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Bitcoin physical bearer instrument using NFC JavaCards

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Re: Bitcoin physical bearer instrument using NFC JavaCards

#61

Post by V__ »

arcticbull wrote: post #60
latchkey wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The under-banked don't have bank accounts because they don't have money. I spent 4 years in Vietnam before getting locked out due to covid. The last two were on a motorcycle traveling all over the country. Women in the north have money. They store that wealth in gold. In order to keep it secure, they keep it in their teeth. [0] These same women also have smart phones and really good and inexpensive 4g (probably 5g…

You should just show them wise.com where they can open a US dollar account. Wise today provides that too. The idea that you need a distributed ledger for this is straight up false and this is just trying to dredge up problems to solve for a technology that has not found any meaningful use case despite 15 years of flailing.

> you need a distributed ledger for this

You don't need it. That doesn't mean it doesn't work as a solution. Not everyone can open a wise account. KYC makes it difficult for people without proper documents.

One can accept that most of crypto is bad, and still see that some people have some use for it (for now). Like, nuance is a thing.

Re: Bitcoin physical bearer instrument using NFC JavaCards

#62

Post by ursuscamp »

big_youth wrote: post #54
ursuscamp wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bitcoin, specifically, is improving society in many ways, especially in Nigeria, Argentina, the Congo, etc. Even in the West, where our money is more stable and the benefits of it are less obvious, Bitcoin mining offers great benefits to energy grids.

Bitcoin mining benefiting the energy grid is an absurd statement. I live in Texas and the bitcoin mines are messing up our grid by making energy more expensive during heatwaves and freezes and when shutdown we have to pay them! https://www.texastribune.org/2022/07/15/crypto-energy-texas-... https://www.govtech.com/computing/bitcoin-mining-threatens-t... https://www.utilitydive.com/news/warren-bitcoin-texas-power-...…

Bitcoin miners don't compete for the same energy as residential and most industrial uses. Mining isn't profitable unless energy is a fraction of the price that typical consumers pay. The effect is that Bitcoin miners act as energy buyers of last resort. In other words, they buy wasted energy.

Having a buyer of last resort is good for energy grids (or any product), not bad for them. It incentivizes grid build out. Instead of worrying about whether a particular energy development will have enough demand, they can work out a deal with Bitcoin miners to sell wasted energy to them.

Industrial users of power frequently work out power agreements that will pay them in the event that they are required to shut down. This is completely normal. The difference is that Bitcoin miners are EVEN MORE flexible in that they can shut down at a moment's notice, unlike manufacturing or smelting. Again, this is good for grids, not bad.

Re: Bitcoin physical bearer instrument using NFC JavaCards

#63

Post by arcticbull »

V__ wrote: post #61
arcticbull wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should just show them wise.com where they can open a US dollar account. Wise today provides that too. The idea that you need a distributed ledger for this is straight up false and this is just trying to dredge up problems to solve for a technology that has not found any meaningful use case despite 15 years of flailing.

> you need a distributed ledger for this You don't need it. That doesn't mean it doesn't work as a solution. Not everyone can open a wise account. KYC makes it difficult for people without proper documents. One can accept that most of crypto is bad, and still see that some people have some use for it (for now). Like, nuance is a thing.

And in exchange you get wild volatility swings and full financial freedom for criminals. Some things are just bad.

Re: Bitcoin physical bearer instrument using NFC JavaCards

#64

Post by ursuscamp »

tsukikage wrote: post #51
ursuscamp wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bitcoin, specifically, is improving society in many ways, especially in Nigeria, Argentina, the Congo, etc. Even in the West, where our money is more stable and the benefits of it are less obvious, Bitcoin mining offers great benefits to energy grids.

> Bitcoin mining offers great benefits to energy grids. In other news, breaking windows is great for the economy: it makes lots of work for glaziers!

How is Bitcoin mining in any way a broken window?

Re: Bitcoin physical bearer instrument using NFC JavaCards

#65

Post by latchkey »

arcticbull wrote: post #60
latchkey wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The under-banked don't have bank accounts because they don't have money. I spent 4 years in Vietnam before getting locked out due to covid. The last two were on a motorcycle traveling all over the country. Women in the north have money. They store that wealth in gold. In order to keep it secure, they keep it in their teeth. [0] These same women also have smart phones and really good and inexpensive 4g (probably 5g…

You should just show them wise.com where they can open a US dollar account. Wise today provides that too. The idea that you need a distributed ledger for this is straight up false and this is just trying to dredge up problems to solve for a technology that has not found any meaningful use case despite 15 years of flailing.

> You should just show them wise.com where they can open a US dollar account.

These are women in the north of Vietnam who know nothing about US dollar accounts and don't even speak english.

Re: Bitcoin physical bearer instrument using NFC JavaCards

#66

Post by latchkey »

arcticbull wrote: post #63
V__ wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you need a distributed ledger for this You don't need it. That doesn't mean it doesn't work as a solution. Not everyone can open a wise account. KYC makes it difficult for people without proper documents. One can accept that most of crypto is bad, and still see that some people have some use for it (for now). Like, nuance is a thing.

And in exchange you get wild volatility swings and full financial freedom for criminals. Some things are just bad.

This is very much a snarky troll comment.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Bitcoin physical bearer instrument using NFC JavaCards

#67

Post by latchkey »

arcticbull wrote: post #46
csomar wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a comment that says "I have no idea about the struggle of 4Bn+ people around the world when it comes to payments and banking, so I am just going to dismiss all these people as non-existent and argue that everything is fine here in the West".

Ah yes my favorite counter-argument: check your privilege. The GDP per capita of Burundi is $221. A couple years ago a single Bitcoin transaction cost $60. The thermodynamics of these kinds of systems make them dramatically more expensive than classical finance because you have to replicate the data so many times. The only reason a Bitcoin payment doesn't cost significantly more than that is nobody's using it, lol. I…

> A couple years ago a single Bitcoin transaction cost $60.

Ah yes let's counter an argument with something that is a couple years old.

This was brief during a time of high usage, which has also been fixed. Today, the average bitcoin transaction cost is a couple dollars.

https://ycharts.com/indicators/bitcoin_average_transaction_f...

Let's also not forget that there are a lot more chains now, where the fees are pennies.

Re: Bitcoin physical bearer instrument using NFC JavaCards

#68

Post by latchkey »

arcticbull wrote: post #57
overthrow wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right, this is a job for the government... but the government isn't solving the problem. "Let's just" have the government do their job. Call me when that happens. While we sit around waiting, the private sector stepped in with a (interim?) solution. What's wrong with that?

The (a) scams and (b) insane volatility. The folks you are alluding to who fall into this category are the least sophisticated and most desperate. This makes them easy marks. They shouldn't be buying into unregistered securities to resolve their banking problems. That's how we got the Great Depression and why we not have an SEC. Further, these folks are disproportionately affected by the insane volatility and high fe…

Everything of value has volatility, zoom out on that gold chart please.

Re: Bitcoin physical bearer instrument using NFC JavaCards

#69

Post by deweller »

onionisafruit wrote: post #31
brianf0 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is reductive. It may bear some resemblance to cash but it's more like a voucher, and the actual value is transferred on an immutable ledger. Wish Hacker News wasn't so curmudgeonly about crypto and actually tried to imagine the multitude of ways it would improve society if adopted.

A lot of us earned our right to be curmudgeons by getting excited about it ten years ago only to see it play out very differently from our expectations.

There was a lot of change-the-world ideology around bitcoin ten years ago. No it has not lived up to those perfect visions.

I don't think it is irrevocably broken. I for one think there is still a lot of potential in cryptocurrencies and public blockchains. I believe a credibly neutral store of value not in the control of any nation state is something that benefits the world.

Why can't we celebrate what is good and try to fix what is bad?

Re: Bitcoin physical bearer instrument using NFC JavaCards

#70

Post by ElevenLathe »

tphyahoo wrote: post #27
ElevenLathe wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll bite: What are some of the multitude of ways that cryptocurrency can improve society if adopted?

If bitcoin is adopted as reserve currency, it would innoculate against the existential risk of regional or even global hyperinflations. Forever.

Inflation is an existential risk? When have we ever seen global hyperinflation?
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