe Americans will have to keep settling for all these clunky, incompatible i…

Maybe it will be like with China and cedit card usage. China just skipped credit cards and does everything in phone. They were behind, now they are leading the pack. Countries embracing crypto could go similar route.

another way to read that is that you are not able to get food if your phone dies

Re: Crypto Winter, or Crypto Ice Age?

#112
post #75
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With one single integration, AngelList can receive USDC from anyone, anywhere in the world. It doesn't matter if you can transfer CHF very cheaply locally.

Kind of like how having a bank account allows you to receive wire transfers from anyone? Anything will sound simple if you leave out most of the hard parts like meeting legal requirements, fraud protection, etc. (better hope the reason USDC is cagey about their assets isn’t because they’re hiding something) It’s true that US banks are slower at transfers but most people don’t hit that often enough to balance out the…

USDC isn't cagey about their assets. They get audited by big-4 financial firms regularly. I don't own a single coin and I know that.

Re: Crypto Winter, or Crypto Ice Age?

#113
Crypto isn’t going to die until human greed dies.

VCs are pouring money into this space. Do they care about adoption? Nope. They know that this largely unregulated, liquidity challenged space that’s too technically complex for the average rube is the perfect ground to make wild, wild returns.

Unless something changes drastically on the regulation front, the story will repeat itself. VCs and early adopters will buy tokens in the “ice age”.

Come next cycle, the media will start hyping up crypto again, bringing the retail rubes pouring in. And then the VCs and early adopters will walk away with their 50x returns, leaving retail with the bags

Re: Crypto Winter, or Crypto Ice Age?

#114
post #13

I live in Canada and recently invested a small amount in a startup via AngelList RUV. There were two funding options: (1) wire transfer, (2) transfer USDC via Ethereum network. One of these options is cheaper, faster, and more flexible than the other. Crypto has long been criticized for being gambling and lacking utility. I think utility is finally trickling in, although currently in limited settings. If you look at…

International transfers might be different but for domestic transfers, most countries outside of the west have very robust systems already. India’s UPI puts any crypto alternative to shame with the speed, transaction volume, fees and ease of use.

Sending someone USDC for international payments is admittedly much easier, but you’re likely going to run into expensive regulation on that front since it carries too much money laundering risk

Re: Crypto Winter, or Crypto Ice Age?

#115
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wire transfers in North America are literally 40 years behind the evolution of bank transfers in EU and UK. Sending money in Europe is free and increasingly often instantaneous 24/7. It will be very difficult for crypto to reach the level of convenience available on unified infrastructure created through sensible regulation. Lacking that, maybe Americans will have to keep settling for all these clunky, incompatible i…

He lives in Canada. Canadians don't live in the same country as Americans. Canadians don't have the same banks as Americans. Canadians can do money transfers instantly between any bank using e-transfer. He was talking about transferring money out of the Canadian network of banks to a foreign entity (guessing based on it being denominated in USD). As a European can you transfer money to, say, Vietnam without using clu…

International crypto transactions will likely be heavily regulated soon enough - the money laundering risk is too high.

Not to mention that money send to a crypto wallet also needs to be cashed out locally, which takes both fees and time. And god forbid your crypto exchange goes bankrupt or decide to pause withdrawals

Re: Crypto Winter, or Crypto Ice Age?

#116
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> show me a credible 3rd Party where I can store my ownership data apart from Government Your "ownership data" does not have any intrinsic value. It only has value because an external authority (your Government's justice institutions) is able to enforce it. Writing something on a blockchain has no magical effect. You cannot remove necessary third-parties like that. > Most corporations which currently store my data pr…

"My ownership data" has value. perhaps not to you. But for people i interact with. Example :- My education degree is something that I own. It can be very useful if I can quickly prove to the world that I indeed really have that degree. (like Twitter allows to prove you own an avatar NFT) . It would be super helpful if this was on a blockchain instead of some university database with a cumbersome process to avail tran…

> if I can quickly prove to the world that I indeed really have that degree.

So as not to bury the lede, certificates of authority as to any legitimacy are a lot like Certificate Authorities; it's the Conway principle. They always want "revocation authority" and it's never "proved" unless they check it again this time... just for you!

I happen to still interact with people who are affiliated with the institution where I "stole" an education. I legitimately obtained certification for completing a course of study in numerical analysis; no cheating. A few years ago I don't know what they did but I strongly suspect a butt sniffing tool for alumni was introduced, because people started being like that.

Cutting to the end, a couple of years ago I ordered a transcript for $11, by regular post, paid with a check. I strongly suspect that now buttsniff shows something like "transcript available".

Re: Crypto Winter, or Crypto Ice Age?

#117
post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kind of like how having a bank account allows you to receive wire transfers from anyone? Anything will sound simple if you leave out most of the hard parts like meeting legal requirements, fraud protection, etc. (better hope the reason USDC is cagey about their assets isn’t because they’re hiding something) It’s true that US banks are slower at transfers but most people don’t hit that often enough to balance out the…

USDC isn't cagey about their assets. They get audited by big-4 financial firms regularly. I don't own a single coin and I know that.

Yeah, they’re better than average for the field but they changed the wording from "backed by US dollars" to "backed by fully reserved assets" last year and those reports are not official audits (a term which has specific requirements with professional repercussion for the auditors) but attestations that they’ve reviewed the companies statements and found them consistent, a lower level of review which notably does not require a CPA to attempt to validate the details - note in particular the claims that they’ve seen things like internal controls but are not rendering profession judgement on the effectiveness of those controls.

That’s not as dodgy as e.g. Tether’s claims were but it’s not bank-level and I would weight that into my personal risk assessment, especially given their past history of printing new tokens whenever they get in a jam.

Re: Crypto Winter, or Crypto Ice Age?

#118
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that's the point, crypto is a coordination mechanism that in most cases serves as an alternative when you don't have effective and trustworthy centralized institutions. It's pretty clear that (in this case) European financial regulators did a good job coordinating an effective and efficient electronic money transmission system. But the whole world is not Sweden. Even in America, which is relatively first world wi…

Good analysis, and you are right. I think purely technical attempts to solve current political/social problems are doomed, while better institutions can and have been built. Now, what makes you think that the regulators in well-run countries will continue to accept this inefficient and unregulated money alternative full of scams? Crypto currencies could be banned to quite an extent (mining, on/off ramps, maybe even t…

> Now, what makes you think that the regulators in well-run countries will continue to accept this inefficient and unregulated money alternative full of scams?

You can always count on one thing in government. Profit Motive! Gerry ginsler was the professor of crypto at MIT for crying out loud. I'm sure US politicians have tons of BTC.

Re: Crypto Winter, or Crypto Ice Age?

#119
post #13

I live in Canada and recently invested a small amount in a startup via AngelList RUV. There were two funding options: (1) wire transfer, (2) transfer USDC via Ethereum network. One of these options is cheaper, faster, and more flexible than the other. Crypto has long been criticized for being gambling and lacking utility. I think utility is finally trickling in, although currently in limited settings. If you look at…

Weird, I now find transferring money between accounts at different banking institutions is incredibly easy. My credit union provides me with free access to the services of EFT Canada via which I can move money around any canadian banks with $0 in fees. If I have to move internationally, I go via https://oanda.paydirect.io/ -- Oanda started out as a currency trading platform. Being able to send a wire transfer in USD to China from my couch in 5 minutes with very little in fees is pretty awesome. Previously it took 2 hours of driving into the city to get to the nearest branch of my credit union plus another hour of waiting for the teller to figure out the wire transfer. And all this has happened without any cryptocurrencies involved. Look around for modern financial services, as they do exist!

Re: Crypto Winter, or Crypto Ice Age?

#120
post #13

I live in Canada and recently invested a small amount in a startup via AngelList RUV. There were two funding options: (1) wire transfer, (2) transfer USDC via Ethereum network. One of these options is cheaper, faster, and more flexible than the other. Crypto has long been criticized for being gambling and lacking utility. I think utility is finally trickling in, although currently in limited settings. If you look at…

I honestly was expecting you to say that the bank transfer was the cheaper, faster, option. It is here in Europe. It involves: login to my bank app, enter name, account and amount, send, and sometimes adding 1 or 2 verification codes depending on the bank. It’s really convenient.
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