Molly White Tracks Crypto Scams. It’s Going Just Great • Hacker News Board

Re: Molly White Tracks Crypto Scams. It’s Going Just Great

#211

Post by mattdesl » Tue, May 30, 2023, 10:43 PM UTC

retornam wrote: post #198

mattdesl wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Choose almost any two countries in the world that don’t share the same union. eg: From GBP to CAD with Wise, transfer cost is > $5 (sometimes much more) and takes multiple days; compare with USDC on a rollup which is near-instant and < $0.50 regardless of the transaction amount.

Wise is near-instant it doesn't take multiple days. Even Western Union has money in minutes to over 200 countries [1]. Almost all delayed transactions are due to fraud. The delay is often implemented to protect the sender from losing funds. How does crypto handle fraud? [1] https://www.westernunion.com/us/en/restrictions-money-in-min...

My numbers are sourced from Wise’s own website. 1K GBP to CAD has a £5.02 fee and takes two days.

> How does crypto handle fraud?

Not every transactional system needs to adhere to the same set of antiquated and arduous AML checks and balances; which often break (either by allowing fraud to occur or incorrectly flagging and delaying valid transactions). For comparison, Cash App has no dispute mechanism:

https://cash.app/help/us/en-us/6501-sent-money-to-the-wrong-...

Re: Molly White Tracks Crypto Scams. It’s Going Just Great

#212

Post by retornam » Tue, May 30, 2023, 10:46 PM UTC

mattdesl wrote: post #169

philipwhiuk wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rubbish, there's already big companies set up to re-centralise it. What wallet are you using. You don't have to use a regular bank either you know, cash is way less traceable than Bitcoin.

> What wallet are you using. There are hundreds of wallets, some of them OSS, some of them closed source, some of them homebrew. I have used several different wallets, including some that I have coded myself from lower level cryptographic APIs. This is the beauty of it: users are not limited to MetaMask, just like users are not limited to browsing the web in Chrome - despite it obviously having major market share. An…

Where do you live? Almost all of Africa, many parts of South-East Asia, India, many parts (if not all) of China, and nearly all of South America are heavily cash-based societies. Try to work your way up to Northern Burkina Faso, which has little to no electricity in most places, and your stance on cash being a poor substitute will quickly change.

Re: Molly White Tracks Crypto Scams. It’s Going Just Great

#213

Post by [deleted] » Tue, May 30, 2023, 10:49 PM UTC

leashless wrote: post #203

operatingthetan wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh I did Google you, it appears you occasionally end up as third author on a bunch of papers funded by grants that have never been put into any meaningful action, you "run" a crypto startup that seems to have no actual employees or users or momentum, you were involved in the ethereum launch but now exaggerate your role, and finally there are frequent examples of you behaving inappropriately as a response to someone l…

Not very good at the google are we. Also remember much of my time was in defense thinktanks. Not everything that gets written gets published. For example a good deal of my input on the UK RCDS “Global Cyber Game” report didn’t make it into the unclass version. Likewise a lot of my work for the US office of the secretary of defense is not particularly well known. I’ve been places. I’ve done things. The fact you don’t…

[deleted]

Re: Molly White Tracks Crypto Scams. It’s Going Just Great

#214

Post by retornam » Tue, May 30, 2023, 10:50 PM UTC

mattdesl wrote: post #211

retornam wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wise is near-instant it doesn't take multiple days. Even Western Union has money in minutes to over 200 countries [1]. Almost all delayed transactions are due to fraud. The delay is often implemented to protect the sender from losing funds. How does crypto handle fraud? [1] https://www.westernunion.com/us/en/restrictions-money-in-min...

My numbers are sourced from Wise’s own website. 1K GBP to CAD has a £5.02 fee and takes two days. > How does crypto handle fraud? Not every transactional system needs to adhere to the same set of antiquated and arduous AML checks and balances; which often break (either by allowing fraud to occur or incorrectly flagging and delaying valid transactions). For comparison, Cash App has no dispute mechanism: https://cash.a…

Link, please? I ask because I have used Wise multiple times over many years and haven't had a transaction take more than 5 minutes. I'm confident I'm not the exception.

Cash App is US only and thus doesn't apply to your initial comment. Let's stay on topic please. Thank you.

Re: Molly White Tracks Crypto Scams. It’s Going Just Great

#215

Post by leashless » Tue, May 30, 2023, 10:51 PM UTC

molly0x57 wrote: post #208

leashless wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

[flagged]

[flagged]

Re: Molly White Tracks Crypto Scams. It’s Going Just Great

#216

Post by mattdesl » Tue, May 30, 2023, 10:53 PM UTC

retornam wrote: post #214

mattdesl wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My numbers are sourced from Wise’s own website. 1K GBP to CAD has a £5.02 fee and takes two days. > How does crypto handle fraud? Not every transactional system needs to adhere to the same set of antiquated and arduous AML checks and balances; which often break (either by allowing fraud to occur or incorrectly flagging and delaying valid transactions). For comparison, Cash App has no dispute mechanism: https://cash.a…

Link, please? I ask because I have used Wise multiple times over many years and haven't had a transaction take more than 5 minutes. I'm confident I'm not the exception. Cash App is US only and thus doesn't apply to your initial comment. Let's stay on topic please. Thank you.

Go to Wise.com and input the currencies in the transfer box.

Reiterating what I wrote in another comment, since you seem to be viewing this solely from your own experience:

> A lot of people have a limited set of experiences, such as sending wires or Wise payments to/from a specific country, and it works well for them, without realizing there is an entire world of other scenarios outside of this scope where it is not as well suited.

And Cash App is just an example; people are happy to send money with it, despite the lack of dispute and reversibility. Many people have friends and family across the world now and would probably be fine sending money to them without strict, slow, and costly AML checks on every transaction.

Re: Molly White Tracks Crypto Scams. It’s Going Just Great

#217

Post by mattdesl » Tue, May 30, 2023, 10:57 PM UTC

retornam wrote: post #212

mattdesl wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What wallet are you using. There are hundreds of wallets, some of them OSS, some of them closed source, some of them homebrew. I have used several different wallets, including some that I have coded myself from lower level cryptographic APIs. This is the beauty of it: users are not limited to MetaMask, just like users are not limited to browsing the web in Chrome - despite it obviously having major market share. An…

Where do you live? Almost all of Africa, many parts of South-East Asia, India, many parts (if not all) of China, and nearly all of South America are heavily cash-based societies. Try to work your way up to Northern Burkina Faso, which has little to no electricity in most places, and your stance on cash being a poor substitute will quickly change.

The context of my original post is referring to transactions across the globe, for which cash is obviously a poor substitute.

Re: Molly White Tracks Crypto Scams. It’s Going Just Great

#218

Post by wustangdan » Tue, May 30, 2023, 11:03 PM UTC

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #195

wustangdan wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well I mean the recent bank failures showed the issue with treasuries, but sure it seems we agree more than disagree. You agree that holding USD is failure for long term value or even short term (3 year) value transport. My argument is that assets and crypto is needed to hedge the potential incoming USD destruction. And that because crypto has some nice properties that houses and the SP500 don't, it has a legitimate…

> I mean the recent bank failures showed the issue with treasuries No depositors lost money. And like, yeah, Treasuries go up and down in price; it's dumb our regulations pretended otherwise. Particularly given the problem was fixed by Basel III. > assets and crypto is needed to hedge the potential incoming USD destruction This is gold buggery. Which means gold does a fine enough job. > don't buy the "Crypto is a com…

Gold and crypto are already taxed the same and on the same level (capital gains). Go ahead and regulate fraud how is crypto packets flowing preventing you? The blockchain is more open and transparent than the banking system. Don't you wish you could see JP Morgans or the Pentagons books laid bare like the blockchain?

> This is gold buggery. Which means gold does a fine enough job.

It's really expensive to secure my own gold. I can't easily verify my own gold. I can't easily send my goal in under a minute to help my friends in Venezuela who's government has inflated his money supply by 5,000% and confiscate most of what sent physically or through the banking system. The USG also has a precedent for confiscating everyones gold. I can't take gold with me across a border in an undetectable manner. Sorry but gold is not doing a fine enough job for me and I'd like something a little more advanced and modern.

I understand for us privileged westerners (assumption about you on my part) that this all this seems a little silly, but for my family and friends in situations where their government is behaving really badly, this is serious. And "buy T bills or a house or the sp500" are not the solutions you think they are.

And I hope it doesn't come to the US but it seems a little silly if you are rich enough to not hedge against that possibility, especially given the US financial competency these last two decades.

Re: Molly White Tracks Crypto Scams. It’s Going Just Great

#219

Post by mattdesl » Tue, May 30, 2023, 11:08 PM UTC

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #206

mattdesl wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s all relative. The tech is still in its infancy, perhaps like AI was a few decades ago. The current landscape of PoS, applied ZKP, rollup sequencers, stablecoins, and smart contracts are all significant improvements on what existed 10 years ago, and much more practical.

> current landscape of PoS, applied ZKP, rollup sequencers, stablecoins, and smart contracts are all significant improvements on what existed 10 years ago, and much more practical. To what practical end? I think exploration should continue. But in the academic, not product, space. Crypto has the potential to be toxic. Licensing regimes for potentially-toxic products is highly precedented.

To what end, I’ll just repeat myself:

> Having open source protocols that compete with PayPal and VISA and aren’t funded and controlled by central states can be a positive thing.

I personally like that there is another choice than just yet-another-centralized-and-cumbersome system.

Re: Molly White Tracks Crypto Scams. It’s Going Just Great

#220

Post by JumpCrisscross » Tue, May 30, 2023, 11:18 PM UTC

wustangdan wrote: post #218

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I mean the recent bank failures showed the issue with treasuries No depositors lost money. And like, yeah, Treasuries go up and down in price; it's dumb our regulations pretended otherwise. Particularly given the problem was fixed by Basel III. > assets and crypto is needed to hedge the potential incoming USD destruction This is gold buggery. Which means gold does a fine enough job. > don't buy the "Crypto is a com…

Gold and crypto are already taxed the same and on the same level (capital gains). Go ahead and regulate fraud how is crypto packets flowing preventing you? The blockchain is more open and transparent than the banking system. Don't you wish you could see JP Morgans or the Pentagons books laid bare like the blockchain? > This is gold buggery. Which means gold does a fine enough job. It's really expensive to secure my o…

> Gold and crypto are already taxed the same and on the same level (capital gains)...It's really expensive to secure my own gold

Gold bugs pay for their own security. Crypto outsources investigation, enforcement and regulation onto the public.

> how is crypto packets flowing preventing you

My taxes pay for investigation and enforcement.

> Don't you wish you could see JP Morgans or the Pentagons books laid bare like the blockchain?

No? J.P. Morgan is audited. Almost nobody dives into their various filings with the SEC, FDIC, Fed, and every state banking and securities regulator. As for the Pentagon, absolutely not–that's a huge national security hole.

> for us privileged westerners (assumption about you on my part) that this all this seems a little silly, but for my family and friends in situations where their government is behaving really badly, this is serious

I don't think it's silly. I just don't think it should be subsidized by us.

> it doesn't come to the US but it seems a little silly if you are rich enough to not hedge against that possibility

It's a common pass-time for the rich. Crypto, like gold buggery, is aimed at soothing an emotional need to hedge. The fact that those with most to lose play by a different playbook should speak for itself.