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The endless search for a crypto use case

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Re: The endless search for a crypto use case

#171

Post by toolz »

jayd16 wrote: post #163
toolz wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's take a modern example of the canadian truckers. How would you get money to them when Canada was able to get US companies to block their funding with fiat? Use a different company and hope another few million doesn't get locked up? That seems like the only alternative and I'm not sure many people would think that's a viable alternative.

Again, I'm not sure "temporarily skirt the law" is all that viable long term.

Personally I hope it is and I don't see how it couldn't be. Bitcoin is uncensorable as far as I can tell. Countries have not proven themselves capable of stopping internet traffic and thus countries have shown they do not have the power to censor bitcoin transactions.

I am sure countries will want to censor it, but I don't believe they will be able to, as such the only risk to bitcoins long term viability is the markets demand. There are numerous examples of illicit goods that governments have proven incapable of reducing the demand for, e.g. drugs. So I don't think bitcoin is going anywhere.

I think bitcoin will take a different censorable form and we'll start seeing companies on top of the blockchain that can do things like refund unauthorized transactions and things of that nature, but the base layer will remain uncensorable and thus bitcoin could become both convenient enough (although not better, in my opinion) for rich countries to use as currency while holding the characteristic of providing tremendous benefits to citizens in oppressed poor countries.

Re: The endless search for a crypto use case

#172

Post by staticassertion »

whywhywhywhy wrote: post #149
staticassertion wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed, there are use cases, even obvious use cases. Blockchain provides guarantees that other databases do not. They're just guarantees that assume that some portion of people connecting to it are bad actors. Most people don't really care about solving that problem because they just don't give those people access, but that implies a single authority for access ie: centralization. So blockchain only makes sense when:…

Try to fly with over $10,000 (Not even a lot of money these days) in cash and see what happens. Might change your opinion of it.

What opinion? You just demonstrated an example of subverting government authority, which is exactly what I said it can be useful for.

I didn't make any judgment about doing so.

Re: The endless search for a crypto use case

#173

Post by [deleted] »

boffinism wrote: post #144
trixie_ wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Say you want to move $ from service A to C, before Bitcoin it was not possible without a bank intermediary (B). There is processing time, high fees, business hours, etc.. So you’re handholding the process A to B then B to C. With crypto I can move money directly A to C at 4am on a weekend, any amount, without talking to anyone for a tiny fee. Or if I want to move it into my wallet and hold it personally I can do that…

In my experience (UK traditional banking system) I can move money directly A to C at 4am on a weekend, any amount, without talking to anyone for a NO fee. That's just how online banking works, and I'd have to increase the sums of money involved by an order of magnitude or two before having to walk into a bank. What sorts of values of A, C and $ do you have in mind where a bank isn't cheaper, faster and more convenien…

[deleted]

Re: The endless search for a crypto use case

#174

Post by n4bz0r »

aerovistae wrote: post #101
anonymoushn wrote: post #72

Currently we've hired more than 0 people through a global outsourcing company. The outsourcing company sends us invoices, we wire them dollars, they charge us 3% on top of extremely bad forex rates plus 10% for their services, then a local company who's hired "our staff" processes payroll, pays local taxes and insurance, etc. The whole process of getting the money to the recipient takes days to a month. Currently we…

The specifier "more than 0" strikes me as odd. Both sentences would have been the same without it. > we've hired people through a global outsourcing company > we have staff who have been displaced by a war

It's quite unlikely to see such a liberal use of numbers from an English native speaker, but this is a somewhat popular way of describing similar situations in Russian (and probably some other languages).

Using numbers in this fashion is a way of specifying the perfect condition while simultaneously letting the listener/reader know that the situation is either less or more than ideal.

Plus, it adds a subtle comical effect. Puts some supererogatory emphasis on things, so to speak :)

Combo x3!

Re: The endless search for a crypto use case

#175

Post by silentsea90 »

Aunche wrote: post #117
silentsea90 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The biggest use case for Bitcoin is of it being an escape from arbitrary printing of money by central banks. The richer your home country, the further you are from intuitively grasping how catastrophic printing is in the long run.

Bitcoin isn't immune to money printing at all. The value of Bitcoin comes from people using it as a speculatory vehicle rather than a medium of exchange of goods and services. If the price of a commodity like rice hyperinflates, this does nothing to the price of Bitcoin because nobody uses Bitcoin to buy rice. As a result, the price of Bitcoin would inflate at the same rate as the underlying fiat used to exchange Bit…

Price of Bitcoin inflating at the same rate as fiat printing = Bitcoin deflating while fiat inflates. That's good right?

Re: The endless search for a crypto use case

#176

Post by xadhominemx »

trixie_ wrote: post #97
xadhominemx wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the use case of that use case?

Say you want to move $ from service A to C, before Bitcoin it was not possible without a bank intermediary (B). There is processing time, high fees, business hours, etc.. So you’re handholding the process A to B then B to C. With crypto I can move money directly A to C at 4am on a weekend, any amount, without talking to anyone for a tiny fee. Or if I want to move it into my wallet and hold it personally I can do that…

My question is why would you want to do that?

Re: The endless search for a crypto use case

#177

Post by civilized »

Upshot

> end users always want a way to get money out of crypto and back into fiat currency. And this desire hands governments all the tools they need to starve the crypto ecosystem at will, by cutting off access to inflows and outflows if participants don’t follow the rules.

Re: The endless search for a crypto use case

#178

Post by whatisweb3 »

boffinism wrote: post #144
trixie_ wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Say you want to move $ from service A to C, before Bitcoin it was not possible without a bank intermediary (B). There is processing time, high fees, business hours, etc.. So you’re handholding the process A to B then B to C. With crypto I can move money directly A to C at 4am on a weekend, any amount, without talking to anyone for a tiny fee. Or if I want to move it into my wallet and hold it personally I can do that…

In my experience (UK traditional banking system) I can move money directly A to C at 4am on a weekend, any amount, without talking to anyone for a NO fee. That's just how online banking works, and I'd have to increase the sums of money involved by an order of magnitude or two before having to walk into a bank. What sorts of values of A, C and $ do you have in mind where a bank isn't cheaper, faster and more convenien…

This is the “works on my machine” of the banking world. Local transfers in the UK work well but if you try to do the same transfer to a non-UK bank account, you will no longer have those same features. This is because each country implements it’s own banking protocols. In crypto, there is a single protocol that all users agree on, and so you can trade ETH, USDC, and other tokens all in the same way regardless of your physical residence.

Re: The endless search for a crypto use case

#179

Post by civilized »

scythingshepard wrote: post #4

The only use, which is enough, is to subvert those who claim authority over others. A specific example is committing crimes: buying or selling drugs, money laundering, tax evasion, etc.. but maybe its building a nest egg to help escape an abusive relationship or God knows what. Hiding money from some sort of extortion. Most "crypto" isn't hidden, it isn't crypto. It's gimmicky marketing. Not currency either. Fully fu…

Crypto is not a subversion of central banks and governments. It's just an amusing gimmick that exists at their pleasure, like the state lottery.

> end users always want a way to get money out of crypto and back into fiat currency. And this desire hands governments all the tools they need to starve the crypto ecosystem at will, by cutting off access to inflows and outflows if participants don’t follow the rules. When a reasonably competent and powerful government cares enough about stopping something from happening, it is very difficult, if not impossible, to continue doing business as usual. And this reality continues to take the hand-wavily libertarian crowd of crypto enthusiasts by surprise.

> The persistent requirement for fiat on- and off-ramps is why virtually every anti-censorship technique that crypto comes up with instantly suffers from the same Achilles heel.

Re: The endless search for a crypto use case

#180

Post by anonymoushn »

JamesBarney wrote: post #111
anonymoushn wrote: post #72

Currently we've hired more than 0 people through a global outsourcing company. The outsourcing company sends us invoices, we wire them dollars, they charge us 3% on top of extremely bad forex rates plus 10% for their services, then a local company who's hired "our staff" processes payroll, pays local taxes and insurance, etc. The whole process of getting the money to the recipient takes days to a month. Currently we…

It seems like the majority of the cost savings is due to skipping outsourcing and a company that pays local taxes and insurance. The only times I've transferred dollars -> crypto -> transfer -> crypto -> foreign currency the costs were much higher than 3%, not to mention there was far more risk because you couldn't reverse the transactions if you fat fingers an amount or a recipient.

> It seems like the majority of the cost savings is due to skipping outsourcing and a company that pays local taxes and insurance.

None of the cost savings are related to local taxes and insurance since they still need to pay for these things. ~15% is what's charged collectively by the outsourcing company, their bank, and their local partner. I agree that they provide a valuable service, but it's not clear to me that the service is worth 15% of the otherwise-gross cost of employing someone. One thing they could do to convince me it is worth more would be to transmit the funds promptly to the recipient.

> The only times I've transferred dollars -> crypto -> transfer -> crypto -> foreign currency the costs were much higher than 3%, not to mention there was far more risk because you couldn't reverse the transactions if you fat fingers an amount or a recipient.

Some centralized crypto exchanges currently have pretty competitive forex rates. You'd basically have to go to IBKR to do better.

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