341–350 of 401 posts
I'm very happy to see we are now in the "then they fight you" stage :). Let's see who wins.
Sometimes an idea opposed by many is really just a bad idea.
The "fight you" stage is when people perceive it as a threat. And it already needs to be big enough to be considered a threat. Can still be a bad idea of course. We'll see.
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> behind as a means for illegal activities which are less than 1% of the yearly transaction volume according to Chainalysis lol
On top of that you can trace all the transactions on the chain and see where everything is going publicly. Useful to catch criminals attempting to liquidate on to an exchange. Good luck cashing out and not getting caught.
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If you use almost any goods or services almost anywhere in the world, you at least indirectly benefit from or use the global banking system, as it is the de facto (and probably quite often de jure) system for payments. There are no alternatives that are as good as it, on pretty much any axis. This includes all crypto. I'm not trying to unfairly critique your personal choices, but that's just the reality. Just like ho…
that’s what crypto is trying to be - the alternative to the global banking system, because the banking system has some issues.
> Crypto is a needed option, it can be made to be more environmentally friendly. I personally often do not (and cannot) benefit from the global banking system despite all the waste it produce from electricity to wasted manpower to the carbon footprint of material for buildings and offices.
I'm choosing to ignore the parts about buildings because the appropriate comparison is with electronic payments. A transition from in-person banking to Bitcoin is less likely and more costly than a continued transition from in-person banking to purely online electronic banking (not that I think it'll be desirable to anywhere near 100% complete such a transition in my lifetime).
So doing an apples-to-apples comparison, even assuming crypto ever actually becomes meaningfully more environmentally friendly, how does crypto replacing the current global banking system lead to a less wasteful system, measured in environmental terms? I see no way it can.
I also think:
> There are no alternatives that are as good as [the current system], on pretty much any axis. This includes all crypto.
Crypto has far more issues beyond environmental ones, and the very real issues with the current system are not meaningfully helped by crypto. The issues are political problems without much in the way of a technological solution, except at the margins. If crypto wants to stay relevant there, at the margins, that's mostly fine by me.
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This is crypto’s second largest use case, behind as a means for illegal activities. Crypto is easier to send in extreme situations than fiat currencies.
> behind as a means for illegal activities which are less than 1% of the yearly transaction volume according to Chainalysis lol
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How does that make a difference? As I understood it, every individual would still have to do a regular on-chain transaction, it's only if you later realize you actually wanted to donate more than you did that this could be useful because then you avoid the full transaction fee. Or if you let it run over years without settling and do a yearly donation, though I'm not clear on the implications there. Or, if the on-chai…
I think you misunderstand the Network part of the Lightning Network. It is not necessary for users to have a direct payment channel to Wikimedia in order to donate to them. They just need to have an active channel to anybody in the network who is capable of routing a payment request to Wikimedia's node. The assumption is that Lightning users already have active open channels to other nodes in the network, and so maki…
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On top of that you can trace all the transactions on the chain and see where everything is going publicly. Useful to catch criminals attempting to liquidate on to an exchange. Good luck cashing out and not getting caught.
Monero fixed that a long time ago already.
[0] https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2022/03/31/eu-parliament-vot...
[1] https://www.investing.com/news/cryptocurrency-news/kraken-to...
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that’s what crypto is trying to be - the alternative to the global banking system, because the banking system has some issues.
My comment is a response to a specific point that was being made, mostly encapsulated by this quotation: > Crypto is a needed option, it can be made to be more environmentally friendly. I personally often do not (and cannot) benefit from the global banking system despite all the waste it produce from electricity to wasted manpower to the carbon footprint of material for buildings and offices. I'm choosing to ignore t…
Also because how bad banking is, clients find all excuses to not buy you sometimes. I lost one month of income because a European startup was claiming all kind of problems with wiring me my salary (3 different ones), with waiting weeks between every "try" and gaslighting me into asking my bank to do some paper work that will easify the process, something that simply not in my power to do.
With crypto you either have the money and you pay me or you don't.
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Monero fixed that a long time ago already.
That's right. Perhaps that's why proposed regulations are cracking down on banning and delisting Monero (and other privacy coins) on exchanges. [0] [1] [0] https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2022/03/31/eu-parliament-vot... [1] https://www.investing.com/news/cryptocurrency-news/kraken-to...
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Yup core values. More often than not sticking to them come with some kind of cost. Kudos Wikepedia. This world would be a better place if more did the same and honored their core values at whatever cost.
Core values is just a vague concept. A lot of things considered backwards or even downright evil today used to be core values not too long and vice versa, e.g. racial segregation, LGBT, women's right, etc.
But I do agree that one’s core values are necessarily ’good’ by other’s standards but they are still core values. For example I have stopped eating at my favorite fast food restaurant because they supported(ed) BLM on their front page. I am an ALM guy because I believe that giving one color preference over another is the by definition racism. But what sticking by my guns does is it causes me to at some level evaluate that every time I choose not to eat there.
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My comment is a response to a specific point that was being made, mostly encapsulated by this quotation: > Crypto is a needed option, it can be made to be more environmentally friendly. I personally often do not (and cannot) benefit from the global banking system despite all the waste it produce from electricity to wasted manpower to the carbon footprint of material for buildings and offices. I'm choosing to ignore t…
My main issue with banking is that I cannot use it to its full extent, I am not from a Western country. Also because how bad banking is, clients find all excuses to not buy you sometimes. I lost one month of income because a European startup was claiming all kind of problems with wiring me my salary (3 different ones), with waiting weeks between every "try" and gaslighting me into asking my bank to do some paper work…
If you've managed to successfully navigate all these difficulties, then congratulations and I'm not telling you you're doing anything wrong, but I don't see a budding alternative in the making, I see uneven economic development.