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Pro-cash movement warns that people could be losing more than they bargained for

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Re: Pro-cash movement warns that people could be losing more than they bargained for

#231

Post by arcticbull »

EscapeFromNY wrote: post #229
arcticbull wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So how many years do you think it'll take to onboard people? And how many dollars?

Back of the napkin math: - 8 billion people - 96% reduction in block space over the naive approach, per the paper. (EDIT: the signature aggregation being referred to is Schnorr signatures, and it's become reality since the paper was published) - 7 transactions per second, 86400 seconds per day, 365 days per year 8000000000*(1-0.96)/7/86400/365 = 1.45 years Current transaction fees are $3. Assuming that stays constant…

Are you assuming the chain does nothing else at the time? And that fees wouldn't explode the second people actually tried to use it, and block space would dry up? Seems like using only the free portion of block space would allow you to arrive at a more realistic conclusion. Blocks seem to be going out pretty full thanks to ordinals.

Re: Pro-cash movement warns that people could be losing more than they bargained for

#232

Post by jaxrtech »

hgsgm wrote: post #131
onionisafruit wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would go further and remove the "lawful" from that. If you pay me $50 it shouldn't matter to the payment processor whether I gave you a painting or a blow job in return.

How would you handle chargeback claims? Should all users of the system share in the fraud risk?

I never can tell if chargebacks are truly a feature or a bug.

Re: Pro-cash movement warns that people could be losing more than they bargained for

#233

Post by A4ET8a8uTh0 »

arcticbull wrote: post #218
A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uhm, I dislike this weird defensiveness of newspeak. Does it suspend some rights available under normal circumstances? If yes, then it effectively suspends the constitution? Why does it feel like Simpsons nailed it so hard when Lisa proposed temporary refund adjustments and people cheered thrice out of sheer misunderstanding of the language used. And all that before we get to the part whether giving government power…

The Emergencies Act and how it's applied are governed by the Charter. It's a function of government as defined under the Charter. It's not a suspension thereof. It's moving into a different mode of operation, sure, but the it's still all a defined function of that system. As [1] states: > Any temporary laws made under the act are subject to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the Bill of Rights, and must…

What you conveniently leave out is that government in its infinite wisdom can simply decide it does not apply under exceptions[1] in section 1 of the charter. Shocking. Government left itself an out. What is more annoying that people defend it as it is not what it actually is.

Now compare it to what the act was intended for ( some sort of senior politician kidnapping ) and what it was used for in peace time ( forcibly dismantling a protest ).

I guess what I am saying is that it can be governed by Charter all it wants, but at the end of the day it is, apparently, governed by what ruling party considers a crisis.

How it is written can be open to interpretation and it functions the way politics does ( expediency of the moment squared ). I am not really writing anything groundbreaking here.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Charter_of_Rights_and...

Re: Pro-cash movement warns that people could be losing more than they bargained for

#234

Post by asdff »

akiselev wrote: post #22
standardUser wrote: post #9

On a recent trip to Europe I didn't take out cash once over 3 weeks across 3 countries. I brought 50 euros with me and that was all I needed! Everything else was just a quick tap of the phone, including every metro system outside of Paris. My only hesitation to getting rid of cash entirely - how will I buy drugs? I don't gamble illegally or pay for sex, but I imagine those services would also struggle in an increasin…

> how will I buy drugs? A decade ago my friends were already paying for drugs with Venmo. The dealers aren’t very careful because they’re rarely caught on the financial side. If the recent revelations are anything to go by, they’re probably using Cash app now. Ironically it’s the legal dispensaries that have problems accepting digital payments - they usually require cash with an ATM on-site.

It depends on where you live. You can pay with a debit card in some place.

Re: Pro-cash movement warns that people could be losing more than they bargained for

#235

Post by anigbrowl »

lottin wrote: post #165
spaceman_2020 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The absence of cash should terrify anyone. So ridiculously easy to quash any dissidents if you can cut off their ability to buy anything with a single click of a button. I don't use much cash at all but if my government was planning on ending all cash, I'd go out and buy a bunch of precious metals. Can't trust my basic freedom with Visa and Paypal.

Sorry, this is a lot of nonsense. Any government that has the ability to prevent dissidents from paying for stuff also has the ability to employ much more brutal and effective methods of quashing dissidence.

They have to find you first, which is quite labor-intensive compared to just tracking and/or halting a person's financial transaction ability.

Re: Pro-cash movement warns that people could be losing more than they bargained for

#236

Post by 542458 »

arcticbull wrote: post #94
Seattle3503 wrote: post #13

My concerns about a cashless society are the power it hands to a few oligopolistic credit card processors. Look at what happened to Pornhub. Regardless of whether you think Pornhub was in the wrong, it is striking that a business was cut off from global financial system by a small number of credit card companies. This was done without due process and under no countries laws. That should scare us at least a little.

I'll take this opportunity to advocate for 'payment network neutrality' - given their importance in the economy, I agree payment processors should be required to process all lawful transactions, by law. We should require this of any national payments processor in the US at the federal level - or state, I'm looking at you, CA and NY.

I understand the pitch here, but different industries (and organizations within industries) pose dramatically different fraud risks. There are "anything flies" payment processors today, but the fee premium you pay is massive due to the risks involved. For example, CCBill specializes in high-risk transactions and will handle anything legal, but the fees can be as high as 14.5%!

Re: Pro-cash movement warns that people could be losing more than they bargained for

#238

Post by arcticbull »

A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote: post #233
arcticbull wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Emergencies Act and how it's applied are governed by the Charter. It's a function of government as defined under the Charter. It's not a suspension thereof. It's moving into a different mode of operation, sure, but the it's still all a defined function of that system. As [1] states: > Any temporary laws made under the act are subject to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the Bill of Rights, and must…

What you conveniently leave out is that government in its infinite wisdom can simply decide it does not apply under exceptions[1] in section 1 of the charter. Shocking. Government left itself an out. What is more annoying that people defend it as it is not what it actually is. Now compare it to what the act was intended for ( some sort of senior politician kidnapping ) and what it was used for in peace time ( forcibl…

> I guess what I am saying is that it can be governed by Charter all it wants, but at the end of the day it is, apparently, governed by what ruling party considers a crisis.

Minority government, meaning multiple federal parties, in addition to all the provincial premiers. So basically, every elected official - plus the unelected official, the Governor General. It's why we elect them - and have them, respectively.

Literally everyone had to sign off on this. If you think they're malicious then we have much bigger problems because frankly, they could find much easier ways to harm you than this.

And again, it can be ended by basically anyone and immediately rolled back.

I'm not yet convinced.

But we can agree to disagree.

Re: Pro-cash movement warns that people could be losing more than they bargained for

#239

Post by nateabele »

anigbrowl wrote: post #198
arcticbull wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I literally said 'lawful' transactions. Fraud is not lawful.

That's a cop-out, fraudsters don't announce themselves so naturally retail businesses look for proxy markers from which to draw inferences. There's an entire money-laundering industry that aims to handle this issue for organized criminals. If you don't engage with this fact than you're just handwaving away the problem, undermining any pro-cash advocacy you engage in.

The real cop-out is that HSBC and friends launder more money for terrorists and human traffickers on a bad day than your typical local racket does in a year, and they only ever receive a token fine and slap on the wrist.

Re: Pro-cash movement warns that people could be losing more than they bargained for

#240

Post by asdff »

manesioz wrote: post #108

They're right. Closest electronic alternative is Monero/XMR.

Depending on how big of a whale you are, something like runescape gp or some commodity in game is probably a more stable store of value than most crypto.
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