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Fintech dystopia

fintechdystopia.com

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Re: Fintech dystopia

#181

Post by nlitened »

dzonga wrote: post #178
nlitened wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Carrying around or storing piles of foreign currency is much riskier than having a USDT wallet. You also cannot fly to another country with cash.

crypto off-ramps & on-ramps are expensive though. check binance & other markets - e.g convert USD 10 to USDC

Expensive relative to what? When people are rescuing their hard-earned savings of 200k USD out of a third-world country, they would be happy to pay even double-digit per cent commissions, and crypto is much, much cheaper, faster and safer than all other available options.

Of course, if you're a US citizen transferring 200k USD from Chase to Bank of America, crypto doesn't make any sense.

Re: Fintech dystopia

#182

Post by Kinrany »

malthaus wrote: post #154
dmantis wrote: post #148

This is a very American-centric post. E.g."Stablecoins won’t bank the unbanked, because people get stablecoins by purchasing them on a crypto exchange, and no crypto exchange will open an account for a customer unless they have a bank account." Well, I understand that US has dystopia level of financial surveillance, but in many places in the world you can change cash in person to crypto without many issues. And you d…

and in what fantasy world would a system primarily used by questionable countries/organisations/individuals ever become a global standard?

In any world where the standard is convergent, not explicitly agreed upon, and there's no natural boundary between shady users and non-shady users. An x% shadiness user joining the network grants justification to the next x-0.001% shadiness user.

Re: Fintech dystopia

#183

Post by dpc050505 »

smsm42 wrote: post #117
troupo wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Because no one has ever written any readily available books and white papers on old money.

Tons of books, of course. But if a person reads a good book on, say, Bitcoin chain foundations, I am pretty sure they'd understand how it works. If you read 20 financial books, I am not sure you'd understand how something like US money system really works.

I'm 2/3 of the way through a degree in business admin with a minor in economics at a provincial university in Canada and I'd say I have a decent layman's understanding of the international monetary system.

The place I'd look if I wanted a deeper understanding of how the fed operates would be reading the laws that govern banking.

Re: Fintech dystopia

#184

Post by dpc050505 »

knowaveragejoe wrote: post #56
willprice89 wrote: post #3

> people are either still too afraid of looking like they don’t understand, still too deferential to Silicon Valley’s supposed technological expertise, or still too busy doing other things, to voice any skepticism about blockchain-based solutions I'm not afraid of looking like I don't understand - I simply don't understand. I've tried reading a few "yellow papers" for crypto projects and they are so abstract and full…

To steelman the crypto side: I think the stuff that is most interesting is found _around_ crypto and not necessarily within most cryptocurrency projects. For example, there have been a lot of novel or interesting projects centered around cryptography, consensus, decentralization, anonyimity. On a sociological level, there are a lot of interesting social/economic experiments unfolding in the DeFi world as we speak. Bu…

I had a great time using drugs friends bought on the silk road back in the day and I'd say that particular economic activity being facilitated by crypto while completely hedonistic was a net positive for humanity.

Re: Fintech dystopia

#185

Post by strken »

dmantis wrote: post #148

This is a very American-centric post. E.g."Stablecoins won’t bank the unbanked, because people get stablecoins by purchasing them on a crypto exchange, and no crypto exchange will open an account for a customer unless they have a bank account." Well, I understand that US has dystopia level of financial surveillance, but in many places in the world you can change cash in person to crypto without many issues. And you d…

At the end of the day, most crypto has a built in way to turn fossil fuels into significantly less money than you paid for them, so it doesn't even apply to the US unless they've started requiring KYC for ASICs and GPUs.

I am not convinced this carbon-intensive form of money laundering is a good thing, but it certainly exists.

Re: Fintech dystopia

#186

Post by jcfrei »

strken wrote: post #185
dmantis wrote: post #148

This is a very American-centric post. E.g."Stablecoins won’t bank the unbanked, because people get stablecoins by purchasing them on a crypto exchange, and no crypto exchange will open an account for a customer unless they have a bank account." Well, I understand that US has dystopia level of financial surveillance, but in many places in the world you can change cash in person to crypto without many issues. And you d…

At the end of the day, most crypto has a built in way to turn fossil fuels into significantly less money than you paid for them, so it doesn't even apply to the US unless they've started requiring KYC for ASICs and GPUs. I am not convinced this carbon-intensive form of money laundering is a good thing, but it certainly exists.

Outdated view since 99.9% of transactions happen on proof of stake systems which have a very low carbon footprint - not much more than Visa or Mastercard.

Re: Fintech dystopia

#187

Post by gchamonlive »

strken wrote: post #185
dmantis wrote: post #148

This is a very American-centric post. E.g."Stablecoins won’t bank the unbanked, because people get stablecoins by purchasing them on a crypto exchange, and no crypto exchange will open an account for a customer unless they have a bank account." Well, I understand that US has dystopia level of financial surveillance, but in many places in the world you can change cash in person to crypto without many issues. And you d…

At the end of the day, most crypto has a built in way to turn fossil fuels into significantly less money than you paid for them, so it doesn't even apply to the US unless they've started requiring KYC for ASICs and GPUs. I am not convinced this carbon-intensive form of money laundering is a good thing, but it certainly exists.

Would it be ok if it all ran on wind or solar?

EDIT: went looking for data and it's estimated that ~63% [1] of power used in bitcoin proof-of-work operations. I honestly thought this figure would be higher, but with the insane campaign the American government is doing to invest and expand on drill operations this could go up in the short term. Long term though it's unlikely that this will keep up and we should see renewable sources gaining space more and more, just because it's the smart thing to do.

[1] https://batcoinz.com/bitcoin-by-energy-source/

Re: Fintech dystopia

#188

Post by yapyap »

jcfrei wrote: post #186
strken wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the end of the day, most crypto has a built in way to turn fossil fuels into significantly less money than you paid for them, so it doesn't even apply to the US unless they've started requiring KYC for ASICs and GPUs. I am not convinced this carbon-intensive form of money laundering is a good thing, but it certainly exists.

Outdated view since 99.9% of transactions happen on proof of stake systems which have a very low carbon footprint - not much more than Visa or Mastercard.

well no since btc is pow

Re: Fintech dystopia

#189

Post by omnee »

baq wrote: post #141
ptero wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO US is heavily exporting its inflation by leveraging its world reserve currency status as other countries have to buy it's treasuries (petrodollar system legacy). No other country would be able to run 30+% budget deficits and sell long duration government bonds under 5%. This will break, sooner or later. When external buyers stop buying treasuries US will have to massively inflate its money supply, taking bondhold…

This is already happening if you know where to look and it isn’t esoteric data. The share of retail in treasury buyers has been increasing for years. If the administration doesn’t reduce spending (it won’t since it can’t) yields will blow out, we had a taste of this a couple times in the past years. Watch 5.5% on the 10. Expect YCC. Possibly buy gold if you think of buying treasuries…

Gold was also inversely correlated to long term US interest rates, which no longer holds true. So, nations and large institutions already hold the opinion that inflation will be higher (>2%) for longer in the future. Maybe the target should be moved to ~3%, which is defacto the case.

Re: Fintech dystopia

#190

Post by mhluongo »

yapyap wrote: post #188
jcfrei wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Outdated view since 99.9% of transactions happen on proof of stake systems which have a very low carbon footprint - not much more than Visa or Mastercard.

well no since btc is pow

Most stablecoin volume isn't cleared in the Bitcoin network.
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