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Why is uncensorable money worth the risk of permanently losing your money because you forgot a password or lost a thumb drive?
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-03-31/ukraine-s...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Perhaps it's because the people on a tech forum see the problems of a tech hammer banging on everything it perceives as a nail better than others?
My friend, I worked in the tech side of a big bank that you might have an account with, so I have seen how the sausage is made. I would trust Google, Apple, and many other tech companies with my money. A better analogy - tech improves the hammer, it does not have to re-invent it. Example: open your phone and marvel at how easily you can send and receive funds from you banking app; 10+ years ago, you would have to go…
It's no coincidence that some of the strongest criticism against cryptocurrency happens here, in a community mostly of banked, relatively prosperous people in stable countries. May you never personally experience being unbanked or otherwise financially oppressed.
Why is uncensorable money worth the risk of permanently losing your money because you forgot a password or lost a thumb drive?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
My friend, I worked in the tech side of a big bank that you might have an account with, so I have seen how the sausage is made. I would trust Google, Apple, and many other tech companies with my money. A better analogy - tech improves the hammer, it does not have to re-invent it. Example: open your phone and marvel at how easily you can send and receive funds from you banking app; 10+ years ago, you would have to go…
My rule of thumb for tech companies is they're all a mess under the covers so every company looks bad from the inside compared to the outside. > I would trust Google, Apple, and many other tech companies with my money. When I have a problem and need to call my bank I can usually get an actual person or even go to a branch where I can annoy someone in person, where as Google acts like categorically opposed to support…
That doesn't happen as easily on the blockchain.
You are fully in control of your funds with cryptocurrency. There is no middleman that can say "no, sorry, you can't use your money today."
Why is uncensorable money worth the risk of permanently losing your money because you forgot a password or lost a thumb drive?
Future developments like covenants (restricting future spending of a coin) will create even more secure storage, systems that allow you to claw back stolen funds using backup keys for example.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Perhaps it's because the people on a tech forum see the problems of a tech hammer banging on everything it perceives as a nail better than others?
My friend, I worked in the tech side of a big bank that you might have an account with, so I have seen how the sausage is made. I would trust Google, Apple, and many other tech companies with my money. A better analogy - tech improves the hammer, it does not have to re-invent it. Example: open your phone and marvel at how easily you can send and receive funds from you banking app; 10+ years ago, you would have to go…
its like talking to a kid vs talking to a grown-up, to put it in terms you might better be able to grok
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As long as you know your private key and / or seed phrase, you will always have access to your wallet's funds. As soon as you get network access, you can transact. You literally have to cut off the internet to stop crypto - that is part of what makes it so compelling.
No, an authoritarian government can always make it illegal to own crypto and/or to exchange crypto to fiat.
A policy ban is also an implicit admission that the government's position on money and finance is weak - if the US bans bitcoin, that implies that the dollar can't compete against bitcoin on its own merit, without the enforcement of violence.
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You could make the same argument against cash. You could easily lose your cash or have it stolen. That doesn't mean we should force everyone on a centralized digital ledger. You would be given some assurances in case of stolen funds through reversals. But there's a difference between accidentally losing your wallet and having your funds stolen because someone in power doesn't like you. The answer is to allow for both…
Who keeps a large percentage of their wealth in cash?
It isn't difficult to set up multisignature wallets, where you can lose some subset of the keys and still retain access to the funds. (It's not easy either, but it's not difficult, and there are companies like Casa and Unchained making it easier.)
Just like someone might keep a couple hundred dollars in their wallet/on their person, a couple percent of their wealth in a home safe, and the majority of their wealth distributed across multiple locations with various failsafes to access it, someone might keep a couple hundred bucks worth of BTC in a wallet on their phone, another percent or two of their BTC in a single-sig hardware wallet in a safe at home, and the majority of their BTC in a 3-of-5 multisig setup with only two keys at home, one in a safety deposit box, one in a trusted family member's home, and one in the custody of their attorney.
Why is uncensorable money worth the risk of permanently losing your money because you forgot a password or lost a thumb drive?
Luckily, there are already mitigations for risk of loss, notably backups and multi-signature wallets. Both have tradeoffs and additional mitigations. Backups are additional single points of failure but can be protected by passphrases. Multi-signature is more complicated but has no single point of failure and redundancy. Future developments like covenants (restricting future spending of a coin) will create even more s…
Doesn't that remove the trust in the transaction? Isn't the one of the promised joys of these things that, short of a fork, the transaction is immutable and that people don't have to worry about fraud in the form of charge backs or their money disappearing once they have it?